Radiological Evidence in Hæmatite Iron-ore Workers

Abstract

The use of iron has existed for nearly 6000 years. The knowledge of some of its possibilities appears to have been appreciated in the East—China, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, since about 4000 b.c., some two thousand years before it reached South Eastern Europe. It was introduced to Greece down the valley of the Danube about the ninth Century and with its advent its there came the temporary downfall of Greece and the transition from the Bronze Age. Between 1000 b.c. and a.d. 100 the use of iron spread into Western Europe, Scandinavia and Ireland. Iron tools and weapons gradually replaced bronze, stone, and horn implements. That iron was mined or quarried, and its uses to some extent appreciated in Britain in pre-Roman days, we learn from Caesar. “Britanni utuntur aut aere aut talis ferreis, ad certum pondus examinatis, pro numo. Nascitur ibi in maritimis regionibus ferrum sed ejus exigua est copia” which being interpreted, for those who, like myself, have forgotten their Latin and possibly pronounce it different...