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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78617 ***
+
+
+
+
+ DANGEROUS TRADES
+
+ THE HISTORICAL, SOCIAL, AND LEGAL
+ ASPECTS OF INDUSTRIAL OCCUPATIONS
+ AS AFFECTING HEALTH, BY A NUMBER
+ OF EXPERTS
+
+ EDITED BY THOMAS OLIVER, M.A., M.D., F.R.C.P.
+
+ MEDICAL EXPERT ON THE WHITE LEAD, DANGEROUS TRADES, POTTERY, AND
+ LUCIFER MATCH COMMITTEES OF THE HOME OFFICE; PROFESSOR
+ OF PHYSIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF DURHAM; PHYSICIAN TO
+ THE ROYAL INFIRMARY, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE
+
+ WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+ LONDON
+
+ JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
+
+ 1902
+
+
+
+
+ TO
+
+ THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM HENRY ASQUITH, K.C., M.P.
+
+ AND
+
+ THE RIGHT HON. VISCOUNT RIDLEY
+
+ TO WHOM, AS HOME SECRETARIES, THE EDITOR IS IN A VERY SPECIAL
+ MANNER INDEBTED FOR THE MANY OPPORTUNITIES AFFORDED
+ HIM OF ACQUIRING THAT PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE WHICH
+ HAS ENABLED HIM TO BRING TOGETHER THE
+ INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THE FOLLOWING
+ PAGES, THIS BOOK IS, WITH
+ GRATITUDE AND RESPECT,
+ DEDICATED
+
+
+
+
+
+ PREFACE
+
+
+This is the first occasion on which, on the special lines indicated
+in this book, any adequate attempt has been made in this or any other
+country to deal with the conduct of trades and other occupations in
+respect to the dangers to life and health to which the workers are
+liable.
+
+The subject is year by year engrossing more of the attention of the
+public, and this has been evinced in many ways, _e.g._, in the
+amount of space devoted by the Press to the subject of leadless-glaze
+in pottery, and to the manufacture of matches without phosphorus, etc.
+
+The increasing interest displayed by the public in social affairs
+has led to a corresponding desire for accurate information as to the
+condition in which their fellow-men and women live and work. This
+volume is a response to a widely-expressed demand for a true and
+authoritative statement on this important subject--a subject which
+concerns thousands upon thousands of our fellow country-people.
+
+The field covered by “Dangerous Trades and Occupation Diseases” is
+a very wide one, and, as there is no one person competent to deal
+adequately with the whole, it has been found desirable to engage the
+co-operation of experts on the various trades with which the volume
+treats.
+
+In carrying out this scheme, an enormous amount of information which
+has hitherto been unrecorded or inaccessible has been brought into
+focus and made available for reference.
+
+The language employed has been kept as free as possible from
+technicalities. It is confidently believed that this volume will be of
+considerable value, not only to medical men, whose practice brings them
+into contact with the working classes, to Certifying Factory Surgeons,
+Factory Inspectors, and employers of labour, but also to the educated
+public and to professional men interested in the hygienic side of
+industrial problems and in occupation diseases. It is hoped also that
+it will be of assistance to members of both Houses of Parliament.
+
+Whilst congratulating myself on my good fortune in securing the
+assistance of many distinguished and able specialists, I take this
+opportunity of expressing my warmest thanks to Dr Whitelegge, Dr
+Morison Legge, Miss A. M. Anderson, and especially to Commander
+Hamilton Smith, R.N., of the Factory Department of the Home Office, for
+their help in various ways, and to all my contributors for their ready
+acquiescence and loyal support.
+
+ THOMAS OLIVER.
+
+NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE,
+ _March 1902_.
+
+
+
+
+ LIST OF CONTENTS
+
+
+ PAGE
+
+
+ CHAPTER I
+
+ INTRODUCTION. By THOMAS OLIVER, M.D., F.R.C.P., 1
+
+
+ CHAPTER II
+
+ HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF LEGISLATION FOR
+ INJURIOUS AND DANGEROUS INDUSTRIES IN ENGLAND. By
+ Miss A. M. ANDERSON, _H.M. Principal Lady Inspector of
+ Factories_, 24
+
+ Special Rules for Injurious Occupations--Appendix.
+
+
+ CHAPTER III
+
+ REGULATION OF INJURIOUS OR DANGEROUS OCCUPATIONS IN FACTORIES
+ AND WORKSHOPS IN SOME OF THE CHIEF EUROPEAN
+ COUNTRIES. By Miss A. M. ANDERSON, 44
+
+
+ CHAPTER IV
+
+ PRINCIPLES OF PROSPECTIVE LEGISLATION FOR DANGEROUS TRADES.
+ By H. J. TENNANT, M.P., _Chairman late Dangerous Trades
+ Committee_, 63
+
+
+ CHAPTER V
+
+ INFANT MORTALITY AND FACTORY LABOUR. I.--By Mrs H. J.
+ TENNANT. II.--By GEORGE REID, M.D., D.P.H., _Medical Officer
+ of Health, Staffordshire County Council_, 73
+
+
+ CHAPTER VI
+
+ CHILD LABOUR. By Miss MARGARET M’MILLAN, _Member of School
+ Board, Bradford_, 90
+
+
+ CHAPTER VII
+
+ HOME-WORK. By A. BALLANTYNE, 98
+
+
+ CHAPTER VIII
+
+ THE PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY OF WORK AND FATIGUE. By
+ THOMAS OLIVER, M.D., F.R.C.P., 104
+
+
+ CHAPTER IX
+
+ MORTALITY OF OCCUPATIONS. By JOHN TATHAM, M.A., M.D.,
+ F.R.C.P., _General Register Office, Somerset House, London_, 118
+
+
+ CHAPTER X
+
+ DUST-PRODUCING OCCUPATIONS. By JOHN TATHAM, M.A., M.D.,
+ F.R.C.P., _General Register Office, Somerset House, London_, 134
+
+ Potter, Earthenware, China Manufacture--Cutlers,
+ Scissor-makers--File-cutters--Glassmakers--Copper-workers--Iron
+ and Steel Workers--Zinc-workers--Lead-workers--Stone
+ Quarriers--Brass-workers--Gunsmiths--Chimney Sweeps, Soot
+ Merchants--Textile-workers--Wool, Worsted Manufacturers--Other
+ Workers in Dusty Trades--Effects of Breathing Foul
+ Air: Bookbinders, Printers; Musicians; Hatters; Hairdressers;
+ Tailors; Drapers, Manchester Warehousemen;
+ Shoemakers--The Mining Industry: Coal Miners; Ironstone-mining;
+ Copper Miners; Tin Miners--Mortality of Unoccupied
+ and Occupied Men.
+
+
+ CHAPTER XI
+
+ THE DISEASES OF SOLDIERS AT HOME AND ABROAD. By JOHN R.
+ DODD, M.D., F.R.C.S., D.P.H., _Lieutenant-Colonel Royal Army
+ Medical Corps_, 166
+
+
+ CHAPTER XII
+
+ HEALTH IN THE MARINE SERVICE. By WILLIAM COLLINGRIDGE,
+ M.A., M.D., F.R.C.S., D.P.H. (Camb.), _Medical Officer of Health,
+ City of London, formerly (1880–1901) Medical Officer of Health,
+ Port of London_, 182
+
+ Diseases due to their Employment--Diseases caused by the
+ Habits of Seamen--Diseases of Climate--Diseases due to
+ Insanitary Conditions and Environment.
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIII
+
+ RAILWAYS. By HENRY H. CUNYNGHAME, C.B., _Assistant
+ Under-Secretary, Home Department_, 190
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIV
+
+ SAFE-GUARDING OF MACHINERY. By H. S. RICHMOND, _H.M.
+ Superintending Inspector of Factories_, 203
+
+ Prime Movers--Steam Engines--Gas and Oil Engines--Other
+ Prime Movers--Electrical Generators--Mill-Gearing--Mill-Gearing
+ Construction--Access to Shafting--Fencing of Low
+ Shafting, etc.--Pulleys--Driving Belts--Shipping of Belts--
+ Belt Poles--Protection of Belts--Bevel Wheels--Means of
+ Stopping Machinery--Machine Tools--Fencing of Dangerous
+ Machinery--Set-screws--Toothed Wheels--Shaft or Spindle
+ Ends--Loose Pulleys and Strap Forks--Plate
+ Wheels--Hoists--Teagles--Cranes,
+ Winches, etc.--Self-acting Mules--Looms--Circular
+ Saws--Planing Machines--Power Process.
+
+
+ CHAPTER XV
+
+ AGRICULTURE, HORSES, CATTLE. By D’ARCY POWER, F.R.C.S.,
+ M.A. (Oxon.), _Senior Surgeon, Victoria Hospital for
+ Children_;_Assistant Surgeon, St Bartholomew’s Hospital_;
+ _Assistant Professor of Physiology, Royal Veterinary
+ College, London_, 232
+
+ Agriculture: Labourers; Gardeners--Horses: Ostlers,
+ Stablemen, and Cartmen--Cattle: Butchers, Slaughterers, and
+ Tanners; Cowmen and Dairymaids; Shepherds; Pig-keepers.
+
+
+ CHAPTER XVI
+
+ ELECTRIC GENERATING WORKS. By HAMILTON P. SMITH, _Retired
+ Commander R.N., and one of H.M. Inspectors of Factories_, 250
+
+
+ CHAPTER XVII
+
+ DUST AS A CAUSE OF OCCUPATION DISEASE. By THOMAS OLIVER,
+ M.D., F.R.C.P., 267
+
+ General View of the Subject--Skin Diseases of
+ Flax-workers--Diseases of Nails in Furriers--Lung Diseases
+ due to Dust--Gastro-intestinal Lesions.
