potter's asthma

English

Noun

potter's asthma (uncountable)

1. emphysema of the lungs, once common among potters
   • 1871, Robert Abercrombie, New medical system, eleventh edition:

     A species of asthma is rather common in some parts of North Staffordshire , commonly styled " Potter's Asthma . " The symptoms are similar to those of moist asthma . The causes are referrible to the peculiar and unhealthy occupation

   • 1885, George Moore, A Mummer's Wife:

     the people who worked there [the platemakers], he said, usually suffered from what is known as the potter's asthma.

References

• “potter”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.