Bagassosis

Bagassosis is an occupational disease resulting from the inhalation of dust from dried sugar cane fiber, or bagasse, which has become an important industrial material. The fresh fiber is apparently innocuous, and illness follows contact only with old bagasse which has been baled and allowed to dry. This fact evidently accounts for peculiarities of the distribution of the disorder. The disease has been absent from most of the great cane-growing areas of the world, but has recently appeared at a newly established paper mill in Puerto Rico where approximately 80 cases have been observed. The first of these cases is described. The patient, a caucasoid male, 47 years of age, had suffered a prior episode of bagassosis while employed in a similar paper mill in Peru.