Figure 2. The Schneeberg mines in the ore mountains (Erzgebirge) of Saxony. The photograph was taken circa 1946–47 in the period known as the wild years when the mining techniques were primitive. In German textbooks on the aetiology of lung cancer, as far back as 1879 [21] the term Schneeberg lung cancer is mentioned and the ore Pechblende, dumped in vast quantities on slag heaps as a waste material, obtained its name because of Pech used in the context of "bad luck". (Courtesy of Dr Horst Wesch.)