Opinion of the Court. 337 U.S. course of liberal construction of the Act followed by this Court.20 We recognize, with respondent, that the Federal Employers' Liability Act is founded on common-law concepts of negligence and injury, subject to such qualifications as Congress has imported into those terms. If respondent were right in suggesting that the common law does not recognize occupational disease as a category of compensable injury, he would lend substance to the argument that Congress' use of the word "injury" was less broad than the word's surface connotation indicates. However, although the contrary view has been advanced," we are satisfied that the difficulties which have attached to tort recovery for occupational disease inhere not in the nature of the wrong but in the difficulty of proving negligence. For, as the Ohio Supreme Court observed with reference to silicosis, "In the early period of industrial development there was little medical knowledge regarding the origin of diseases peculiar to the various employments . . . Triff v. National Bronze & Aluminum Foundry Co., 135 Ohio St. 191, 195. We do not doubt that at "common law the incurring of a disease or harm to health is such a personal wrong as to warrant a recovery if the other elements of liability for tort are present." 22 It 20 "The Act is not to be narrowed by refined reasoning . . is to be construed liberally to fulfill the purposes for which it was enacted...." Jamison v. Encarnacion, 281 U. S. 635, 640. Similarly, the Boiler Inspection Act, "like the Safety Appliance Act, is to be liberally construed in the light of its prime purpose, the protection of employees and others by requiring the use of safe equipment." Lilly v. Grand Trunk R. Co., 317 U. S. 481, 486. 21 See, e. g., Cell v. Yale & Towne Mfg. Co., 281 Mich. 564, 566; but cf. id. at 567-568. 22 Hurle's Case, 217 Mass. 223, 224; see Hood & Sons v. Maryland Casualty Co., 206 Mass. 223; cf. Gentry v. Swann Chemical Co., 234 Ala. 313, 317-318. See Banks, Employer's Liability for Occupational Diseases, 16 Rocky Mt. L. Rev. 60, 61–64. 163 Opinion of the Court. Viewing the Federal Employers' Liability Act as a negligence statute, we think that arguments drawn from the coverage accorded occupational diseases in state workmen's compensation statutes cannot control the present inquiry. And yet we may note in passing that decisions under such statutes, to whatever extent they may be thought relevant, offer little support to respondent's narrow view of the federal legislation before us. True it is that the British Workmen's Compensation Act of 1897, 60 & 61 Vict. c. 37, although covering anthrax contracted by claimant from a particular and identifiable processing of wool, Turvey v. Brintons, Ltd., [1904] 1 K. B. 328, affirmed [1905] A. C. 230, was held to exclude gradual lead poisoning. Steel v. Cammell, Laird & Co., [1905] 2 K. B. 232. But it is equally true that the statute there construed provided for compensation only in cases of "personal injury by accident," (emphasis added), a limitation much stressed by the opinions in Steel v. Cammell, Laird & Co., supra. And see Walker v. Lilleshall Coal Co., [1900] 1 Q. B. 488. Decisions in this country have uniformly followed the early British rule in construing such terms as "accident" and "accidental injury," as well as "personal injury by accident." 23 But decisions construing "personal injury"-more nearly akin to the simple "injury" of the Federal Employers' Liability Act-are in conflict. Thus the Supreme 23 See, e. g., Jeffreyes v. Sager Co., 198 App. Div. 446, affirmed 233 N. Y. 535; Iwanicki v. State Industrial Accident Commission, 104 Ore. 650. Restrictive constructions of the term "accident" and its variants have generally been followed by agitation, now largely successful, for legislation specifically extending compensation to occupational disease. See, e. g., Perry, Occupational Disease Legislation, 5 Newark L. Rev. 83; Occupational Disease Compensation, 26 Am. Lab. Leg. Rev. 2; Andrews, The Tragedy of Silicosis, id. at 3. For local studies of the problems posed see Owens, Diseases and Injuries to Health under the Wisconsin Workmen's Compensation Act, 1945 Wis. L. Rev. 357; 3 John Marshall L. Q. 241.. Opinion of the Court. 337 U.S. Court of Ohio excluded occupational diseases in view of the special legislative and constitutional context of the statute considered, while recognizing that otherwise it would be "no difficult matter to bring within the purview of the words 'personal injuries sustained in the course of employment' occupational diseases incurred in course of employment." Industrial Commission v. Brown, 92 Ohio St. 309, 312-313; cf. Industrial Commission v. Roth, 98 Ohio St. 34. The Connecticut Supreme Court, relying on its common-law view that "typical" occupational diseases were not compensable, likewise excluded occupational diseases from its "personal injury" statute. Miller v. American Steel & Wire Co., 90 Conn. 349. But against this line of authority may be set the view of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, speaking by Chief Justice Rugg, which held that blindness caused by noxious industrial vapors was a "personal injury". within the meaning of the Massachusetts statute. Hurle's Case, 217 Mass. 223. Consonant with the Massachusetts statute is the one compensation act the meaning of which may be thought directly to bear on congressional use of the word “injury" in the federal negligence statute with which we are today concerned. The Federal Employees' Compensation Act of May 30, 1908, 35 Stat. 556, approved less than two months after the Federal Employers' Liability Act, provided compensation for certain classes of federal employees "injured in the course of . . . employment." Under this statute compensation was awarded for, inter alia, inhalation of dust and fine scale," lead poisoning,25 24 Claim of Edward Edmonds, June 23, 1913, Opinions of Solicitor, U. S. Department of Labor (1915) 259. 