The social and political meaning of the silent epidemic of minersʹ phthisis, Bendigo 1860–1960

Minersʹ Phthisis was suffered by goldminers in the Central Victorian city of Bendigo, Australia for 100 years from the 1860s to the 1960s. This paper examines the disease using the framework put forward by Karl Figlio in a study of minersʹ nystagmus and later adapted by Evan Willis to consider the social processes of Repetition Strain Injury. It demonstrates that a study of industrial disease does not require moral judgments on the diseaseʹs biological reality or medical controversy about its treatment in order to fit within such a framework. More, it argues that without an understanding of the social and political meaning of the disease historically and progressively, the biological has itself little meaning.