Woolsorters' disease was a feared industrial disease associated primarily with 
Yorkshire's textile industry of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 
Early occupational health methods were attempted locally before concerted 
national efforts produced legislative measures. When its link with anthrax was 
established, attention in prevention focused upon chemical disinfection methods. 
Together, these factors were instrumental in decreasing the incidence of 
woolsorters' disease. However, by the beginning of the Second World War, the 
lack of treatment options for anthrax meant that the bacterium was experimented 
upon as a potential war-winning weapon. Today, woolsorters' disease and other 
industrial manifestations of anthrax are extremely rare, but the increasing 
threat of bioterrorism means that the international dread and historical lessons 
of this significant condition should never be forgotten. Consequently, this 
paper reveals the history of woolsorters' disease in order to remind those 
involved in occupational medicine today of the dread it caused both physicians 
and workers in previous generations.