health of the cotton mill workers

during  a visit to mosi, where I viewed the cotton mill machinery being demonstrated I learnt of the bad health that workers at the time of the industrial revolution were subject to as a result of their working conditions. For people working on the looms disease would spread quickly due to how they changed the bobbins, the shuttles were known as 'kissing shuttles' as to pull through the loose end the factory worker would have to suck the thread out. A common illness in the mills was byssinosis caused by the amount of cotton fibres in the air.

 This is a drawing i did in my sketchbook in response to my research into disease, I combined the drawing of bacteria with cotton threads spreading out and small shares which represent buildings on a map. 

Again I think this looks quite germ like, the shape in the middle came from my foot print in response to figure ground maps. I sewed on the machine between the black lines imprinted on the paper and stuch down the looks threads, giving the impression of a tendrils and maps.