Yorkshire Almanac J. Gill (72) of Sugden & Briggs, wool spinners, Bradford, dies of pulmonary anthrax, and his successor, J.R. Baker (58), is fatally infected with cutaneous anthrax

16 May 1881: J. Gill (72) of Sugden & Briggs, wool spinners, Bradford, dies of pulmonary anthrax, and his successor, J.R. Baker (58), is fatally infected with cutaneous anthrax

John Henry Bell. 1881/06/11. On Woolsorters’ Disease. British Medical Journal. London. Get it:

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

[J. Gill, 72] died at 11 a.m., in my presence, forty-seven hours after leaving work. I have attended many cases of this disease when the cough was slight; this is the first case I have known without cough. I examined blood taken from the finger ten minutes before death, and failed to detect any bacilli. A small quantity, given to a mouse, produced death in thirty-six hours. Non-mobile bacilli were numerous in its spleen… The left side of the chest did not yield fluid. I removed some from the right side by a hypodermic syringe for examination; it contained numerous long motionless bacilli.

I visited the mill where the deceased had worked, and was shown the various processes to which the wool was subjected before arriving at the machine which he tended. I was told, that, during the last six weeks, a lot of 250 bales of “Van” mohair, which was considered of good quality, had been used. When taken out of the bales, the hair was washed in soap-suds at 120° to 130°F; then passed through rollers dried by hot air; sorted; washed, and dried again as before; passed through five preparing machines (or carded), then combed, before it arrived at the back-washing machine, where it passed through soap-suds at a temperature of about 100°F (at the time of my visit 130°F). The hair had been manipulated by more than a dozen work people before it reached the deceased. At each stage, its infective powers would be weakened. Those who handled it most, when it was most virulent, did not suffer. From this, and many other corroborative instances, it appears probable that the virus: may gain access to the blood through some accidental abrasion of the mucous membrane…

J.R. Baker, aged 58, machine wool-comber, on Monday, May 16th, tended the back-washing machine at which the deceased J. Gill had worked on the previous Saturday. He had always enjoyed good health, was very temperate, and had worked for the same firm nine years. Soon after he commenced work, his left forearm was touched by one of the cog-wheels of the machine – a small portion of skin on the outer surface was nipped and torn; he thought nothing of it, but washed the blood and dirt off with a little wool, which he wet in the warm soapsuds through which the “Van” mohair was passing in his machine. Three days afterwards (May 19th), his forearm was swollen; he was surprised at this, as he “had excellent healing flesh”…

[Baker died on 25 May.] Serum from the arm contained bacilli; two tubes, given to a mouse forty-five hours afterwards, were fatal in sixty-five hours.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Comment

The Bradford Observer reports that the firm was Sugden & Briggs (Bradford Observer 1881/05/31).

I’d like to read F.W. Eurich’s “The History of Anthrax in the Wool Industry of Bradford, and of its Control” (1926) without paying The Lancet for the privilege. Even the Russians don’t seem to have it. Others:

Bell, “Anthrax – its relation to the wool trade” in Thomas Oliver, Dangerous trades (1902)
William Cunningham, “The work of two Scottish medical graduates in the control of woolsorters’ disease“
Elizabeth Fee and Theodore M. Brown, “John Henry Bell: occupational anthrax pioneer” in AJPH
Jury recommendations following the Samuel Firth inquest in 1880.
Non-binding regulations concerted between manufacturers, wool-sorters, the council, and the jury Isaac Saville inquest in 1884, the previous recommendations having failed to achieve change
I think legislation finally came in 1897, but the toddler calls.

Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog is one of the worst anthrax films I’ve seen. Sorry, the toddler calls:

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Comment

The Bradford Observer reports that the firm was Sugden & Briggs (Bradford Observer 1881/05/31).

Bell, “Anthrax – its relation to the wool trade” in Thomas Oliver, Dangerous trades (1902)
William Cunningham, “The work of two Scottish medical graduates in the control of woolsorters’ disease“
Elizabeth Fee and Theodore M. Brown, “John Henry Bell: occupational anthrax pioneer” in AJPH
Jury recommendations following the Samuel Firth inquest in 1880.
Non-binding regulations concerted between manufacturers, wool-sorters, the council, and the jury Isaac Saville inquest in 1884, the previous recommendations having failed to achieve change
I think legislation finally came in 1897, but the toddler calls.

Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog is one of the worst anthrax films I’ve seen. Sorry, the toddler calls:

Something to say? Get in touch

8 June 1561: A York official explains why textile manufacturing has left his city for the West Riding

3 February 1825: The last great festival at Bradford for Bishop Blaize, the wool-combers’ patron

5 February 1852: A local poet recounts the fate of some of his 81 neighbours drowned this morning in Holmfirth Flood through the miserliness of the mill-owners

2 May 1844: The Bradford Observer reports a 10% increase in the borough’s population in two years

25 March 1667: Burials must henceforth be in wool, in order to support woollen manufacturers and reduce linen imports

20 September 1598: Tenterhooks are prohibited north of the Trent to arrest a decline in the quality and reputation of woollen cloth

10 October 1857: Questions from the floor of the Leeds Chamber of Commerce to the explorer and missionary David Livingstone during his exposition of the wonders of Africa

20 June 1825: The Wool Combers and Weavers Union of Bradford, meeting at the Roebuck Inn, signs off a poster condemning the anti-strike petition issued by the employers, meeting at the Sun

11 January 1825: American comment on William Hirst of Leeds’s revolutionary and controversial labour-saving improvements to spinning and stubbing machines, patented today

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Comment

The Leeds Mercury commented immediately on the increased productivity caused by Hirst’s innovation:

The simple, principle of this improvement is, that he doubles the number of spindles in the mule, by putting two rows instead of one. The machine invented by Mr. Cartwright contained double the number of spindles in Sir Rd. Arkwright’s jenny, and Mr. Hirst’s machine therefore contains four times that number. Yet it is surprising that the old jenny is still used in most of the manufactories in this neighbourhood… Mr. Hirst has now a machine all ready for working, containing four hundred spindles, whereas the machines commonly used in this neighbourhood have not more than eighty or ninety. (Leeds Mercury 1825/01/22)

Hirst appended two testimonials to this effect to a letter three months later to the Mercury:

Leeds, April 29, 1825
Hurst’s and Heycock have milled two olive [?] pieces for Messrs. Pawson and Smith, of Farnley, in two days, which would have taken thein four days at their own mill; and their miller declares, they are better milled than they could have done them at their own place. Their miller was with them all the time, and asserts this himself.
(Signed) JONATHAN ROBERTSHAW, Miller to Messrs. Pawson and Smith.
Messrs. John Edwards and Sons, of Pye-nest, near Halifax, also sent two pieces of white Cassimeres to be milled. Their miller stayed till they were done, which was in seven hours, and says, that they would have taken from 12 to 13 hours at home.
(Signed) WM. KITCHIN,
Miller to Messrs. John Edwards and Sons, Pye-Nest.
(Leeds Mercury 1825/04/30)

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