Dust pneumonia

Dust pneumonia describes disorders caused by excessive exposure to dust storms, particularly during the Dust Bowl in the United States.[1] A form of pneumonia, dust pneumonia results when the lungs are filled with dust, inflaming the alveoli.

Dust pneumonia
A Dust Bowl-era dust storm in Texas (1935)
SpecialtyPulmonology

Symptoms of dust pneumonia include high fever, chest pain, difficulty in breathing, and coughing. With dust pneumonia, dust settles all the way into the alveoli of the lungs, stopping the cilia from moving and preventing the lungs from ever clearing themselves.

People who had dust pneumonia often died.[1] There are no official death rates published for the Great Plains in the 1930s. In 1935, dozens of people died in Kansas from dust pneumonia.[1] Red Cross volunteers made and distributed thousands of dust masks, although some farmers and other people in the affected areas refused to wear them.[1]

Dust pneumonia was featured in the work of several musicians and artists of the day, such as Woody Guthrie's song "Dust Pneumonia Blues".[2]

gollark: But who would pay these vegans?
gollark: I've heard it said that it might be more effective for vegans/vegetarians to present not eating meat as an opportunity to do good people may not be aware of, instead of presenting eating meat as EVIL to people who're already doing it.
gollark: Apparently the cancer gets cancer and stops growing or something?
gollark: Fire extinguishers also use carbon dioxide and powder and stuff because water makes some fires worse.
gollark: Kind of like with Trump, how he constantly does bad things but everyone's just immunized to it.

See also

References
  1. Worster, Donald (2004-09-16). Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s. OUP USA. pp. 20–21. ISBN 9780195174885.
  2. Butler, Martin (2007). Voices of the down and out: The dust bowl migration and the great depression in the songs of Woody Guthrie. Heidelberg: Winter. p. 67. ISBN 9783825353674. OCLC 191828843.


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