Mortality from byssinosis among New England cotton mill workers, 1905-1912

Little was known about mortality from byssinosis among American cotton mill workers until recent times. Between 1912 and 1919, the Labor Department published two detailed investigations of mortality by cause of death among cotton mill workers and other residents of several New England mill towns. Statistical tests reveal no significant difference in mortality rates from nontubercular respiratory diseases between cotton textile workers and other mill town residents. Even when ex-mill workers who may have died from mill-related respiratory ailments are added to work-related deaths and subtracted from the control group, mortality rates do not differ significantly. Finally, when mortality rates for workers in the most dusty areas of the mills--picking and carding--are compared with those of other Fall River, Mass., residents, the differences are still not statistically significant. Apparently byssinosis was not a cause of excess mortality among New England cotton mill workers at the turn of the century.