ABSTRACT
For a book such as this, devoted generally to carcinogenesis in specific organ sys tems of animals, it may represent an anomaly to recall that the carcinogenic effects of a sizable number of environmental or industrial materials were first noted in humans. One of the first was the “Bergkrankheiten” of the miners in the Schneeberg and Joachimstal regions of Europe, as described by Paracelsus and Agricola in the sixteenth century. Three hundred years later a more scientific investigation of Berg krankheiten led to the conclusion that it was lung cancer. The probable cause was the uranium (and its decay products such as radon) which coexisted with silver and cobalt in the mines (1). More recently, a similar situation has been reported among uranium miners in the Colorado plateau (2).
