re the carbon inhaled in quantity sufficient to
explain the black colour of the lungs, it ought also, from its
mechanical irritation, to produce inflammation in the delicate mucous
membrane of the organ, but there are no symptoms of this during life,
nor any traces of it after death." An answer to these remarks will be
most satisfactorily given by a reference to the published cases, where
the disease is principally found amongst colliers and moulders, and
where the pulmonary organs, particularly in the former, are found to
undergo most fearful disorganization from the presence of carbon. It is
very remarkable, that the author of these exceedingly interesting
observations should never have found excavations of the parenchyma, when
it is so general as the result of the same disease in this country,
particularly in the locality to which I refer. Not knowing the
character of the mine, it is impossible to judge; but I am disposed to
conclude that there cannot be the same quantity of carbon floating in
the atmosphere breathed by the German miner,--the disease resembles very
much that milder form found in the iron moulder.

With regard to the carbonaceous state of the blood, I am sorry that I
have not yet completed my investigations on that subject. It is still my
belief that the carbon being once inhaled, there is an affinity found
for that in the circulating fluid, and from its not being consumed,
owing to a deficiency of oxygen, there is a progressive increase going
on. I am very much gratified to find that Dr Brockmann entertains a
somewhat similar opinion in respect to the state of the blood.

The effects of such a morbid structure upon the collier population in
general is very marked. Previous to the late legislative act, the tender
youth of both sexes were at an early age consigned to the coal pit, and
obliged to labour beyond their feeble strength, in circumstances ill
adapted to their years. Such early bodily exhaustion soon produced in
them a pallid countenance, soft and relaxed muscular fibre, and
predisposed much to disease as they advanced in life. The miner on this
account was generally from his youth, thin; in fact, you never see a fat
and healthy-looking collier, and, according to the advance of pulmonary
disease, with them, so is the progress of emaciation. Such a state of
body may well be looked for in miners, labouring as they do, from ten to
twelve hours in the twenty-four under ground, breathing a heated a