+
+
+ CHAPTER XVIII
+
+ DUST WOMEN. By THOMAS OLIVER, M.D., F.R.C.P., 278
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIX
+
+ LEAD AND ITS COMPOUNDS. By THOMAS OLIVER, M.D., F.R.C.P., 282
+
+ Lead Mining and the Health and Surroundings of the
+ Miner--Lead-smelting--Red Lead, Lead Oxide, Litharge, Massicot,
+ Minium--White Lead: Carbonate of Lead (Céruse, _Fr._)--Lead
+ Poisoning--Treatment: Preventive and Curative--Chromate
+ of Lead: Dye Works--Calico Printing--Enamelling of Iron
+ Plates and Hollow Ware--Electric Accumulator Works and
+ Lead Poisoning--Motor Cars--Electric Tramways--Soldering,
+ Typefounding, Printing, Typesetting,
+ Linotyping--Precautions--Plumbing--House Painting--Coach
+ Painting--Glass Polishing--File-cutting--Use of Lead in
+ Potteries--Chromo-lithographic Works and
+ Transfer-making--Tile-making and Manufacture of
+ Porcelain Stoves--Washing of Lead-workers’ and Painters’
+ Clothes--Lead Foil Manufacture--Shoe-finishing and Staining
+ by Lead Compounds--Lucifer Matches containing Lead--Buffing
+ of Brass Cocks and Plumbism.
+
+
+ CHAPTER XX
+
+ ELECTRICAL TREATMENT IN CASES OF LEAD POISONING. By H.
+ LEWIS JONES, M.D., _Medical Officer in charge of Electrical
+ Department, St Bartholomew’s Hospital_, 373
+
+ The Elimination of the Metal--The Electrical Treatment of the
+ Paralysis caused by Lead.
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXI
+
+ ARSENIC. By MALCOLM MORRIS, F.R.C.S., _Lecturer on Dermatology,
+ St Mary’s Hospital, London_, 378
+
+ Symptoms--Treatment and Prophylaxis.
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXII
+
+ CHINA AND EARTHENWARE MANUFACTURE: POTTERS’ ROT. By
+ THOMAS OLIVER, M.D., F.R.C.P., 382
+
+ Symptoms--Prevention.
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXIII
+
+ BASIC SLAG. By JOHN HEDLEY, M.D., _Middlesborough_, 390
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXIV
+
+ GANISTER CRUSHING. By HAMILTON P. SMITH, _Retired Commander
+ R.N., and one of H.M. Inspectors of Factories_, 396
+
+ Report on Portions of Lung from a Ganister Miner--Microscopic
+ Examination--Chemical Analysis.
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXV
+
+ MILLSTONE BUILDING: FRENCH BUHRSTONE. By THOMAS OLIVER,
+ M.D., F.R.C.P., 405
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXVI
+
+ STEEL GRINDING. By SINCLAIR WHITE, F.R.C.S., _Lecturer on
+ Surgery, University College, Sheffield_, 408
+
+ Grinding--Glazing--Polishing--Lapping--Racing the Stone.
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXVII
+
+ PHOSPHORUS AND LUCIFER MATCHES. By THOMAS OLIVER, M.D.,
+ F.R.C.P., 417
+
+ Phosphorus Necrosis--Prevention of Phosphorus
+ Necrosis--Treatment of Phosphorus Necrosis.
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+ DANGERS IN THE USE OF MERCURY AND ITS SALTS. By T.
+ MORISON LEGGE, M.D., _H.M. Medical Inspector of Factories_, 434
+
+ Introduction--Historical--Mode in which Poisoning is brought
+ about--Symptoms--Recovery from the Ore--Making of
+ Thermometers--Incandescent Electric Lamps--Electrical
+ Meters--Gold and Silver Extraction--Water-gilding--Silvering of
+ Mirrors--Hatters Furriers’ Processes--Preparation of Mercurial
+ Compounds--Preventive Measures--Rules to be observed in
+ the Manufacture of Mercurial Preparations.
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXIX
+
+ THE LESIONS RESULTING FROM THE MANUFACTURE AND USES
+ OF POTASSIUM AND SODIUM BICHROMATE. By T. MORISON
+ LEGGE, M.D., _H.M. Medical Inspector of Factories_, 447
+
+ Nature of the Perforation--Ulceration of the Skin.
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXX
+
+ COPPER AND BRASS. By ROBERT M. SIMON, B.A., M.D. (Cantab.),
+ F.R.C.P., _Physician, General Hospital, Birmingham; and_
+ SEYMOUR H. KNYVETT, M.A. (Oxon.), _one of H.M. Inspectors of
+ Factories_, 455
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXI
+
+ INDIARUBBER--DANGERS INCIDENTAL TO THE USE OF BISULPHIDE
+ OF CARBON AND NAPHTHA. By THOMAS OLIVER, M.D.,
+ F.R.C.P., 470
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXII
+
+ THE EFFECTS OF DINITROBENZINE AND OTHER NITRO-SUBSTITUTION
+ PRODUCTS OF THE AROMATIC SERIES ON THE WORKMEN
+ EMPLOYED IN THE MANUFACTURE OF HIGH EXPLOSIVES. By
+ ROBERT PROSSER WHITE, M.D., _Surgeon, Roburite Explosives
+ Company; Hon. Medical Officer, Royal Albert Edward Infirmary,
+ Wigan_, 475
+
+ Poisonous Dose--Acute Poisoning--Subacute Poisoning--Chronic
+ Poisoning--Muscular System--Nervous Symptoms--Eye
+ Affections--Urinary Affection--Urine--Pathology: The
+ Blood--Prognosis--Precautions.
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+ DRY CLEANING BY MEANS OF BENZINE. By THOMAS OLIVER,
+ M.D., F.R.C.P., 491
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+ USE OF INFLAMMABLE OR SPIRIT PAINTS. By THOMAS OLIVER,
+ M.D., F.R.C.P., 494
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXV
+
+ ACETYLENE AND ITS DANGERS. By HAMILTON P. SMITH, _Retired
+ Commander R.N., and one of H.M. Inspectors of Factories_, 497
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+ FLOUR MILLS. By THOMAS OLIVER, M.D., F.R.C.P., 505
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+ MINING. By HENRY LOUIS, M.A., A.R.S.M., F.I.C., F.G.S.,
+ _Professor of Mining, Durham College of Science,
+ Newcastle-upon-Tyne_, 508
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+ THE AIR OF MINES. By JOHN HALDANE, M.D., F.R.S., _Fellow
+ of New College, and Lecturer on Physiology, University
+ of Oxford_, 540
+
+ Black-damp--Carbonic Acid--Fire-damp--After-damp--Smoke--White-damp,
+ Gob-stink, Fire-stink--Gases from Explosions.
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+ QUARRIES. By JOHN BROWN, M.D., D.P.H., M.O.H., _Borough of
+ Bacup_; and T. N. KELYNACK, M.D., M.R.C.P., _London, Assistant
+ Physician to Mount Vernon Hospital for Consumption and Diseases
+ of the Chest, Hampstead and Northwood; late Pathologist and
+ Medical Registrar, Manchester Royal Infirmary, etc._, 557
+
+ Introduction--Definitions--Varieties of Quarries--Methods of
+ Working--Pathology--Etiology--Quarry Accidents--Diseases--Affections
+ of the Respiratory Organs--Cardio-Vascular
+ Disease--Cutaneous Lesions--Digestive Disturbances--Ear
+ Affections--Eye Affections--Osteo-arthritis--Septic
+ Infection--Tetanus--Legal Provisions--Prophylaxis and
+ Treatment--Preventive Measures--Treatment of Accidents and
+ Ailments occurring in Quarries.
+
+
+ CHAPTER XL
+
+ THE CHEMICAL TRADES. By A. P. LAURIE, M.A., _Principal,
+ Heriot-Watt College, Edinburgh_, 568
+
+ Introductory Remarks--The Le Blanc Process--Alkali Manufacture,
+ other Methods--The Chemical Worker--Hours of Work
+ in Alkali Manufacture--The Administration of the Alkali Act--Output
+ Method of Paying Wages--Bichromate of Potash Manufacture--Coal
+ Tar Products--Bisulphide of Carbon--Phosphorus--Health
+ of Chemical Workers as shown by Statistics.
+
+
+ CHAPTER XLI
+
+ EXPLOSIONS AND EXPLOSIVES. By A. COOPER KEY (Major, late
+ R.A.), _H.M. Inspector of Explosives_, 599
+
+ Introductory--Accidents in Manufacture and Use--Products of
+ Combustion; Fumes--Explosives in Coal Mines.
+
+
+ CHAPTER XLII
+
+ ANTHRAX. By W. H. HAMER, M.D., F.R.C.P., _Assistant Medical
+ Officer of Health, City of London_, 621
+
+ Hides and Horsehair--History of the Disease--Anthrax
+ Statistics--Outbreaks Recorded during Recent Years--Anthrax
+ Notification--Grouping of Anthrax Cases--Grouping of Cases
+ considered in relation to Preventive Measures--Disinfection
+ and Other Measures of Precaution.
+
+
+ CHAPTER XLIII
+
+ ANTHRAX: ITS RELATION TO THE WOOL INDUSTRY. By JOHN
+ HENRY BELL, M.D., _Consulting Medical Officer, Bradford Royal
+ Infirmary; Consulting Surgeon, Bradford Eye and Ear Hospital_, 634
+
+ Cutaneous Anthrax--Erysipelatous Anthrax: Symptoms; Diagnosis;
+ Prognosis--Pulmonary Anthrax: Symptoms; Duration
+ of Illness; Diagnosis; Prognosis; Incubation--Pathological
+ Changes: External; Internal--Intestinal Anthrax--Distribution
+ of the Bacilli--Preventive Measures--The Precautionary
+ Regulations--Treatment.
+
+
+ CHAPTER XLIV
+
+ RAGS AND THEIR PRODUCTS IN RELATION TO HEALTH. By JOHN
+ A. E. STUART, L.R.C.S. (Edin.), _Medical Officer of Health,
+ Batley, Yorkshire_, 644
+
+ Rag-Sorting, Rag-Grinding, Shoddy, Mango, Flocks, Carbonising
+ or Wool-Extracting--Effects of Rag-Sorting on
+ Health--Carbonising--Recommendations.
