Air-Borne Dust Conditions in British Wartime Flax Scutching Factories by Kenneth L

Br J Ind Med: first published as 10.1136/oem.8.3.161 on 1 July 1951. Downloaded from Brit. J. industr. Med., 1951, 8, 161. AIR-BORNE DUST CONDITIONS IN BRITISH WARTIME FLAX SCUTCHING FACTORIES BY KENNETH L. GOODALL and P. J. HARDWICK From the Factory Department, Ministry of Labour and National Service, London, and the Department of the Government Chemist, Governmenit Laboratory, London (RECEIVED FOR PUBLICATION SEPTEMBER 7, 1950)- In Great Britain (excluding Northern Ireland) the flax there flies " a foul mischievous powder, that, acreage under flax had declined to 3 acres in 1931, entering the lungs by the mouth and throat, causes but it had risen to 4,500 acres by 1939. During continual coughs, and gradually makes way for the war when supplies were cut off from Europe the asthma ". acreage of home-grown flax rapidly expanded, and The dust problems associated with the conversion by 1944 was 74,000 acres. This was required to of flax into linen probably only became acute meet the urgent need for such materials as parachute during the industrial revolution, and a number of harness, ships' canvas, and hose pipes. As this was authors write about the primitive conditions in the virtually a new industry, factories had to be created to industry during that period. Thackrah (1832) deal with the home-grown crop. There were many gives a particularly full account of such conditions initial troubles as there were few people in Britain with in flax factories in the Leeds area, in which many much experience of flax processing, and the crops, young women and children of 7 to 15 years of age being new to farmers, were at first of very variable were employed for a 132-hour day in a very dusty quality. The Select Committee on National Ex- and humid environment. Their inevitable ill health penditure (1943) took evidence on the design of the took the form of indigestion and gastritis, morning http://oem.bmj.com/ factories and plant and on the efficiency of the dust vomiting, chronic bronchitis and harsh coughing, extraction arrangements, and received many com- emphysema, premature ageing and death, and a plaints which appeared to be justified. An ad hoc hastening of any consumptive tendencies. Very Committee on Dust Conditions in Flax Factories few employees survived 30 years' work in the under the chairmanship of Major G. 0. Searle, hackling, and similarly dusty, preparatory O.B.E., Superintendent of H.M. Norfolk Flax Estab- processes. lishment, was set up in 1943 to consider the existing Greenhow (1860) records how he found 23 out of system of dust extraction in the 17 flax factories 27 hacklers at a Pateley Bridge flax mill habitually on September 24, 2021 by guest. Protected copyright. and to indicate the modifications and improvements asthmatical, the older men (rarely over 60) being necessary in order that the standards of the short-breathed and round-shouldered, with emac- Factories Acts might be met. iated frames, prominent eyes, and a laborious For this Committee we undertook the series of wheezing respiration. He comments on the irri- investigations of air-borne dust conditions in flax tation produced in the nasal and bronchial passages scutching factories which, we believe, are the first of workers by the flax dust which causes sneezing to be recorded. and a sense of oppression in the chest, especially on first entering the mills, and subsequently at the The Flax Dust Health Hazard beginning of the week. In time the operatives Flax was cultivated some 6,000 years ago in become more or less inured to these effects, but as ancient Egypt, where cloth made from it was used life advances their resistance diminishes and they for wrapping mummies, and it is mentioned in the suffer from dyspnoea, chronic bronchitis, and description in Exodus of the plagues of Egypt. The sometimes from emphysema. Similar views were first mention of a health hazard appears to be by held by Purdon (1873), who had extensive medical Ramazzini (1705) who, from personal observation experience of conditions in flax spinning mills in the in the textile trades, records that out of hemp and Belfast area. D 161 Br J Ind Med: first published as 10.1136/oem.8.3.161 on 1 July 1951. Downloaded from 162 BRITISH JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL MEDICINE Arlidge (1892) considered that flax dust was more Collis (1915), from personal enquiry, was con- pernicious to the respiratory organs than any other vinced that asthma was still prevalent amongst textile dusts except jute and hemp, and that the operatives in the early stages of flax processing early or preparatory processes in the scutch-mills and though declining in severity with improvements in spinning mills were easily the worst for producing methods of dust removal. dust. Attempts to suppress the dust, which is Bargeron (1930), of the French