[The respiratory health of children and industrial and domestic air pollution].

At the request of its inhabitants, an epidemiological survey was conducted among the children of Carling, a particularly polluted industrialized town in the department of the Moselle in North-East France. Contrary to all expectations, no major toxic effect of industrial pollution on the respiratory health of the children was found. There was some correlation between the fact of living in a polluted area and a claimed respiratory morbidity. However, the potentially harmful effect of atmospheric pollution could not be translated in terms of abnormalities of respiratory function. In contrast, a significant effect of the smoking habits of the parents, and particularly of the mothers, on respiratory symptoms and spirographic data of their children was observed.