Dust for Dust

More hard-rock miners die every year from silicosis than from cave-ins. Silicosis is a degeneration of the lung tissue caused by microscopic rock dust particles.

Last week, grizzled, hard-bitten hard-rock miners came down out of Colorado's Rocky Mountains to Denver to try the latest treatment for the old complaint. At the University of Colorado's School of Medicine they bellied up to a six-foot-high box fitted with nozzles at mouth level. Putting a clamp on their noses and the nozzle in their mouths, they breathed in & out through the tubes. Newcomers started at five minutes every day; veterans stood at the box from ten up to 20 minutes.

Within the box raged a miniature storm of aluminum powder, churned by compressed air. With each breath the miners inhaled about five million tiny aluminum particles. The doctors' theory: aluminum powder forms a coating around silica powder in the air sacs, prevents formation of lung-eating silicic acid.

Miners liked the treatment so well that some drove 40 miles a day to get it. They reported immediate relief from the dry, hacking cough characteristic of silicosis. But whether aluminum dust will vanquish silica dust permanently, neither doctor nor miner could yet say. Nor had they yet found out whether it prevents tuberculosis, which often ends the silicosis sufferer's life.

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