I know that what we today call occupational hazards afflicted people in the past who mined, baked, and performed other tasks that involve incidentally inhaling small particles. But TIL that there’s a specific name for inhaling cotton fibers (byssinosis), and wondered whether these problems afflicted weavers in, say, ancient coastal Peru or those who worked with linen and wool in preindustrial Europe.
Most vegetable fiber sources (cotton, flax, sisal, etc) all produce dust that can be harmful if inhaled. Prior to the industrial revolution, an individual could only card so much cotton by hand, so a limited amount of this dust would be released into the air. Carding combs used in the West make the textile worker agitate and release these tiny plant particles into the air fairly close to their face, as they would card into their lap. In India, a bow carder was used and removed the textile worker a bit more, as they usually stood over a pile of fibers with a kaman carder either suspended from the ceiling or from a pole harnessed to their back. Many of the engravings of this technique show work being done out of doors, where the dust would be less condensed. India was the major producer of cotton - it was a luxury item imported to England for many, many years. If accounts of chronic disease associated with cotton processing prior to the industrial revolution exist, it will likely be found in accounts from India.
My guess is that prior to the industrial revolution, serious cases of byssinosis with textile workers were very rare. Why? A person or group of people could only card so much cotton in a day by hand. While the tools they used would kick dust into the air, they were nothing compared to the agitating fury of the mechanical carding machines. Suddenly the rate of exposure sky rockets, as infinitely more cotton is processed at a time, at a tremendous clip - the motion of the opposing rollers themselves are just inevitably going to fling more dust into the air than the gentler hand tool methods. In the Charleston Cotton Factory (between 1880 and 1900), they were going through 15 cotton bales/40,000 lbs of cotton in a day - there's no way hand tools could process even a sizable fraction of this in a day.
Dr John Philips Kay was treating so many textile workers in England in the 1830's for chronic lung complaints, that he undertook an investigation into the atmosphere of the mills, describing the following: ‘Entrance into the atmosphere of the mill immediately occasions a dry cough, which harasses him considerably in the day, but ceases immediately after he leaves the mills. […] these symptoms become gradually more severe...’ persistence in this environment could be fatal. An anecdotal description of women working near the carding machines describes them as not living much past 40 years of age - and many having to resign before then. Elizabeth Gaskell featured mill workers in her novel "North and South"; fictional mill worker Bessy Higgins is only 19 years old when she dies, "poisoned by the fluff". While the character is invented, the scenario is likely true to life: after 10 years exposure to cotton dust, 52% of workers had early byssinosis symptoms, while 10% were already in the third stage with disabling cases (and this was data from 1948, after many, many improvements were made to reduce the risks).