Airborne micro-organisms and prevalence of byssinotic symptoms in cotton mills.

The concentration of airborne microbes, their endotoxins and the prevalence of byssinotic symptoms among workers were measured in the cardrooms of seven cotton spinning, a wool spinning and two cotton waste mills and in a dusty workroom of a group of five willowing mills, a tea-packing plant and a pipe tobacco factory. The concentration of microbes cultured on endoagar plates were found to correlate with byssinosis prevalence (r greater than 0.95, P less than 0.001). The concentration of nutrient agar microbes correlated with prevalence less well (r greater than 0.77, P less than 0.01) and that of fungi and endotoxins not at all.