Small contribution of gold mines to the ongoing
#0183;#32;Gold mines in South Africa have historically been implicated in initiating the tuberculosis (TB) epidemic in South Africa. As Packard notes, The immense size of the mine labor force, over 200,000 on the Rand alone by 1910, together with the appalling health conditions that existed on the mines, ensured that they would play a central role in the early development of TB in southern Africa [].