+
+
+ CHAPTER XLV
+
+ BLANKET STOVING. By JOHN A. E. STUART, L.R.C.S. (Edin.),
+ _Medical Officer of Health, Batley, Yorkshire_, 648
+
+
+ CHAPTER XLVI
+
+ JUTE. By HARRY J. WILSON, _one of H.M. Inspectors of
+ Factories_, 650
+
+
+ CHAPTER XLVII
+
+ LAUNDRY WORKERS. By LUCY A. E. DEANE, _one of H.M. Inspectors
+ of Factories_, 663
+
+
+ CHAPTER XLVIII
+
+ FISH-CURING AND FRUIT-PRESERVING. By MARY M. PATERSON,
+ _one of H.M. Inspectors of Factories_, 673
+
+
+ CHAPTER XLIX
+
+ WOMEN’S LABOUR IN TINPLATE WORKS. By ROSE E. SQUIRE,
+ _one of H.M. Inspectors of Factories_, 681
+
+ Opening--Washing--Pickling--Tin-houses.
+
+
+ CHAPTER L
+
+ WOMEN’S LABOUR IN AERATED WATER WORKS. By ROSE E.
+ SQUIRE, _one of H.M. Inspectors of Factories_, 687
+
+
+ CHAPTER LI
+
+ FLAX AND LINEN. By HENRY S. PURDON, M.D., _Certifying
+ Factory Surgeon; Consulting Physician, Hospital for Skin
+ Diseases, Belfast_, 691
+
+ Historical, Manufacturing, Hygienic, and Medical.
+
+
+ CHAPTER LII
+
+ MANUFACTURE OF COTTON. By JAS. WHEATLEY, M.D., B.Sc. (Lond.),
+ _Medical Officer of Health, Blackburn_, 702
+
+
+ CHAPTER LIII
+
+ RABBIT DOWN. By ROSE E. SQUIRE, _one of H.M. Inspectors of
+ Factories_, 724
+
+
+ CHAPTER LIV
+
+ DISEASES DUE TO WORKING IN COMPRESSED AND STAGNANT AIR.
+ By THOMAS OLIVER, M.A., F.R.C.P., 728
+
+ Caisson Disease: Treatment--Dangers Incidental to the Making
+ of, and Working in, Tunnels--Underground Railways--Divers’
+ Paralysis.
+
+
+ CHAPTER LV
+
+ DISEASES DUE TO DIMINISHED ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE: PURE
+ AND IMPURE GASES. By THOMAS OLIVER, M.D., F.R.C.P., 749
+
+ Mountain Climbers--Military Balloonists.
+
+
+ CHAPTER LVI
+
+ EFFECTS OF CONCUSSION OF THE AIR. By THOMAS OLIVER, M.D.,
+ F.R.C.P., 752
+
+ Boilermakers--Riveters--Shipwrights, etc.
+
+
+ CHAPTER LVII
+
+ IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRIES. By THOMAS OLIVER, M.D., F.R.C.P., 756
+
+ Exposure to High Temperatures, and Severe Muscular
+ Strain--Blacksmiths and Forgemen--Use of Converters in Steel
+ Works--Nail and Chain Making.
+
+
+ CHAPTER LVIII
+
+ EYE DISEASES AND EYE ACCIDENTS IN RELATION TO INDUSTRIAL
+ OCCUPATIONS. By SIMEON SNELL, F.R.C.S. (Edin.), _Ophthalmic
+ Surgeon, Royal Infirmary; and Professor of Ophthalmology,
+ University College, Sheffield_, 761
+
+ Diseases due to Occupations involving prolonged use or excessive
+ strain of the Eyes, such as Nystagmus in Miners and others--Diseases
+ due to Occupations involving the use of certain Poisonous
+ Substances, such as Dinitrobenzol, Bisulphide of Carbon,
+ Tobacco, Lead, etc.--Diseases due to Occupations involving
+ exposure to excessive Light or Heat, or both, such as Burnishers,
+ Steel Melters, Electric Welders, etc.--Exposure to Electric
+ Light--Injuries or Accidents amongst Grinders, Iron and Steel
+ Workers, Masons, Coal Miners, Weavers, etc.--Bursting of
+ Water Gauges on Boilers.
+
+
+ CHAPTER LIX
+
+ MISCELLANEOUS TRADES. By THOMAS OLIVER, M.D., F.R.C.P., 788
+
+ Silicate of Cotton--Upholsterers’ Occupation--Joiners and Carpenters:
+ Workers in Sequoia Wood--Manufacture of Celluloid--Tobacco
+ and Cigar Manufacture--Engine-Drivers and Railway
+ Employés--Drivers of Public Vehicles--Cooks--Confection
+ Makers--Domestic Servants and Housemaids, etc.--Barmen
+ and Dealers in Alcoholic Drinks--Sewing-Machine
+ Workers--Label-licking--Glass Manufacture: Glass-Blowing--Glazed
+ Ware Poisonous from other causes than Lead:
+ Cyanide of Potassium--Coal-Heaving, Coal-Trimming, and
+ Chimney-Sweeping--Manufacture and Use of Emery Wheels.
+
+
+ CHAPTER LX
+
+ OCCUPATION DISEASES DUE TO EXCESSIVELY REPEATED MUSCULAR
+ ACTIONS. By THOMAS OLIVER, M.D., F.R.C.P., 815
+
+ Fatigue Neuroses: Scriveners’ Spasm, or Writers’ Palsy;
+ Telegraphists’ Spasm, or Cramp; Pianoforte Players’ Cramp, etc.;
+ Shoemakers’ Spasm--Boot and Shoe Making.
+
+ APPENDIX: SPECIAL RULES. By HAMILTON P. SMITH, _Retired
+ Commander R.N., and one of H.M. Inspectors of Factories_, 827
+
+
+
+
+ LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+ FIGS. PAGE
+
+ 1. Strong’s “Standard Guard” for Engine Fly-wheels, 207
+
+ 2. Safety Starting-gear for Gas and Oil Engines, 208
+
+ 3. Coupling with Dangerous Projecting Bolt-heads, 209
+
+ 4. Safety Coupling with Countersunk Bolt-heads, 209
+
+ 5. Collar with Dangerous Projecting Set-screw, 209
+
+ 6. Collar with Countersunk Set-screw, 209
+
+ 7. A Safe Form of Set-screw, 215
+
+ 8. For Use with Screwdriver, 215
+
+ 9. Halstead’s Patent Unbreakable Square-hole Solid-ended
+ Grub Screw, 215
+
+ 10. Incomplete Guards for Spur Wheels, 216
+
+ 11. Spur Wheels with Suitable Guards, 216
+
+ 12. A Good Form of Guard to Cover Bevel Wheels 217
+
+ 13. A Method of Covering Shaft Ends with a Sheet-metal Cap, 217
+
+ 14. Knowles’ Improved Safety Hoist, 219
+
+ 15. Morgan’s Patent Safety Catch, 221
+
+ 16. Wadsworth’s Self-landing and Delivering Hoist, 222
+
+ 17. Self-acting Mules. Shows Unsatisfactory Guard, 223
+
+ 18. Shows a Guard which Completely Covers the Band round
+ Pulley, 223
+
+ 19. Self-acting Mules, 224
+
+ 20. Hargreave’s Mule Carriage Wheel Guard, 225
+
+ 21. Hargreave’s Mule Carriage Wheel Guard, 225
+
+ 22. Safe-guards for Ends of Looms, 226
+
+ 23. Shuttle Guard, 227
+
+ 24. Elvatka Guard, 227
+
+ 25. Longmore’s Guard, 228
+
+ 26. Victor Guard, 228
+
+ 27. Woodhouse and Mitchell’s Guard, 229
+
+ 28. Campbell and Greenwood’s Guard, 229
+
+ 29. Power Presses, 230
+
+ 30. Treatment of Persons apparently Killed by Electricity, 264
+
+ 31. Treatment of Persons apparently Killed by Electricity, 265
+
+ 32. Mild Form of Dermatitis in Flax-spinner, 268
+
+ 33. Medium Degree of Dermatitis in Flax-spinner, 268
+
+ 34. Severe Form of Dermatitis in Flax-spinner, 268
+
+ 35. Severe Form of Dermatitis in Flax-spinner, 268
+
+ 36. Disease of Finger Nails in Hide-dressers, 270
+
+ 37. Severe Type of Disease of Finger Nails in a Hide-dresser, 270
+
+ 38. Human Lung in Health, 272
+
+ 39. Lead Miner’s Lung, 272
+
+ 40. Steel Grinder’s Lung, 272
+
+ 41. Coal Miner’s Lung, 272
+
+ 42. Cement, 274
+
+ 43. Sandstone, 274
+
+ 44. Granite, 274
+
+ 45. Lead Dust from Printing Shop, and Type-casting, 274
+
+ 46. Gilchrist-Thomas’ Slag, 276
+
+ 47. Needle Grinding, 276
+
+ 48. Mother-of-Pearl, 276
+
+ 49. Sawdust, 276
+
+ 50. Flax, 276
+
+ 51. Hemp, 276
+
+ 52. Jute, 276
+
+ 53. Cotton, 276
+
+ 54. Silk, 276
+
+ 55. Horn, 276
+
+ 56. Ivory, 276
+
+ 57. Felt Manufacture, 276
+
+ 58. Dust from Fur Brushing Machine, 276
+
+ 59. Dust from Rag Cleaning, 276
+
+ 60. Bone Meal, 276
+
+ 61. Dust from Wheat Cleaning, 276
+
+ 62. Ordinary Slag, 276
+
+ 63. Basic Slag, 276
+
+ 64. Ganister, 276
+
+ 65. Dust from Fork Grinding on Dry Stone, 276
+
+ 66. Powdered Flint, 276
+
+ 67. Glaze Cleaned off Ware, 276
+
+ 68. Lead Mine, 284
+
+ 69. Other View of Lead Mine, 286
+
+ 70. A “Blue” Bed in a White Lead Factory, 288
+
+ 71. Female Carrying Basins Filled with Washed White Lead from
+ Vat to Stoves, 288
+
+ 72. Interior of Stove for Drying White Lead, 290
+
+ 73. Section of Caisson Used in Rebuilding Redheugh Bridge, 729
+
+ 74. The Simplon Tunnel Operations at Iselle, 738
+
+ 75. Section of Simplon Tunnel, showing Difference in Levels
+ between North and South Ends 739
+
+ 76. Section of Simplon Tunnel, showing Cross Gallery by Means of
+ which Air is Transmitted from Ventilating Passage to Head of
+ Tunnel where the Men are Working, 739
+
+ 77. Interior of Bath-house and Vestiary for the Miners at the
+ Simplon Tunnel, Iselle, 740
+
+ 78. Bottom Holing, 762
+
+ 79. Bottom Holing. (To show Position of Head and Eyes), 762
+
+ 80. Deputy Examining Roof, 764
+
+ 81. Grinders. Edge-tool Grinding, 778
+
+ 82. Men Engaged in Chipping, 780
+
+ 83. Chipping against a Screen. Men Wearing Protectors, 780
+
+ 84. Protectors, 782
+
+ 85. Glass-blower when in Normal Condition, 806
+
+ 86. A later Photograph of Glass-blower in Fig. 85, showing
+ RelaxedCondition of Cheeks, 806
+
+ 87. German Sweep’s Costume, 810
+
+ 88. Belgian Sweep’s Costume, 810
+
+ 89. Shoemakers’ Chest, 823
+
+
+
+
+ LIST OF AUTHORS
+
+
+ ANDERSON, ADELAIDE M.