25 Claim of Willard E. Jule, July 28, 1913, Opinions of Solicitor, U. S. Department of Labor (1915) 261; cf. Claim of C. M. Arata, Dec. 31, 1913, id. at 264 (lead poisoning and bronchitis). 163 Opinion of the Court. cardiac hypertrophy caused by inhalation of ether," and throat tuberculosis aggravated by brass poisoning." In short, the workmen's compensation cases offer little com 26 Claim of Basil E. Clark, Apr. 11, 1914, Opinions of Solicitor, U. S. Department of Labor (1915) 270. 27 Claim of Edward Devine, Feb. 9, 1915, Opinions of Solicitor, U. S. Department of Labor (1915) 277. Whether the earlier decision that pneumonia was not compensable, Claim of John Sheeran, Apr. 25, 1910, 28 Op. Atty. Gen. 254, is consistent with the foregoing cases, or with cases awarding compensation for "the bends," Claim of Wm. Murray, Nov. 3, 1911, Opinions of Solicitor, U. S. Department of Labor (1915) 239, or sunstroke, Claim of J. J. Walsh, Mar. 16, 1911, id. at 231, we need not determine; Congress' dissatisfaction with the distinction is clear from the course of subsequent legislation: When the Federal Employees' Compensation Act of May 30, 1908, was superseded in 1916 by the broader and still extant general federal employee compensation system, 5 U. S. C. § 751 et seq., the statute as originally enacted provided compensation for "disability" or "personal injury" without further qualification or definition. 39 Stat. 742. Proposals specifically to include occupational disease were rejected, at least in part, for the reasons that at the committee hearings "there was considerable difficulty in defining the term 'occupational disease'; and it was also called to our attention that in quite a number of cases in a number of States the court held this language which we have in the bill would cover occupational diseases in certain casesat least a number of them . . . .” 53 Cong. Rec. 10899. In 1924 the 1916 Act was amended, 43 Stat. 389, "to correct two rulings of the Comptroller General of the United States. . . ." H. R. Rep. No. 280, 68th Cong., 1st Sess. 1. One of the rulings remedied was that occupational diseases were not included within the 1916 Act; the other ruling was that the Comptroller General had power to review decisions of the United States Employees' Compensation Commission. As to the first of these errors, the House Judiciary Committee, in reporting out the 1924 amendment, expressly referred to its 1916 report, H. R. Rep. No. 678, 64th Cong., 1st Sess. 7, to show that in drafting the 1916 Act "the committee intended to remedy the inadequacy of the act of May 30, 1908, with reference to 'occupational diseases.' H. R. Rep. No. 280, 68th Cong., 1st Sess. 3. See 65 Cong. Rec. 8154. Opinion of the Court. 337 U.S. fort to respondent's view of the Federal Employers' Liability Act. While no decision of this Court involving the Federal Employers' Liability Act has dealt specifically with silicosis, the New York Court of Appeals, as we have indicated above, has sustained recovery under the Act for that disease when resulting from the carrier's negligence. This was done in circumstances not substantially different from those alleged in petitioner's original complaint, except that the facts involved no possible application of the Boiler Inspection Act. Sadowski v. Long Island R. Co., supra. Moreover, other state and federal decisions have authorized recovery under the Act for injuries not caused by accidental or violent means. These include Shelton v. Thomson, 148 F. 2d 1; 157 F. 2d 709, where recovery was permitted for carbon monoxide poisoning; B. & O. R. Co. v. Branson, 128 Md. 678, reversed on other grounds, 242 U. S. 623, in which recovery was allowed for paint poisoning. Cf. C.. R. I. & P. R. Co. v. Cheek, 105 Okla. 91. Not all of these decisions could be sustained if the statutory term "injury" were held to require that the harm suffered from the employer's negligence must be confined to that inflicted by "external, violent and accidental" means or be an "accidental injury," as respondent's narrow view of the statute's coverage seems to contemplate. We would be most hesitant to adopt a construction of "injury" as used in this Act which would overrule the decisions last cited or seriously impair their authority. We think they were made in the spirit the statute contemplated for its administration and application. That spirit is one not in conformity with importing nice distinctions in applying the Act's broad and general terms or cutting down their full scope by inference or implication. In our view, when the employer's negligence impairs or destroys an employee's health by requiring him to work |