The first description of occupational lung cancer, by Harting and Hesse in 1879, unfortunately is not readily accessible. Its account of the vicissitudes of the Schneeberg miners merits study and is therefore presented in summary and set in a historical and geological context. The authors attempted to discover the cause of the disease and made recommendations for improving the health of miners. In the course of their programme of investigations, they developed methods for measuring airborne dust and inhaled dust by personal monitoring. It was left to subsequent discovery for radon and its daughter products to be identified as the causal agents. Later generations were to discover the impact of radioactive spoils from mines situated in the mountain range in which Schneeberg was located.