+ BALLANTYNE, A.
+ BELL, JOHN HENRY, M.D.
+ BROWN, JOHN, M.D., D.P.H.
+ COLLINGRIDGE, WILLIAM, M.D., ETC.
+ CUNYNGHAME, HENRY H., C.B.
+ DEANE, LUCY A. E.
+ DODD, JOHN R., M.D., ETC.
+ HALDANE, JOHN, M.D., F.R.S.
+ HAMER, W. H., M.D., F.R.C.P.
+ HEDLEY, JOHN, M.D.
+ JONES, H. LEWIS, M.D.
+ KELYNACK, T. N., M.D., M.R.C.P.
+ KEY, A. COOPER, _Major, late R.A._
+ KNYVETT, SEYMOUR H., M.A. (Oxon.)
+ LAURIE, A. P., M.A.
+ LEGGE, T. MORISON, M.D.
+ LOUIS, HENRY, M.A., A.R.S.M., F.I.C., F.G.S.
+ M’MILLAN, MARGARET.
+ MORRIS, MALCOLM, F.R.C.S.
+ OLIVER, THOMAS, M.D., F.R.C.P.
+ PATERSON, MARY M.
+ POWER, D’ARCY, F.R.C.S.
+ PURDON, HENRY S., M.D.
+ REID, GEORGE, M.D., D.P.H.
+ RICHMOND, H. S., B.A.
+ SIMON, ROBERT M., B.A., M.D. (Cantab.), F.R.C.P.
+ SMITH, HAMILTON, P., _Retired Commander R.N._
+ SNELL, SIMEON, F.R.C.S. (Edin.).
+ SQUIRE, ROSE E.
+ STUART, JOHN A. E., L.R.C.S. (Edin.)
+ TATHAM, JOHN, M.A., M.D., F.R.C.P.
+ TENNANT, H. J., M.P.
+ TENNANT, Mrs H. J.
+ WHEATLEY, JAMES, M.D., B.Sc.
+ WHITE, ROBERT PROSSER, M.D.
+ WHITE, SINCLAIR, F.R.C.S.
+ WILSON, HARRY J.
+
+
+
+
+ DANGEROUS TRADES
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER I
+
+ INTRODUCTION
+
+
+The commencement of the Twentieth Century finds us discussing problems
+and elaborating plans for the amelioration of the life of the people.
+The last few years have witnessed an unexampled awakening of the public
+to a sense of its responsibility in regard to conditions of labour and
+unhealthy trades. The question is not should men and women work, but
+how do particular trades affect individuals, physically and morally?
+Like human life itself, industrial occupation has been a passage
+from the simple to the complex, a process of evolution wherein each
+succeeding stage of industrial development has been attended by labour
+problems, social difficulties, and diseases particularly its own. An
+attempt has been made to include within this book special knowledge,
+and I have preferred that each contributor should express his or her
+own opinions unfettered by editorial requirements, since the object
+sought is not the promulgation of the views of a particular school,
+but enlightenment, so that the lot of our working classes may be
+improved, industrial hygiene promoted, and higher ideals if possible
+attained. Living in a democratic age, we hear much of the claims of
+the right to live, right to work, and the right of workers to a larger
+share of the produce of their labour. These are not the subjects
+dealt with in the following pages. There are certain side issues that
+deserve consideration, but which can only be mentioned here. Social
+advancement and commercial prosperity, while creating fresh desires,
+often increase the difficulty of satisfying natural wants. The growth
+of large towns and the concentration of people in the crowded homes
+of our great cities are limiting the amount of pure air necessary to
+the life of those collected there. Drinking water has to be brought
+from distant sources and at great expense. The removal of the waste
+or refuse of human activity is often as difficult a problem as the
+conveyance of the necessaries of life. It is not, however, with such
+problems as these we are concerned, but rather with the conditions
+under which labour is carried on and its effect upon the people.
+Manual labour and handicrafts exercised for the purpose of gain were
+in a measure formerly controlled by family interests, subsequently by
+guilds, and to-day they are largely regulated by trade unions. By trade
+unions an attempt has been made, not only to sell labour in the highest
+market, but to artificially restrict output by objecting to the use
+of machinery, by requiring that machines shall run at a speed lower
+than their full capacity, by demanding one day’s holiday during the
+working week, claiming in many instances a uniform wage alike for the
+skilled and the less skilled workman, and a reduction of the working
+hours without a corresponding reduction of wages. Such methods in the
+long run cannot but be disadvantageous to the workers themselves, for
+they discourage industrial energy and enterprise, without which the
+wage-fund must inevitably fall. Instead of mutual co-operation there
+is an unnecessary conflict between labour and capital. The demands of
+organised labour already mentioned have called forth a marshalling
+of the forces of capital. Industrial competition concerns the sale
+of labour as well as that of products. Some persons maintain that in
+the bargaining that goes on capital has the advantage over labour.
+Without expressing an opinion upon this point, it is apparent that
+only organised capital is capable of holding its own against organised
+labour.
+
+The change from the domestic system of industry to the modern methods
+of production by machinery and steam power forms what is known as the
+Industrial Revolution, and marks an important epoch in the history of
+the world. Within the last one hundred and thirty years the changes
+produced in the social and intellectual condition of the people have
+been enormous. Ever since the Industrial Revolution in our own country
+there has been gradually coming a greater demand for knowledge on the
+part of those workpeople who may subsequently acquire the control of
+industries and direct the manufacture of machinery. There has been
+created, if not immediately, certainly by degrees, a need both for
+general education throughout the country and a special education for
+those who wish to become leaders. On the one hand it has been felt
+desirable to counteract the cramping effects of machinery and to
+diminish the dwarfing influences of the division of labour upon the
+intellect of the workpeople by giving them the benefits of a wider
+education. As knowledge has been gained by the artisan classes,
+their aspirations have naturally risen. With improved constitutional
+means for the redress of grievances there has been in many instances
+a gradual supplanting of methods that involve acts of violence and
+intimidation, which years ago disgraced our large industrial centres.
+Thus is it that while in the early decades of last century, shortly
+after the Industrial Revolution and before labour had become organised,
+factory legislation was promoted by the wealthier classes for the
+benefit of the workers, the latter at the present time, with their
+improved education and personal knowledge, can themselves bring to bear
+upon the legislature demands for reform that are deserving of careful
+consideration, especially when these are not extravagant and do not far
+exceed the limit of experience. Factory legislation, while it embodies
+the opinions of Members of Parliament who have studied labour problems
+theoretically, and of a few who have practical knowledge, is a State
+direction of our industries so far as relates to the safety, health,
+and moral condition of the people, and which embraces to-day, more
+than in any other epoch, the opinions of the workers themselves. The
+story of factory life in Britain, of the long hours of toil spent by
+children in the mills, and the physical suffering they endured, remains
+a blot upon the pages of British history. Britain was the pioneer
+of factory legislation--does she still lead the way? Her commercial
+supremacy, we are told, is questioned, and the position she has long
+held is being threatened by increasing competition. Despite this fact
+there is a disinclination on the part of British manufacturers to admit
+the necessity of learning anything from their Continental or American
+friends. Is our country, both as regards methods of production and
+factory legislation, abreast of the times and of other nations? Instead
+of manufacturers hugging themselves into a state of industrial lethargy
+which our insular position and national prejudices encourage, it would
+be well if they sent their sons and heads of departments abroad to see
+what other nations are doing.
+
+Several things have prevented factory legislation being as far forward
+as it ought to be. In our country no Government, however strong, can
+hope to successfully introduce social legislation largely affecting
+personal interests until public opinion has been educated to the belief
+that the remedies proposed are really necessary. The facts likely to
+carry conviction can only be produced after years of careful study and
+investigation, consequently factory legislation has to some extent
+progressed slowly. It is, however, fair to say that when certain
+trades’ organisations or representative bodies combine to secure
+amendments to Bills which, in their opinion, appear necessary, there
+is a tendency on both sides of the Houses of Parliament to drop party
+considerations, and to give facilities for well-considered legislation
+likely to benefit the community. At this stage of our inquiry it may
+therefore be not inopportune to refer to the Factory Act recently
+passed (August 1901), the framing of Special Rules, and the means of
+securing their observance.
+
+In matters industrial the Home Secretary is not endowed with authority
+equal to that enjoyed by similar officials on the Continent. The
+arbitrary powers granted by foreign Governments for the regulation of
+factories do not commend themselves to English politicians, and this
+was borne in mind by the framers of the clauses in the Factory Act of
+1891 relating to Special Rules and requirements, when each and every
+occupier could demand that a matter of difference between himself and
+the Secretary of State should be referred to arbitration. This system
+may be said to have answered fairly well when dealing with small
+trades, but certainly not in regard to extensive industries, such,
+for instance, as the manufacture of pottery. In this particular trade
+litigation has gone on for many years, and the questions at issue, at
+the time of writing, are not yet settled. The methods now proposed
+should not only secure fair-play to the manufacturer and the worker,
+but should obviate loss of time and unnecessary labour. Under the Act
+of 1891 the Secretary of State could not be held responsible to the
+House of Commons, or to the country, for the final word rested with an
+irresponsible arbitrator. Under the more recent provisions the ultimate
+decision will rest, as it undoubtedly should, with Parliament. Having
+certified that in his opinion any manufacture, machinery, process,
+or description of manual labour used in factories or workshops is
+dangerous, the Secretary of State may (subject to the provisions of the
+Act) make such regulations as appear to him reasonable and practicable.
