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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | The Profits of Death: A Comparative Study of Miners' Phthisis in Cornwall and the Transvaal, 1876-1918 |
Authors: | Burke, Gillian Richardson, Peter |
Year: | 1978 |
Periodical: | Journal of Southern African Studies |
Volume: | 4 |
Issue: | 2 |
Period: | April |
Pages: | 147-171 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Transvaal South Africa |
Subjects: | miners tuberculosis Labor and Employment History and Exploration Health and Nutrition |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/2636355 |
Abstract: | This comparative investigation into the prevalence of phthisis amongst mine workers in Cornwall and the Transvaal between 1876 and 1918, suggests two important general conclusions. Firstly, the existence of high mortality due to industrial disease was itself no guarantee whatever that significant reforms inevitably took place. Substantial reform of the working conditions of the Witwatersrand gold mines, themselves revolutionized by the application of technology which was largely instrumental in causing such a high disease rate, did not occur for the first twenty-five years of the commercial exploitation of the fields. Secondly, it appears that such reform as did take place, only did so in the industry with a sufficiently strong and stable market position to bear the price/cost implications of the changes in working conditions which inevitably occurred. This meant reform was confined to the South African industry. Notes. |