Due to the really hazardous conditions in which miners had to work, especially between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, and the numerous diseases (e.g. malaria) that spread across the area, workmen's working conditions were particularly precarious and the directorate of the mine itself was already aware of the serious health hazards workers were faced with every day, so much so that Lord Allnutt Brassey, during his term, placed much emphasis on finding solutions at least for those issues and health hazards that could be avoided. As an example, between 1889 and 1918, the mine purchased, at a low price from the Kingdom of Italy, many doses of quinine (a medicine that was thought to be beneficial and useful against malaria) that were subsequently distributed to workpeople. Furthermore, other mesures were taken such as providing workers' housing with fresh and salubrious water to prevent other diseases and, in order to further prevent malaria from spreading among workmen, workers' house windows were protected with wire gauze against mosquitoes. In spite of these efforts, the mine directorate soon realized that the main threat was not malaria yet lung diseases to which miners seemed to be particularly subject. As a result, in order to partly mitigate such lung diseases, workers' dwellings were purposely built far from mine pitheads in more elevated positions on the surrounding hills, so that workers would have to walk to reach their houses after their turns over a few hundred yards so that they could "breath a little fresh air before they reached home". Nonetheless, for the purpose of curing the above-mentioned health conditions, the mine provided an hospital, as well as a doctor and a midwife.