Prevalence of Respiratory Disease in a Flax Mill in the United States

Ferris, Benjamin G.; Anderson, Donald O.; Burgess, William A.

doi:10.1136/oem.19.3.180

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 13 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This is supported by previous reports; e.g., Bouhuys et al (1961) reported that after many years of exposure to vegetable dust, including flax dust, the clinical findings may be indistinguishable from those in chronic pulmonary insufficiency from other factors. However, the reported increase in the prevalence of these diseases according to age and duration of exposure to the dust may be inconsistent with the previous findings of Ferris, Anderson, and Burgess (1962) among some of the flax workers in the USA.…”

Section: Ventilatory Function Changescontrasting

confidence: 87%

Dust exposure in manual flax processing in Egypt.

Noweir¹,

El-Sadik²,

El-Dakhakhny³

et al. 1975

Occupational and Environmental Medicine

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

. (1975). British Journal ofIndustrial Medicine, 32,[147][148][149][150][151][152][153][154]. Dust exposure in manual flax processing in Egypt.Manual flax processing originated in Egypt in 2 000 BC. In the present study a representative sample of the workers involved in this trade, where flax is processed in small workshops or homes, was examined, and their dust exposure was evaluated. The study showed that workers handling and processing flax are exposed to high concentrations of dust; the levels of dust at hackling and combing are considerably higher than at batting and spinning. Byssinosis prevailed in 22-9 % of the examined workers, and 1 8-4 % of them had their forced expiratory volume in one second reduced by more than 10 % at the end of the first morning work period (4 hours) of the week. Both the rates and the grades of these syndromes increased with duration of exposure. Smoking appeared to be one of the important contributory factors in the production of byssinosis. The relationship between duct concentration and prevalence of byssinosis seems to be curvilinear.Manual processing of flax is a very old industry which existed in Ancient Egypt. Picture writing describing flax cultivation and processing is present in most graves of Bershia (2 000 BC) and Luxor (1 600 BC) (Ibrahim, 1959;Erman and Ranke, 1945).Processing has not changed much since that date. After drying and deseeding in the field, flax is biologically 'retted', a process in which the fibres are loosened from the woody parts of the plant by a putrefactive process. This is conducted outdoors in concrete containers in which flax bundles are put in layers, covered with water, and left until 'ripened'; this process requires one or two weeks, depending on the ambient temperature. The dry retted flax is beaten with a heavy piece of timber to break out the wooden parts, hackled to clean out these parts, and then combed to remove short staples. Spinning is conducted using a primitive spin that is usually 'Supported by USPHS

show abstract

Section: Ventilatory Function Changescontrasting

confidence: 87%

Dust exposure in manual flax processing in Egypt.

Noweir¹,

El-Sadik²,

El-Dakhakhny³

et al. 1975

Occupational and Environmental Medicine

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The prevalence is comparable to that reported by Bouhuys, van Duyn, and van Lennep (1961) and Velvart (1968) but considerably higher than that found by Mair et al (1960). In contrast to these findings, Ferris et al (1962) did not find a single case of byssinosis among their flax workers. As they did not indicate whether the flax to which the subjects were exposed was biologically or chemically retted, it is difficult to interpret their findings.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 91%

“…Recently, Velvart (1968Velvart ( , 1970 has reported flax byssinosis in textile workers in Czechoslovakia. Ferris, Anderson, and Burgess (1962), however, found no byssinosis among 161 flax-mill workers in the USA.…”

mentioning

confidence: 88%

Respiratory changes in two groups of flax workers with different exposure pattern

Zuśkin

Válić

1973

Thorax

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Zuskin, E., and Valic, F. (1973). Thorax, 28,[579][580][581][582][583] Respiratory changes in two groups of flax workers with different exposure pattern. A high mean total concentration of flax particles (16-9 mg/m3), of which about 20% were of respirable size, caused a high prevalence of byssinosis (69-9 %) in 55 non-smoking female workers exposed to biologically retted flax over an average period of 11 years. iA significant mean FEVy.o decrease over the first work shift after the weekend break was recorded in both byssinotics and non-byssinotics but was more pronounced in the former. The mean acute FEVL.0 reductions over a work shift were smaller on the third than on the first day in the week.Significant decreases in FEV1.o and in maximum expiratory flow rate at 50 % of vital capacity over the Monday work shift were recorded in a group of 17 seasonal male workers who had been exposed to flax for only two to three months each year for no more than three years.

show abstract

“…We found, as in the study of the cotton industry reported by Roach and Schilling (1960) and in the study in a Massachusetts flax mill by Ferris, Anderson, and Burgess (1962), that there was a wide range of dust concentrations in each category of workroom, and that, in general, the dust concentrations were higher in the earlier processes (Fig. la, b).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 79%

A Survey of Dust Concentrations in Flax Mills in Northern Ireland

McAulay

Carey

Merrett

et al. 1965

Occupational and Environmental Medicine

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The concentrations in the air of total and of respirable (less than 7 microns equivalent diameter) dust were measured in 142 workrooms of 17 Northern Ireland flax spinning mills using a hexhlet air sampler.Neither the distribution of total nor of respirable dust concentrations (mg./100 m.3 air) measured in each of four large workrooms conformed to the normal (or Gaussian) distribution, but it is shown that the logarithms (to the base 10) of these concentrations are normally distributed. In order to make valid statistical comparisons between the dustiness of the different types of room, mean log. concentrations are therefore used.The mean log. concentrations of total and of respirable dust, and the 95 % confidence limits derived from these, were calculated for each room surveyed. For total and respirable dust the ranges of mean log. concentrations followed in brackets by the respective antilogs. (mg./100 m.3 air) were as follows: Total DustRespirable Dust 33 Pre-preparing rooms

show abstract

Prevalence of Respiratory Disease in a Flax Mill in the United States

Cited by 5 publications

References 13 publications

Dust exposure in manual flax processing in Egypt.

Dust exposure in manual flax processing in Egypt.

Respiratory changes in two groups of flax workers with different exposure pattern

A Survey of Dust Concentrations in Flax Mills in Northern Ireland

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About