+He must publish the proposals, with information as to where copies of
+the suggested regulations can be obtained, and the time within which
+objections may be made by, or on behalf of, the persons affected. He
+is bound to consider their objections, and may, if he thinks fit,
+amend the draft regulations, but where he does not amend or withdraw
+these draft regulations, he is required to direct an inquiry by a
+competent person, to be held in public, and the chief inspector, any
+objector, or any other person affected, may appear either in person, by
+counsel, or solicitor or agent. The witnesses may be examined on oath.
+The proposed regulations may apply to all factories and workshops in
+which the manufacture, machinery, process, or description of labour
+certified to be dangerous is used, or to any specified class of
+factories or workshops. The regulations may provide for the exemption
+of any specified class of factories or workshops, either absolutely or
+subject to conditions. They may prohibit the employment, and modify or
+limit the period of employment, of all persons or any class of persons
+in any process certified to be dangerous. They may prohibit the use of
+any material or process, and modify or extend any special regulations
+for any class of factories and workshops contained in the Factory Acts.
+The regulations made under the new provisions shall not come into force
+until they have been laid for a period of six weeks before both Houses
+of Parliament. In the _London Gazette_ must be published notice of
+the regulations made, and an announcement of the place where copies of
+these can be procured.
+
+The right of arbitration conceded to manufacturers has been sometimes
+regarded as one of the means whereby the benefits of factory
+legislation have been diminished. No person considers it desirable for
+industrial liberty to be crippled by Acts of Parliament, or industrial
+progress checked by Home Office interference, and yet the dictates of
+humanity demand that no labour shall exceed the limits of endurance
+of the workers, and that all occupations shall be made as healthy as
+possible. The history of factory legislation is a record of attempts
+made to better the conditions of labour, improve the health of workers,
+and control the disposing power of employers over their workpeople.
+Those who blame State interference as the cause of the doubtful decline
+of our industrial supremacy, and who believe that it is checking
+enterprise, are not making a sufficiently serious attempt to grapple
+with the question by sifting all the facts carefully. It can be
+demonstrated that legislation has not paralysed but has improved trade
+as well as the conditions of labour.
+
+At a meeting of the chemical industry in Glasgow, on 24th July 1901,
+Mr Joseph Wilson Swan remarked that “two causes are contributing to
+our loss as a nation in the chemical and metallurgical industries.
+One is the supplanting of old methods of manufacture by newer,
+_e.g._, the application of electricity. The electro-chemical and
+electro-metallurgical industries of the future are grouping themselves
+around large water-power stations,--90 per cent. of the power thus
+used being obtained on the Continent from waterfalls. We have no such
+available water-power in Britain, but we possess instead an abundance
+of cheap coal. The other cause is the lack of scientific training,
+and the indifference of our leaders of industry to the results of
+scientific research. They are contented with the methods of production
+of a bygone age. Their plant is old.” It is circumstances such as
+these that explain, for example, the decay of the chemical industry
+on Tyneside, and its transference to other localities at home and
+abroad. As regards the causes that are threatening our industrial
+supremacy, apart from the serious attempts made by countries possessing
+the raw materials to complete the finished products on the spot, thus
+hitting hard our textile and iron industries, I would emphasise the
+higher technical education of the men who are heads of departments in
+factories abroad compared with those in similar positions at home.
+They are on the Continent a superior class of men. I am not for a
+moment contending that the German or French workman is, as a workman,
+superior to the average British artisan similarly employed. In many
+respects I think our own is the more capable man; but the foreigner
+is better directed, owing to the fact that the managers’ assistants
+and principal foremen have been highly instructed; several of them
+have had a University training, and they thus possess a theoretical as
+well as a practical knowledge of the particular industry. Besides, it
+is well known that in Germany at least, large firms employ men well
+trained in chemistry and physics to do nothing but research work, with
+the view of not only finding out new products, but of improving them
+and cheapening their manufacture. Industrial methods, in a word, are
+more scientifically studied on the Continent than at home, so that
+while such labour troubles as strikes, and the higher wages paid to
+English workmen, are to some extent responsible for the loss of some
+of our manufactures and their transference to the Continent, the
+cheapening of methods of production has not been without its influence.
+As international competition becomes keener, and our manufacturers
+endeavour to produce more cheaply by increasing the speed of their
+machinery, there will be imposed upon the workpeople greater tension
+during the hours of labour. Will this circumstance, also the rising
+rents of houses and the consequent overcrowding in our large towns,
+improve the physique of future workers? A study of the prospects of
+the artisan classes is of necessity many-sided, since it must deal
+not only with the effect of work upon their health, but take into
+consideration the influence of their home life and surroundings. Our
+large industries, excluding mining, have scarcely existed long enough
+for us to realise to the full the physical changes they are inducing
+in the workpeople. Hitherto there has been no great difficulty in
+obtaining strongly-built men of good muscular development for hard
+manual labour. Many of these have been taken from rural districts. As
+these districts are becoming depopulated, they will cease to be the
+source of supply they have been in the past. It is not altogether idle
+to ask how far the second and third generations of the town-bred poorer
+working classes will possess the necessary physical powers for hard
+toil. Overcrowding and poverty are exercising a degenerating influence
+upon the rising generation; besides, industrial occupation as carried
+on in several of our large textile districts is preventing rather than
+encouraging development, especially when children are employed at too
+early an age. There is something in the air of such factories, it may
+be the excessive heat and moisture, or the animal products given off
+during perspiration and breathing, that interferes with the nutrition
+of the body and checks its growth.
+
+Half-timers, fortunately, are becoming fewer and fewer. Experience has
+shown that they are not equal in physique to their classmates who are
+allowed to remain all day at school. When healthy country children
+have been taken into the factories of large towns, it has been found
+that their normal rate of growth has been checked, so that after two
+or three years’ work in the mills, they are observed to be of shorter
+stature than their former playmates left at home and allowed to
+rusticate. There is a limit to each person’s capability of doing work,
+and when this is passed, the results are harmful. We should not ask
+from any person more than his powers will enable him to accomplish.
+For mechanical as well as manual labour there is a determined number
+of hours beyond which the worker cannot proceed without physical
+suffering on his part, while industrially with each succeeding hour
+occupied there is a diminishing production. It is knowledge of this
+fact, apart from economic considerations, that is used as a lever by
+the working classes to obtain parliamentary sanction to limit still
+further the hours of labour. Our attention, for example, is directed to
+Australia, where, since 1856, the hours of toil have been reduced to
+eight per day with a satisfactory result. In the coal mines, as well
+as in the factories of Sydney, the week’s work is forty-four hours.
+The eight-hours’ day has also been instituted in Tasmania, Victoria,
+and New South Wales. A few years ago an eight-hours’ day was conceded
+to the men employed in Woolwich Arsenal, and as this turned out to be
+satisfactory, the Admiralty, in July 1894, took a similar step. There
+are many writers who maintain that to a reasonable diminution in the
+number of hours devoted to work there corresponds a qualitative and
+quantitative increased production. There is a maximum beyond which
+production is not profitable. The produce of one particular period
+of the day cannot always be compared with that of another. While the
+reduction from twelve to ten hours’ labour may have been beneficial,
+and may even have improved production, it does not necessarily
+follow that a reduction from nine to eight would be followed by a
+corresponding result, and a reduction from eight to seven hours by
+one still better. On this and other points the facts detailed further
+on in this book by Mr A. P. Laurie, in his paper on Chemical Trades
+under the heading “Health of Chemical Workers, etc.,” will be found
+interesting. Too long hours are certainly a cause of accidents in
+factories. Experience alone can settle the question of the number of
+hours to be worked, and that number must clearly be not the same for
+every occupation. Common sense, too, must dictate the minimum limit
+of working hours. Men and women are conscious when their occupation
+exceeds their strength; but the demands of the machinery they tend are
+exacting, and so no difference is made between the strong and feeble
+workmen. A few years ago, Messrs Mather & Platt, iron manufacturers,
+Salford, reduced the number of hours worked in their factory from
+fifty-three to forty-eight per week without reducing the wages of the
+men, and this regulation is still, I believe, in force. Employers have
+frequently questioned the value of the work done by the men between 6
+A.M. and 8 A.M. Mr Mather holds the opinion that the first two hours
+before breakfast are hardly worth the trouble and disarrangement which
+they cause alike to the employers and the workers. Not only are these
+two hours ineffective from a productive point of view, but their effect
+upon the physical and mental condition of the men is to diminish their
+vigour and spirits and their interest in what they are doing.
+
+Coal mining is one of those industries from which an answer to this
+question of the effectiveness of work in the early morning hours might
+be expected, for the men work in two relays, a “fore” and “aft” shift,
+and they change every fortnight. When working in the fore shift the
+miners enter the pit about 3 A.M., and when in the aft at 10 A.M.,
+each working in the North of England about six and a half hours. Mr
+Ralph Young, Secretary to the Northumberland Miners’ Mutual Confident
+Association, informs me, in answer to questions addressed to him on
+this point, that the present method of working coal mines scarcely
+allows of a satisfactory reply being given as to whether more work is
+done during the fore or aft shift. There is a feeling among some of the
+miners themselves that they can do more work in the fore shift, _i.e._,
+between 3 A.M. and 10 A.M., but they attribute this circumstance not
+to the particular hour of the day in which work is carried on, but to
+the fact that the air in the coal mine is fresher and purer then than
+later on in the day. In other occupations it is equally difficult to
+get at the real facts of the case. To questions of a similar character
+addressed to twenty foremen and men working in a large iron and steel
+factory on Tyneside, I received the following answer--that more work is
+done in the hours 9 to 11 A.M. than 6 to 8 A.M., and that a man does
+more work after than before his breakfast. As regards the influence of
+day and night shift, they all agreed that less work was done on the
+night shift compared with the same number of hours of the day, but it
+is difficult to express this in terms of percentages. Some of the men
+stated that the amounts varied from 10 to 20 per cent. Against this, it
+is only right to mention that some of my Infirmary patients working in
+the same factory have told me that they believed after a time they did
+as much work on the night as on the day shift. It was entirely a matter
+of habit.
