Occupational Medicine Vol. 54 No. 7 © Society
of Occupational Medicine 2004; all rights reserved
The history of woolsorters’ disease: a Yorkshire beginning with an international future?
University of Birmingham, Centre for the History of Medicine, Birmingham, UK.
Woolsorters’ disease was a feared industrial disease associated primarily with Yorkshire’s textile industry of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Early occupational health methods were attempted locally before concerted national efforts produced legislative measures. When its link with anthrax was established, attention in prevention focused upon chemical disinfection methods. Together, these factors were instrumental in decreasing the incidence of woolsorters’ disease. However, by the beginning of the Second World War, the lack of treatment options for anthrax meant that the bacterium was experimented upon as a potential war-winning weapon. Today, woolsorters’ disease and other industrial manifestations of anthrax are extremely rare, but the increasing threat of bioterrorism means that the international dread and historical lessons of this significant condition should never be forgotten. Consequently, this paper reveals the history of woolsorters’ disease in order to remind those involved in occupational medicine today of the dread it caused both physicians and workers in previous generations.
Keywords Anthrax; history; wool; woolsorters’; disease
Received 10 March 2004
Revised 25 May 2004
Accepted 17 June 2004
Correspondence to: N. Metcalfe, 5 Bottle Cottages, 143 Metchley Lane, Harborne, Birmingham B17 9JL, UK. Tel: +44 774 229 2573; e-mail: metz21{at}hotmail.com or neilmetcalfe{at}doctors.org.uk
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