Black and brown lung are the names given by work­ers in the coal and textile industries, respectively, and by some physicians and public officials, to symp­toms of respiratory distress associated with dusty work.

Most physicians and epidemiologists have, however, preferred to categorize these symptoms as they relate to findings at autopsy and studies of pulmonary function and to name their appearance in particular patients as, respectively, coal workers’ pneumoconiosis and byssinosis. The terms “black lung” and “brown lung” are historical legacies of intense negotiations about the causes of respiratory distress and mortality among workers in the coal and textile industries of Europe and North America, especially since the nineteenth century. (For the con­ventional medical definitions of the pathology sub­sumed under the terms black lung and brown lung, see the extensive bibliographies in papers by Fox and Stone [1981] and Com [1980]).