+
+The Workmen’s Compensation Act, which was so strongly opposed by many
+employers on the supposed ground that it would ruin the industries of
+this country, has had apparently no effect in that direction. Although
+it has theoretically increased their financial liability, as a matter
+of fact many employers have been less out of pocket than formerly. The
+Act has cleared the industrial atmosphere, made employers more careful
+in their selection of workmen, more willing to safeguard machinery, and
+do all they reasonably can to prevent accidents. It pays them to do so.
+
+Until July 1898, when the Workmen’s Compensation Act of the previous
+year came into force, in the case of all accidents coming under either
+the common law or the Employers’ Liability Act 1880, the basis of the
+action was negligence or wrongful act on the part of the defendant, or
+of some person for whom the defendant was responsible. Since 1898 it
+matters little how the accident was caused, the employer is held liable
+by the Act of 1897. Certain trades only are included under the Act,
+_e.g._, railways, factories, docks, laundries, mines, buildings 30
+feet high, and any building in which machinery is driven by mechanical
+power. So far as compensation for injury is concerned, the workman must
+be incapacitated for more than two weeks as the result of the injury
+before he can receive any benefit under the Act. After a fortnight a
+weekly payment is secured to him of one half of his weekly wages during
+his period of incapacity, or for six months, after which the employer
+can claim to have his liability redeemed by paying a lump sum fixed by
+agreement or arbitration. In the case of death the employer is liable
+to the extent of three years’ wages, or 156 times the average weekly
+earnings of the deceased workman during his period of employment, the
+amount to be not less than £150 and not more than £300.
+
+When the Workmen’s Compensation Bill was introduced it was strongly
+opposed, as already stated, on the grounds that it would injure
+trade and ruin many employers. So far, events have not justified
+this suspicion, but have shown that these fears were more or less
+groundless. In providing compensation for injured workmen, Britain was
+only doing what other nations on the Continent, especially Germany, had
+already accomplished. It was thought at the time that the operation
+of the Workmen’s Compensation Act would very materially affect the
+output and price of coal as well as the wages of the miners. There is
+no clear evidence that it has increased the price of coal. The cost
+of compensation paid in Northumberland and Durham does not exceed
+one halfpenny per ton, while the cost under the Act for the United
+Kingdom is under three farthings per ton. This is a small sum compared
+with the threepence we were informed would be added to the price of
+each ton of coal. One way in which the Act might indirectly increase
+the price of coal would be by restraining timid capitalists from
+investing money in coal mining through fear of being ruined by some
+great accident or explosion; but this is a remote probability, and a
+contingency that could be met by insurance. Nor can it be shown that
+the Workmen’s Compensation Act has had any effect upon the miner’s
+wages. Theoretically the wages of miners should fall _pro rata_
+with the benefits received under the Act, but as the benefits will
+not be more than 1½ per cent. of the wages, any readjustment would
+be small. It cannot be said that in coal mining the Act has had any
+noticeable effect one way or the other, so far as the number of
+accidents is concerned. For several years prior to 1898, owing to newer
+and more scientific methods, the number of accidents in coal mines had
+been diminishing. It would appear from the reports of Mr Hedley, H.M.
+Inspector of Mines for Northumberland, Cumberland, and North Durham,
+that during 1899 there were 84 lives lost, and in 1900 the number was
+105, or a ratio of 1 death for every 784 persons employed, against 1
+for every 924 in 1899; in 1898 the ratio was 1 in 1053, and for the
+five years 1893|97 the ratio was 1 in 895.[1]
+
+Mr Ralph Young has abstracted from the annual reports of the
+Northumberland and Durham Miners’ Permanent Relief Fund the following
+facts, showing the number of fatal and non|fatal accidents, with the
+percentages of non|fatal accidents, spread over ten years in the North
+of England.
+
+
+ MINERS’ PERMANENT RELIEF FUND.
+
+ +------+-------------+------------------+--------------+--------------+
+ | | | | | Percentage of|
+ | Year.| Membership. | Fatal Accidents. | Non-Fatal | Non-Fatal |
+ | | | | Accidents. | Accidents. |
+ +------+-------------+------------------+--------------+--------------+
+ | 1890 | 107,997 | 158 | 16,000 | 14.9 |
+ | 1891 | 113,126 | 167 | 16,500 | |
+ | 1892 | 114,326 | 149 | 13,000(_a_)| 12.24 |
+ | 1893 | 115,361 | 177 | 16,400 | 14.21 |
+ | 1894 | 121,133 | 166 | 17,000 | |
+ | 1895 | 121,944 | 168 | 17,450 | 14.42 |
+ | 1896 | 122,257 | 163 | 19,200 | 15.7 |
+ | 1897 | 124,920 | 204 | 20,000 | 16.01 |
+ | 1898 | 127,564 | 159 | 19,511 | 15.28 |
+ | 1899 | 130,552 | 197 | 19,484 | 14.8 |
+ | 1900 | 137,073 | 198 | 18,470 | 13.4 |
+ +------+-------------+------------------+--------------+--------------+
+ (_a_) Durham Strike, 90,000 members idle for 13 weeks.
+
+The Workmen’s Compensation Act came into force in 1898, but it cannot
+be said, looking at the foregoing figures, that it has had any
+material influence upon the number of accidents in coal mines, nor,
+as was anticipated, has it so far displaced many of the older miners
+by younger men. There is a remarkable constancy in the number of pit
+accidents. I have tried to ascertain whether there is any decade in a
+miner’s life during which accidents are more numerous than another,
+but statistics do not support the supposition. There is a personal and
+age element that must not be lost sight of, also one of fatigue. The
+older miners have experience and caution; the younger, if rash and less
+experienced, are more alert and can get out of danger quicker.
+
+As bearing upon this part of our inquiry, the annual reports of the
+Chief Inspector of Factories give the following information:--
+
+ +-------------------+---------------------------------------------------+
+ | |ACCIDENTS REPORTED TO CERTIFYING SURGEONS, AND ALSO|
+ | | TO INSPECTORS. |
+ +-------------------+-----------------------+---------------------------+
+ | INDUSTRY. | Fatal. | Non-Fatal. |
+ | +-----+-----+-----+-----+------+------+------+------+
+ | |1900.|1899.|1898.|1897.|1900. |1899. |1898. |1897. |
+ +-------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+------+------+------+------+
+ | Textile Total, | 70 | 52 | 59 | 43 | 4,647| 4,332| 3,786| 3,565|
+ | Non-Textile Total,| 975 | 819 | 668 | 615 |22,012|17,568|14,714|11,762|
+ +-------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+------+------+------+------+
+ | Grand Total, |1045 | 871 | 727 | 658 |26,659|21,900|18,500|15,327|
+ +-------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+------+------+------+------+
+
+In reference to these figures Dr Whitelegge states that there has been
+an increase in the numbers of _reported_ accidents since 1897, the
+year previous to the coming into effect of the Workmen’s Compensation
+Act. Many considerations other than the Workmen’s Compensation Act
+have to be taken into account, _e.g._, the better reporting
+of accidents, activity of trade, and classification of industries.
+From these figures of the Chief Inspector of Factories no definite
+conclusion can be drawn as to the influence of the Act in preventing
+accidents. As a contrast it should be mentioned that in some large
+factories where an “Accident Compensation Fund” previously existed
+under the Employer’s Liability Act, to which employers and employed
+contributed in the ratio of 2 to 1, and out of which all accidents
+were compensated, statistics show a remarkable falling off in the
+number of reported accidents under the Workmen’s Compensation Act.
+In some works these are now only one-third of what they were. This
+reduction is probably explained not by any change in the methods of
+production, nor by better safe-guarding of machinery, but by the fact
+that while previously all accidents, however trivial, were reported and
+compensated, accidents under the Act of 1897 must be of such severity
+as to prevent the individual following his employment for two weeks
+before he is entitled to compensation.
+
+Although difficult to prove by actual statistics, there is a feeling
+that the Act has on the whole been beneficial alike to employer and
+workmen. It is this circumstance that has induced some Members of
+Parliament to press for an extension of the Act so as to include
+a larger number of industries, and particularly those regarded as
+Dangerous Trades. One of the principal features of the Workmen’s
+Compensation Act is that it fixes the liability upon the employer,
+so that where an accident causes injury to health or the death
+of a working man the individual himself or his relatives receive
+compensation. If the circumstance solely of ill-health or of death
+caused through work, and not violence or the manner in which either of
+these has been induced, were made the principle that ought to underlie
+the operations of the Act of 1897, there would be found many persons
+who, taking effects alone into consideration, would recognise no
+difference between ill health the result of an accident in a factory,
+and ill health brought about by working at a particular trade known
+to be dangerous. Ought dangerous trades, therefore, to be brought
+within the scope of the Workmen’s Compensation Act? Many advocate their
+inclusion. The law recognises that trade shall be made as healthy
+as possible, and it takes steps to secure this, both by providing
+regulations and penalising those who transgress these regulations.
+Will it go further, and impose a burden upon the employer by making
+him compensate a workman injured in health when it can be shown that,
+even where all precautions have been taken, ill health has followed?
+Occupation ought to be the opportunity whereby an individual, in return
+for work done, should receive sufficient wages to enable him to live,
+and not, as it occasionally is when he is employed in a dangerous
+trade, the means whereby he becomes the subject of ill health at an
+early age, and is thrown as a burden upon the ratepayers for the
+remainder of his life. No high wages paid to men to undertake work in a
+dangerous trade, even if it were always the case that such were paid,
+can adequately compensate the affected workman for the loss of health
+caused by following a dangerous occupation. Many dangerous trades are
+far from being highly paid. The class of workpeople who are affected
+by these industries are usually very poor, their occupation is often
+interrupted, and they are not organised into Unions, so that they
+neither contribute to the funds of, nor do they receive benefits from,
+a Friendly Society. The Workmen’s Compensation Act makes accident the
+sole circumstance that enables an individual to receive compensation.
