265 Mass. 497 | Mass. | 1929
This is a proceeding under the workmen’s compensation act. The question for decision is whether the employee received a personal injury arising out of and in the course of his employment, or whether he was merely suffering from disease so induced. His work was on granite or other stone with a surface cutting machine. Its method and effect of operation were described by him as follows: “This machine comes down with a point and hammers .... The power ... is furnished by compressed air. . . . That hammer comes up and down on the stone. The purpose of this machine in cutting stone is to refine it up. It takes the rough off and then refines it up, makes it smooth. It first comes off in little lumps and then comes off fine. . . . sometimes he could not see it was so dusty. His clothes were full of dust at night. He used to blow the dust off at night with a hose.” He also testified to progressive weakness, shortness of breath and coughing. There was testimony from a physician that on examination of the employee there was found “a considerable amount of pneumonoconiosis, granite cutters’ disease”; that there was “direct connection between the granite dust on his lungs, . . . and his condition . . . ., Pneumonoconiosis is the result of nature’s reaction to finpi particles of granite dust. Nature at first takes care of this granite dust by means of the lymphatics and for a good many years . . . can take care of it adequately and well, so that the system is not seriously injured.” Then “the lymphatics break down; they lose their function as filters and the granite dust is carried into the lung itself. Here nature forms what is its own protective reaction, scar tissue, around each tiny particle of granite and as this process goes on the man is literally choked to death; his breathing capacity becomes less and less.”
This testimony was adequate to support the finding of the board that the employee was incapacitated by reason of a
Decree affirmed.