Abstract

Abstract
The clinical details of the patients admitted to the Zeehan Hospital in Tasmania, Australia from the opening date of the hospital in 1894 for the subsequent forty years during the peak of the mining period in Zeehan are presented. Major features are the frequent but uncompensated industrial fatalities and accidents, outbreaks of infectious diseases in the pre-antibiotic era and the damage to individuals and the environment from severe metal pollution, yet an apparent silence about the issue of clinical lead poisoning.