+As the Act stands at present it is clearly meant to distinguish
+between accident and disease. It is a disputable point, for example,
+how far a fatal disease like anthrax caught in a wool-combing factor
+is not as much an accident beyond the control and expectation of the
+individual workman as the fatal burns caused by the sudden ignition of
+some spirit paint in a shipyard. A similar line of argument might be
+made to apply to other trades. The man who gets his arm broken by a
+piece of machinery in motion or by a barrel falling off a trolley in
+a colour factory receives a weekly allowance from his employers; but
+another man who becomes paralysed in both hands as a consequence of
+having filled the barrels with white lead in the same factory does not
+receive any part of his wages at all when off ill. It is said that the
+Act only recognises the fact of external injuries, but it goes beyond
+this, for a workman may die as a consequence of shock without any sign
+of external injury and yet his relatives receive compensation. It is
+the fact of personal and not external injury that underlies the Act. Is
+phosphorus necrosis, which is a purely personal malady, an accident?
+The Act answers--No.
+
+There is considerable difficulty in defining what is meant by
+industrial disease. It would be well if we could have some clearer
+conception of what is implied both by “industrial disease” and
+“dangerous trades,” for there is scarcely any trade or occupation that
+is not attended by some risk or another. It is admitted that certain
+occupations involve exceptional risks. Theory cannot determine what
+these trades are, but experience and inquiry can. As an illustration,
+I might mention that of 22 trades suggested as dangerous, and given by
+the Home Secretary to the Dangerous Trades Committee to investigate,
+careful inquiry showed they could not all be included in this category.
+
+In the case of an accident there is usually the history of a violent
+cause in operation, and there is the fact of an injury received.
+Yet even with accidents there are certain contributing factors,
+_e.g._, the length of the working day, the previous ill health
+of the workman, and his state of debility anterior to the accident.
+Old age, too, aggravates the harmful effects of an accident. It is
+accessories such as these that have made legislation difficult and
+tied the hands of Governments. The subject is one to which at home Mr
+H. J. Tennant, M.P., Sir Charles Dilke, Bart., M.P., Sir John Stirling
+Maxwell, Bart., M.P., Mr John Burns, M.P., and other members of the
+House of Commons have given considerable study, and to which among
+others on the Continent, Mr Arthur Verhægen, member of the Belgian
+Superior Council of Labour, drew the attention of members at the
+Congrès International des Accidents du Travail in Brussels in 1897.
+Several writers have defined industrial disease. Dr Van der Borght
+says: “Industrial diseases are those maladies which arise as the result
+of the prolonged action of harmful influences in certain occupations,
+and which consequently and exclusively occur in persons working in
+these trades, or at least more frequently than in other persons in
+general.” Dr Glibert, Medical Inspector of Labour, Belgium, says:
+“Every disease recognised as particularly frequent in a profession
+ought to be considered as an industrial disease to the extent that it
+is clearly due to the risks in the trade.” By the term occupation or
+industrial disease we mean, briefly, disease the direct effects of
+a particular trade in which a person is engaged. In many instances
+there are also included maladies that are the result of pathological
+alterations of structure, _indirectly_ induced by the occupation.
+Colic, for example, might be regarded as a _direct_ effect of
+working in lead, and yet this is unaccompanied by structural alteration
+in the wall of the intestine; on the other hand, kidney disease in
+the file-cutter is very slowly developed, and although, as regards
+its production, there are other causes in operation than lead, still
+the kidney lesion is believed to be a remote or _indirect_
+consequence of plumbism. As artisans are liable to the ordinary
+ailments of humanity, it is necessary to carefully sift statements so
+as to eliminate all causes other than those related to the particular
+industry in question. To the production of occupation disease, several
+factors contribute. Even in the causation of such an indisputable
+malady as industrial lead poisoning, it is well to remember how
+important is the part played by individual idiosyncrasy, while in the
+badly ventilated state of one factory compared with another, the home
+life and surroundings of the workpeople, poverty, heredity, age, and
+sex are to be found conditions that favour its production, and are
+therefore not to be ignored. Usually it is a gradual deterioration of
+health that is produced. There is nothing of the nature of an acute
+illness in industrial disease comparable with an accident. The only
+occupation disease that approaches accident in the suddenness of its
+development is anthrax, and even here the prospects of recovery are
+influenced by the channel of invasion, the severity of the attack, the
+vital resistance and idiosyncrasy of the affected individual. Take
+another example: it is not always easy to draw a distinction between
+potters’ phthisis due to the inhalation of dust when at work, and
+a broncho-pneumonia which has become tuberculous, and yet potters’
+consumption in the early stages may be as much the result of the trade
+at which the person has worked as is the paralysis of the file-cutter.
+
+In order to make an employer liable for an occupation disease there
+would have to be a stated limit as to the length of time an individual
+had worked in a particular factory, and as in some of the dangerous
+trades the workpeople change frequently from factory to factory,
+it would be difficult to prove under which employer the malady was
+caught. Carelessness on the part of the employed, through ignorance or
+intention, would also have to be disproved. In the case of workpeople
+who spend practically the whole of their life in one factory, say a
+white lead works, and who at the end of twenty or thirty years’ service
+find themselves the victims of an incurable form of plumbism, humanity
+and good feeling alike should indicate to the employer his obligation
+to the affected workmen. Yet even here the question might be raised,
+did the workman fully attend to all the regulations when in the factory
+as regards personal cleanliness, and were his habits, when not working,
+those of a temperate man? Mr Verhægen gives illustrations of the
+difficulty of exactly defining occupation disease. A workman becomes
+the driver of a public vehicle, and in the course of time, having
+developed rheumatism, he is obliged to give up work. To the individual
+thus crippled by rheumatism, is the employer financially liable? One
+can scarcely think so, for the simple reason that while exposure to
+inclement weather may be a cause of rheumatism, certain persons are by
+heredity predisposed to it, and would develop the malady irrespective
+of what their calling in life might be. Besides, are delicate men
+and imprudent drivers to be placed on the same footing as robust and
+careful men? Verhægen recognises the inexactitude, and states that
+if we would but limit the term occupation disease to conditions of
+ill health due to _poisoning_ caused by coming into contact with
+certain chemical and other agents used in such industries as lucifer
+match making, colour grinding, etc., the difficulty would be materially
+lessened. It would still not always be easy to assign to one particular
+factory, especially when it was known that the workman had moved from
+place to place, the blame for having caused ill health. Even in cases
+of “phossy jaw,” in which it is generally admitted that exposure to the
+fumes of yellow phosphorus is its cause, there is yet some doubt as
+to whether the necrosis of bone is entirely due to this circumstance,
+or partly to it and the operation of micro-organisms. Take, too, the
+diseases of Italian miners and of the colliers of Belgium, particularly
+ankylostomiasis. Dr Kuborn of Seraing, in discussing this question,
+maintains that the maladies special to mining have their origin very
+largely in the kind of life the men lead, their inattention to the
+rules of ordinary hygiene both in their home and person, excesses
+of various kinds, imperfect feeding and clothing, etc., causes to
+the influence of which want of education greatly contributes. In
+some industries there are inherent dangers, and yet with care these
+can be diminished if not removed. Ventilation of British coal pits,
+for example, has practically abolished pulmonary consumption in our
+miners. Experience shows that there is scarcely a dangerous trade from
+which, with extreme care and attention to regulations, the dangerous
+influences cannot be largely removed. There is no occupation so risky
+to life as the manufacture of the high explosives. I have had the
+opportunity of visiting the largest explosives works in the kingdom,
+and can bear testimony to the healthiness of the employment and its
+comparative safety owing to the careful training and discipline of the
+workers, scrupulous cleanliness and attention to the minutest details.
+
+Occupation disease, it must be remembered, is not _always_
+easy of recognition. There is no difficulty in diagnosing a malady
+to be plumbism when there are double wrist drop and a history of
+exposure to the metal when at work; but where there is only complaint
+of abdominal pain and vomiting, the diagnosis cannot be always so
+clearly established, even in the presence of a well-marked blue
+line on the gums. Several cases have been recorded in the medical
+journals of acute abdominal pain occurring in painters, which had been
+regarded as lead colic; but when the patients died, the post-mortem
+examination showed that death was due to a small ulcer of the bowel
+or to inflammation limited to a particular portion of the intestine
+known as the appendix, which a surgical operation might have cured;
+while, on the other hand, workers exposed to lead and with similar
+symptoms have been operated upon by careful surgeons for appendicitis
+when the malady was lead colic. If this is the difficulty experienced
+by competent surgeons and careful medical observers, it shows us some
+of the pitfalls parliamentarians might easily drop into by including
+industrial diseases under the Workmen’s Compensation Act. Verhægen is
+of opinion that the matter would be more easily settled by accumulating
+a larger number of statistics of disease occurring in occupations;
+but this inquiry would have to be extended over a lengthened period,
+there would have to be some degree of uniformity in the conditions
+under which the people worked, there would also have to be taken
+into consideration the hygienic conditions of the factories, the
+situation of these buildings, the number of hours worked per day, and
+the influences that would follow a prolonged strike of the workpeople,
+such as poverty. To be exact, too, the workpeople would have to be
+medically examined before entering upon the particular industry, and
+re-examined months afterwards so as to ascertain what effects, if any,
+the trade had produced. Some of the difficulty would be got over by
+limiting the definition of industrial disease to maladies that are
+the direct consequence of occupation, and in which as a result there
+is a well-ascertained lesion of the organism. Verhægen, as already
+mentioned, illustrated his argument by alluding to the driver of a
+public vehicle who in good health to commence with, and notwithstanding
+his obedience to the laws of prudence yet becomes rheumatic, and
+to another man who, under similar conditions as regards health and
+carefulness, undertakes work in either a lucifer match or a white lead
+factory, and suffers from phossy jaw or wrist drop. The malady is in
+either of the latter instances regarded as a disease of occupation,
+in the former it is not, the explanation of the difference being
+that as regards the first illustration rheumatism is not confined
+to the occupation of coach driving; also while it is admitted that
+out-of-door occupations expose the individual to all kinds of weather
+and predispose to rheumatism, the same out-of-door life led by other
+people is in them an explanation of the good health they enjoy. In the
+case of the match and white lead maker, had it not been for exposure to
+the fume of phosphorus or the inhalation of lead dust the workman would
+not have become the victim of phossy jaw or of wrist drop.
