Farmers are exposed to a number of biological, physical and chemical factors harmful to the health, resulting from the specific nature of their work environment. As is clear from epidemiological studies about occupational diseases, pneumoconioses and infectious and parasitic diseases are recorded most commonly. Due to the character of farmer's work, the greatest risk to his health is biological...

Pneumoconioses are a group of non-neoplastic pulmonary disorders caused by inhaled inorganic particles. Welldescribed forms of pneumoconiosis include those from asbestos, silica, coal dust, beryllium, and hard metals. Giant-cell interstitial pneumonia is an uncommon pneumoconiosis, usually due to exposure to hard-metal compounds, primarily cobalt and tungsten carbide. The natural course of the ...

A variety of pulmonary reactions have been associated with the inhalation of metallic dusts. 1, 2 Some of these result in familiar pneumoconioses, whereas others simply result in intrapulmonary pigment deposition. Some of the metallic materials that can cause disease as well as the typical reaction to deposits of these particulates are listed in Table 1. Electron microprobe analysis can be usef...

This paper describes adverse health effect studies conducted at the Institute for Medical Research and Occupational Health since its foundation fifty years ago to the present day. The presentation of the studied problems is based mainly on the type of exposure--occupational or environmental--and partly on disease entities. The review is organised around the following topics: metals, organic sol...

Three experienced physician readers assessed the chest radiographs of 743 men from a coal mining community in West Virginia for the signs of simple pneumoconiosis, using the ILO U/C 1971 Classification of Radiographs of the Pneumoconioses. The number of films categorised by each reader as showing evidence of simple pneumoconiosis varied from 63 (8.5%) to 114 (15.3%) of the 743 films classified....

Exposure to asbestos can cause benign pleural lesions, the most common of which are parietal plaques. Diffuse fibrotic changes of the pleura can also occur.' The clinical significance of plaques is slight. Diffuse pleural thickening, on the other hand, can lead to a considerable decrease in lung function.`3 The International Labour Office (ILO) system for classification of pneumoconioses does n...

Silicosis is an incurable non-infectious occupational disease. It is one of the pneumoconioses, a generic group of long diseases associated with dusty occupations. Silicosis is caused by continuous inhalation of microscopic particles of free silica (quartz) dust measuring from one to three microns in diameter (a micron is equivalent to 0,0001 centimetres). If these particles penetrate to the de...

Oxidants such as superoxide anion, hydrogen peroxide, and myeloperoxidase from activated inflammatory cells in the lower respiratory tract contribute to inflammation and injury. Etiologic agents include inorganic particulates such as asbestos, silica, or coal mine dust or mixtures of inorganic dust and combustion materials found in World Trade Center dust and smoke. These etiologic agents are p...