Byssinosis in Flax Workers

Abstract

Raw flax goes through a long and dusty preparation to make the yarn from which linen is woven. The flax workers of Northern Ireland have been known for many years to be specially liable to respiratory disease,`' but the condition received little attention during the first half of this century until J. A. Smiley4 and J. S. Logan' renewed interest in it. The flax workers' respiratory disorder is similar to that seen in the cotton industry investigated by R. S. F. Schilling and his colleagues.6 A prescribed industrial disease in the cotton industry, regulations have now been introduced to make it one in the flax industry. Byssinosis is of world-wide occurrence,7 and now a detailed epidemiological survey in flax workers has been completed by the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Belfast.8The most typical feature of byssinosis is the " Monday syndrome." Diagnosis in this survey was made from a questionary to patients on the presence of breathlessness, tightness of the chest, or wheezing coming on a few hours after returning to work on the first day of the week, and, in the early stages, confined to that day. In addition, details of all other respiratory symptoms were obtained,9 and the one-second forced expiratory volume and forced vital capacity were measured as tests of ventilatory capacity. It was not found possible to diagnose byssinosis by clinical examination, for the physical signs and the radiological appearances are those of chronic bronchitis and emphysema.The Belfast authors found a significant association between the prevalence of byssinosis and the job performed in the flax mill. There were 111 cases of byssinosis among the 205 workers who were engaged on the early preparation and carding of the fibres, and so most heavily exposed to dust. There was no clear-cut trend of prevalence with age over the age of 35, but the prevalence under 35 was much lower, though the condition could develop within two or three years of starting work. The youngest worker with the most severe grade of byssinosis was 22 years old.Workers in the dusty preparing processes had a higher prevalence of bronchitis and exertional dyspnoea than workers in the less dusty departments. In a group of men who had left the industry those who had had byssinosis were more breathless on exertion at the time of interview, though the majority who had experienced symptoms improved after exposure to the dust had ceased. Workers with byssinosis and those in the dusty processes without byssinosis, as defined in the survey, were more likely to have impaired ventilatory function than those not so exposed. The results of the respiratory function tests indicated that exposure to flax dust can cause prolonged or permanent impairment of ventilatory capacity.Measurements of the concentration of airborne dust showed that the prevalence of byssinosis was directly related to the concentration. Since improved ventilation in two of the mills was followed by a reduction in dust levels, the authors, citing the experience of C. B. Mc...

Byssinosis and Other Respiratory Symptoms in Flax Workers in Northern Ireland

“…Byssinosis may therefore simply represent, in the early stages, a relatively acute and reversible effect of certain vegetable textile dusts on the respiratory system of exposed workers. It is of interest that small falls in respiratory function have been demonstrated within a day in nonbyssinotic workers exposed to cotton dust (McKerrow, McDermott, Gilson, and Schilling, 1958;Batawi, Schilling, Valic-, and Walford, 1964) and to flax dust (Bouhuys et al, 1961) though none of these changes are, in the context of the work published, statistically significant. These effects of textile dusts and the resultant symptoms may be caused by smooth muscle constricting substances such as those demonstrated by Davenport and Paton (1962) and by Nicholls (1962), and it seems not unreasonable to suppose that while such substances may have an effect in most or in all exposed persons, this may be greater, or more noticeable, in workers whose respiratory tract is irritated or whose lung function is impaired by conditions such as chronic bronchitis.…”

“…Respiratory symptoms have long been known to occur in workers handling flax (Ramazzini, 1705;Thackrah, 1832;Malcolm, 1856;Purdon, 1873Purdon, , 1875Purdon, , and 1877, and recent reports have confirmed that byssinosis occurs among them (Smiley, 1951 and1961;Logan, 1959;Mair, Smith, Wilson, and Lockhart, 1960;Bouhuys, Van Duyn, and Van Lennep, 1961).…”

Dust exposure in manual flax processing in Egypt.

“…Exposure to dust in the handling and processing of flax has been known to cause byssinosis in some exposed workers similar to cotton workers' byssinosis (Mair et al, 1960;Smiley, 1961;Bouhuys, van Duyn, and van Lennep, 1961;Smith et al, 1962;Bouhuys, Hartogensis, and Korfage, 1963;, 1966 despite the fact that the fibres of flax and cotton, from which the dust originates, are botanically quite different and stem from different parts of the plant. It was suggested that the responsible agent(s) in the flax dust originated as a metabolic product of bacteria and fungi during flax retting (Bouhuys et al, 1961).…”

“…It was suggested that the responsible agent(s) in the flax dust originated as a metabolic product of bacteria and fungi during flax retting (Bouhuys et al, 1961).…”

Chemical Composition of Cotton Dust and its Relation to Byssinosis

“…Bouhuys et al [8,9,14] have shown that byssinosis occurs in workers in plants where hemp and 8ax are hiologicallv retted, but not in plants where these two fibers are chemically retted using alkali. They suggest that some substance developed during biological retting, perhaps a product of bacterial or fungal metabolism, might be responsible for byssinosis.…”