Charles Barham, M.D.
(1804-1884)
15 November 1862

Volume 9, page 306, sitting number 12,219.

Born at Truro on 9 March 1804, Charles Foster Barham was the fourth son of Thomas Foster Barham of Penzance in Cornwall. Following his education at Queen's College, Cambridge (MB, 1827; MD, 1860), he studied in Paris and Italy 1825-1828. He was the physician at the Tavistock dispensary 1832-1835. In August 1837 he became the physician in Truro, a position he filled for the rest of his life. He was also senior physician at the Royal Cornwall Infirmary 1838-1873; president of the Royal Institute of Cornwall 1859-1862; mayor of Truro 1862; and the author of several works, including Report on the sanitary state of the labouring classes in the town of Truro (1842). He also wrote many papers on meteorology and other subjects in Reports and the Journal of Royal Institute of Cornwall and other publications. He died on 20 October 1884 at 11 Strangeways Terrace, Truro, Cornwall. [Boase, Modern English Biography, 1892.]

What Boase doesn't make clear is that Dr Barham was a pioneer investigator of miners' diseases, in particular the medical conditions afflicting the boys employed in the mines from ages as young as ten. He was also especially interested in the lung conditions brought about by working underground, and although the disease of silicosis had yet to be named, Barham noted the effects of the 'mineral dust' inhaled by the miners, which, he commented, 'gives a peculiar character to his expectoration,' sometimes tinted green by copper ore. In addition he detailed elevated rates of tuberculosis, asthma, and heart disease, and, years before the discovery of vitamin D, he noted the unhealthy effect that the lack of sunlight had on those working underground for up to ten hours a day.