Factory Inspec- described as " a very fine, soft and palpable powder, torate, refers to the abundant and harmful dust far more granular than fibrous in constitution and created. by the operations of breaking and scutching containing 13% of silica ", were by humidification flax, to the enormous numbers of spores generated and better ventilation of the shops, machine in the material at this stage of its processing, and enclosure and the use of some localized exhaust. to the need for capturing the dust locally at the The inhalation of flax dust in the first few days of point of origin, preferably by downward exhaust employment in hot, humid and dusty flax spinning ventilation. Carding and hackling are again men- rooms caused severe " mill fever ", ushered in by tioned as exceptionally dusty and unhealthy chills, nausea and vomiting, quickly followed by processes, and Verhaegue of Lille is quoted as headache, thirst and heat of the skin. After two to having examined 41 hand hacklers of whom 28 eight days the fever disappeared leaving the workers were victims of chronic affections of the respiratory weak and languid. Prolonged inhalation of flax tract, especially coughing. Mill fever lasting three dust led to bouts of coughing and to dyspnoea or four days is stated to be common amongst linen which, in advanced cases, were distressing and workers on first employment, and Bargeron is paroxysmal in character, sometimes ending with inclined to attribute the fever to a mould. The vomiting or expectoration of blood. He concludes: inhalation of flax dust, in his experience, also led " Chronicity is the characteristic of the chest to asthmatic attacks, accompanied by spasms of the disease, which sooner or later declares itself in the bronchial muscles and swelling of the mucous haggard wasted features, in general emaciation, in the rounded shoulders, and in the tottering gait of membrane. its victims." Thiry (1941) recognized the important part played by the presence in the air of flax spinning Osborn (1894) reports the experiences of 14 mills of large numbers of spores, moulds, and medical observers, five -of whom exonerated flax staphylococci and considered that these agencies, dust of the then current charge that it predisposed much more than the dust itself, were the cause of ill to phthisis. He agrees with them and with Green- workers with at how that bronchial catarrh, accompanied by health in flax workers. Among least 10 years' exposure, Thiry noted a high incidence http://oem.bmj.com/ asthma, is frequently caused by breathing the dusty of chest disease, but no case of pure silicosis, despite atmosphere of flax mills, and that the flax hacklers the reputed presence of silica in flax dust. He die young and suffer from chronic disease of the examined 123 such flax workers in modern, spacious lungs. and well ventilated Belgian factories and found Glibert (1902), a Belgian Medical Inspector of that 41% had evidence of chest disease, as against Factories examined 12,275 workers in the Belgian- 88% in a similar survey of Belgian cotton workers, flax spinning industry but only in processes sub- a difference in favour of flax which is recognized by to sequent scutching,* mainly hackling, carding, the Ghent workers who say le lin digere mieux. on September 24, 2021 by guest. Protected copyright. spreading and drawing on fly or roving frames, spinning, winding, drying and packing, the first two The Modern Flax Scutching Process being the dustiest and worst operations from the There are fascinating descriptions of the structure, health point of view. Glibert considered that the cultivation, harvesting, grading, and factory proces- abundance of air-borne mineral dust which he sing of flax and of the engineering equipment of observed in the spinning mill atmosphere was because flax scutching mills in papers by Turner (1949), the stem of the flax plant was rich in silica, and Barltrop (1942), Oldham (1948), and Grainger that the injuriousness of flax dust was due to this. (1949); and the Ministry of Supply has published He added that flax dust, when inhaled, caused a glossary of technical terms (1944). irritation of the upper respiratory passages leading to inflammatory lesions, bronchitis, asthma and A brief description of the flax scutching processes pneumonia, and that it acted through its physical is given in the Report of the Select Committee and chemical properties and its ability to carry (1943), as follows: pathogenic micro-organisms. " First, the crop has to be pulled, not cut, and then de-seeded. Until recent years the next step was * Technical terms involved in processing flax are briefly explained invariably 'retting ', which consists of steeping the in the next section of the paper. straw in water in order to rot or ret the woody matter Br J Ind Med: first published as 10.1136/oem.8.3.161 on 1 July 1951.

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