Byssinosis is a respiratory disease primarily associated with workplace exposure to cotton dust characterized by chest tightness that is worse on the first day of exposure to cotton dust after a break from work. Despite early references to the disease known commonly today as byssinosis,' 2 it was to be almost 100 years before serious epidemiological work was undertaken both in the Lancashire cotton
mills and in mills throughout the other cotton producing countries of the world.34 The mostrecent study of this population has estimated the current prevalence of byssinosis to be 3-6%.5 This seems to be falling in comparison with earlier papers.3