and Napoleonic Wars, and the domestic construction boom, Leadhills became world-famous for its lead mines.

In a paper reporting on the treatment of a particular case of hydrothorax, published in 1823, James Braid commented that, given all of the theoretically possible causes, with his numerous Leadhills hydrothorax patients, "[those who] have been exposed to breathe noxious or confined air" were by far the majority:
:[At Leadhills] the miners must sometimes work in places where there is so little