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Archiver > COALMINERS > 2001-04 > 0986169473


From:
Subject: Re: [C-M] health problems
Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 19:57:53 EDT


Hi List

I've found all of the emails about health problems and genetics very
interesting today. My grandfather was a coal miner in Colorado in the early
part of the 1900s as was his father who emigrated from Wales in the 1870s.
Coal mining goes back two more generations before my g.grandfather Thomas
Cobley that I know of and possibly more.
What I have been wondering is how many of these men and family members were
smokers and what other outside influences might have contributed to their
health problems such as lung disease and heart disease. It seems to me that
it would be very hard to do a scientific study of miners health problems that
are caused solely by mining. I know my grandfather smoked like a chimney
right up till his death at age 70 of heart failure. He could barely take a
breath during the last couple of years of his life. I wonder which caused the
most damage the time he spent in the mines or the cigarettes??? Just a
thought.

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