"A mere matter of rock": organized labour, scientific evidence and British government schemes for compensation of silicosis and pneumoconiosis among coalminers, 1926--1940

'X-rays don't tell lies': the Medical Research Council and the measurement of respiratory disability, 1936-1945

During the first half of the twentieth century, the mining industry in Britain was subject to recurrent disputes about the risk to miners' lungs from coal dust, moderated by governmental, industrial, medical and mining bodies. In this environment, precise measurements offered a way to present uncontested objective knowledge. By accessing primary source material from the National Archives, the South Wales Miners Library and the University of Bristol's Special Collections, I demonstrate the importance that the British Medical Research Council (MRC) attached to standardized instrumental measures as proof of objectivity, and explore the conflict between objective and subjective measures of health. Examination of the MRC's use of spirometry in their investigation of pneumoconiosis (miner's lung) from 1936 to 1945 will shed light on this conflict and illuminate the politics inherent in attempts to quantify disability and categorize standards of health.

Conceptualizing work-related mental distress in the British coalfields (c.1900-1950)

The history of occupational health is now an established and growing field of study, yet to date comparatively little research has been undertaken on the history of work-related mental health issues, which currently account for 40% of all work-related illnesses in the UK. Work-related stress is usually seen as a post-war and post-industrial phenomenon, largely confined to white collar and service sectors, which developed as a consequence of changing working cultures. However, through a close reading of diverse source sets generated by, or pertaining to, the coal industry, this article unearths another history of work-related mental health issues; a history focussing on a heavy industry in the early years of the twentieth century. Through this analysis, we argue that the heavy industries more typically associated with physical illnesses and disabilities also generated mental distress amongst their workers, which reflected the distinctive pressures of these working environments. The article explores how understandings of the mental distress experienced by miners were shaped by medical, political, economic, occupational and industrial factors, and generated debates between different organizations as to the cause of these disorders and appropriate responses. Further analysis of work-related mental disorders in different occupational sectors may allow researchers to tease out the nuanced role played by workplace environments and working practices on mental health, and to examine the relationship between physical and mental health at work.

Miners, silica and disability: The bi-national interplay between South Africa and the United Kingdom, c1900-1930s

This paper investigates silicosis as a disabling disease in underground mining in the United Kingdom (UK) before Second World War, exploring the important connections between South Africa and the UK and examining some of the issues raised at the 1930 International Labour Office Conference on silicosis in Johannesburg in a British context. The evidence suggests there were significant paradoxes and much contestation in medical knowledge creation, advocacy, and policy-making relating to this occupational disease. It is argued here that whilst there was an international exchange of scientific knowledge on silicosis in the early decades of the twentieth century, it was insufficient to challenge the traditional defense adopted by the British government of proven beyond all scientific doubt before effective intervention in coal mining. This circumspect approach reflected dominant business interests and despite relatively robust trade union campaigning and eventual reform, the outcome was an accumulative legacy of respiratory disease and disability that blighted coalfield communities.

Beyond a shadow of a doubt? Experts, lay knowledge, and the role of radiography in the diagnosis of silicosis in Britain, c. 1919-1945

The history of silicosis provides an important chapter in the history of occupational and environmental health. Recent historical scholarship has drawn attention to the importance of patient attitudes, popular protests, and compensation claims in the formation of a "lay epidemiology" of such a disease, frequently challenging the scientific orthodoxies devised by large corporations and medical specialists. Surprisingly little research has been undertaken on the United Kingdom, which provided much of the early expertise and medical research in respiratory diseases among industrial workers. This article examines the introduction of a particular technique, x-radiography, and its use by radiologists and others in debates on the causes and consequences of silica inhalation by the laboring population in Britain during the early decades of the twentieth century. In contrast to some recent interpretations, and also to the narrative of progress that practitioner historians have developed since the 1940s, this article suggests that the use of this technology was contested for much of this period and the interpretation of X-rays remained disputed and uncertain into the 1950s. The article also questions recent accounts of lay epidemiology as an adequate model for understanding the progress of such innovations in medical history.