+
+Although many workpeople in the factory incur the same risk, yet all
+do not equally suffer. Some men are more susceptible than others. It
+would be regarded as an interference with the liberty of the subject
+if an attempt were made to prevent people going to work in a factory.
+It is known, for example, that engravers are more liable to lose their
+eyesight at an earlier age than men engaged in outdoor occupations.
+Should a man with feeble sight be allowed to undertake this kind of
+work? On commencing his industrial career, unless he voluntarily seeks
+the advice of an oculist, who is to say to him nay? There cannot be,
+although it is accomplished in certain dangerous trades without much
+opposition, a medical examination of all persons undertaking work. The
+dangers of particular occupations ought, however, to be pointed out
+to all applicants for work, after which these should state that they
+are prepared to accept certain risks. At present many workpeople incur
+risks without knowledge of the danger or of the means of preventing
+it. There are occupations that are not of themselves unhealthy, and
+yet owing to the strain which they impose upon the body, the weak
+spot of the organism, so to speak, is found out, and for this the
+occupation itself cannot altogether be held responsible. Take what
+is known as rupture or hernia, which occurs with greater frequency
+in persons whose work obliges them to be long upon their feet, and
+who are exposed to sudden strain, the lifting of heavy weights, etc.
+What is said of it applies equally to varicose veins in the legs.
+Both of these may be partly the result of the position assumed by
+the individual when at work or the strain he is exposed to, and yet
+it would scarcely be right to make the occupation responsible for an
+affection the result of an inherent weakness of the abdominal wall
+which allowed a portion of intestine to protrude, giving rise to
+rupture, or for an ill-nourished condition of the walls of the veins
+in the legs whereby the blood-vessels became distended and deformed.
+To secure compensation, the workman would have to establish that the
+hernia was solely the result of his work. Life is for all of us very
+much a game of chance, and we have to run ordinary risks. For a disease
+to be regarded as industrial, and capable, therefore, of being brought
+within the scope of the Workmen’s Compensation Act, it would have to be
+placed upon the same narrow limit as an accident. It would require to
+be shown that it was the sole result of the occupation, and that there
+had been produced a definite pathological lesion of the body. Adopting
+this view, the maladies that could be included in the category would
+be, among others, anthrax, poisoning by lead, mercury, phosphorus,
+and bisulphide of carbon; but with the exception of anthrax, in which
+the disease is often suddenly induced, and as rapidly runs to a
+fatal termination, there is not as a rule the same exactitude in the
+incidence of disease as is the case in accident. There might be little
+difficulty in including anthrax under the Act of 1897. The inclusion
+of some of the other dangerous trades would give rise to frequent
+litigation, but it would make employers more careful in the selection
+of their workpeople, and in the means adopted to prevent industrial
+poisoning. This latter fact is one of the objects aimed at by those
+who are in favour of an extension of the Workmen’s Compensation Act,
+not omitting, where it can be clearly proved, the financial liability
+of the employer to compensate the affected workman. In the case of a
+fatal accident occurring in a factory, a post-mortem examination shows
+perhaps the body to be healthy, and therefore the accident to have
+been the sole cause of death, or there are certain signs of disease
+present which may have caused or hastened the fatal termination. In the
+latter instance the law takes no cognisance of the previous disease.
+It takes for granted that but for the accident the individual would
+have gone on following his occupation. In industrial poisoning, would
+a similar legal opinion be entertained? In acute lead poisoning, when
+the post-mortem examination and chemical analysis of the internal
+organs conclusively prove that death was due to lead, it might be a
+comparatively easy thing to fix the liability upon an employer; but
+the presence of signs of previous disease in the body, which probably
+contributed to the fatal termination of the illness, would make it
+extremely difficult to assign to each of the two circumstances its
+proper share in causing death.
+
+It is facts such as these that doubtless led to the rejection by
+Parliament in 1897 of the proposal to extend the scope of the Workmen’s
+Compensation Bill so as to include industrial diseases, and place them
+on the same footing as accidents occurring at work. There is, however,
+a common sense view of the matter which should not be overlooked, and
+it is this. Where a person suffers in health, or loses his or her life
+through neglect of the employers to comply with the legal requirements
+of the Factory Acts, surely the employer under these circumstances
+ought to pay full compensation. In the case of accidents the question
+of neglect does not arise under the Act of 1897. The injured person
+is compensated, and that is the difference between the Employers’
+Liability and the Workmen’s Compensation Act. The question that calls
+for an answer then is rather this: Where an employer has followed out
+to the full all the regulations required by the Home Office, and it
+is shown that he has done all that common sense and humanity dictate,
+and yet industrial poisoning has occurred, is the employer under these
+circumstances to be considered liable? In France, where the match
+industry is a State monopoly, the Government admitted its liability
+by paying to the workmen who suffered from the effects of phosphorus
+a stated indemnity. Bryant & May’s firm has always recognised its
+liability by paying a weekly allowance to the workpeople off ill
+through phosphorus necrosis. Other firms in other trades probably do
+the same. It is for the public, therefore, to say whether humane
+deeds like these, which are purely voluntary in this country, should
+be made compulsory by an extension of the Workmen’s Compensation Act,
+or be simply dealt with through the medium of mutual trade insurance
+societies.[2]
+
+Collectively, occupations may be likened to a huge organism. Industries
+are the functions that indicate the life and prosperity of a nation,
+and like the higher forms of life they have grown in process of
+time from simple beginnings to highly complicated combinations,
+the controlling and to some extent directing agent of which is
+parliamentary legislation, keeping pace with the inventiveness of man
+and human requirements. In many ways is the resemblance between the
+industrial and human organism demonstrated. No man can use unrestricted
+freedom with his own body. There is a physiological limit to which
+he must bow. An over-worked brain or group of muscles sooner or
+later tells its own tale, unbridled licence causes degeneration of
+the nervous system, and excess in wine or at table is checked by the
+diseases it produces. Perfection is what we ought to strive for, and
+this can only be obtained by submission to nature’s laws. So, too, in
+the industrial organism it is recognised that production should be
+kept within limits, reckless bargaining should be curtailed, that each
+man should put his very best into the work he is doing, and that there
+should be more sympathetic communication between employer and employed.
+Trades, like human beings, are influenced by their surroundings. They
+do not thrive well away from coal fields and centres of human activity.
+Competition or the struggle for existence is as keen in the world of
+industry as in that of biology, and there occurs the same weeding out
+in both. Thwarted by local conditions and hampered by scarcity of
+labour, overburdened by excessive taxation or ground rents, industries
+will languish in one place, while with fewer restrictions they will
+flourish in another. New trades are constantly developing, and new
+methods of manufacture keep replacing those that are old. Everything is
+tending towards improvement. Many circumstances are operating to direct
+the industrial evolution of to-day. Human wants and man’s inventiveness
+play their part so that those manufacturers alone of their commercial
+confrères are successful who, recognising the spirit of the age, make
+an attempt to meet its demands.
+
+Admitting that factory legislation has for the last century been
+gradually bringing into line industrial undertakings of all kinds,
+and that the Government has by enforcing regulations exercised a
+disciplining influence upon masters and men, it is only recently
+that it has taken up a strong and decided attitude in regard to the
+effects of particular trades upon health. Public health as a science
+is still in its infancy; it owes its origin mainly to the rush of
+people into the large towns. Its theories and facts have been brought
+by municipalities to bear upon the conditions of life in our homes
+and persons. Modern factory legislation, so far as industrial hygiene
+is concerned, is an extension of the ordinary laws of health to those
+workers who in many instances cannot frame rules of guidance for
+themselves. Law restricts as well as regulates individual freedom. The
+Public Health Acts have interfered with the liberty of the subject by
+insisting upon closing unhealthy dwellings, the removal of refuse, the
+notification of infectious diseases, and the compulsory removal from
+the home of members of a family who are suffering from some infectious
+malady, and by doing so have secured a larger measure of health for the
+community. Factory legislation similarly aims at improving the health
+of the workers.
+
+Every man tries to get as much out of life as possible. Ideally he
+ought to contribute his best to it. A workman, while obtaining for
+his labour the largest wages possible, ought to put into his labour
+the best of his thought and energy so as to improve the character of
+the work he is engaged in. While the immediate object of labour is to
+obtain the wherewithal to live, the character of the work performed is
+unconsciously shaping the destiny of labour and building up through
+individuals the national reputation. The end of work is progress, and
+just as human life is perfected through suffering and experience, so is
+the industrial.
+
+There are many ways by which the hygiene of trades may be promoted.
+The notification of industrial diseases to the Chief Inspector of
+Factories has, although it has only been in existence a very few
+years, already placed the Home Office in possession of facts and
+statistics which enable the Factory Department at once to realise
+when a particular industry is becoming prejudicial to the health of
+workers, and how it may be met. The good effects of notification are
+observed in the trades in which lead, mercury, and phosphorus are
+used. The power granted to the Home Secretary, which enables him to
+schedule a trade as dangerous on sufficient information being given
+to him, is, so long as it is judiciously applied, a step in the
+right direction. It is desirable that accurate information should be
+obtained from all sources, from employers as well as employed, and from
+experts, chemical and medical. The formation of a consultative body or
+of an industrial council composed of the Home Secretary and members
+of the factory staff, employers, a few educated workmen, chemists,
+medical men, and electricians, for the purpose of discussing with the
+Home Secretary terms of Special Rules and prospective legislation
+has been recommended, and might be helpful. On the Continent such
+industrial councils exist, a description of which will be found in
+Miss Anderson’s paper on “Regulations of Injurious or Dangerous
+Occupations in Factories and Workshops in some of the Chief European
+Countries.” In Britain there might be some difficulty in including upon
+a permanent consultative body gentlemen capable of dealing with the
+numerous technical questions that constantly arise, but the difficulty
+would be no greater there than in France. Within the last few years
+the Home Secretary has, whether for direct advice or to serve upon
+committee, occasionally called in the assistance of recognised experts
+or authorities upon particular points under consideration. This system
+has worked well, and might with advantage be extended. Industrial
+hygiene, too, so far at any rate as dangerous trades are concerned,
+could be promoted by small International Committees meeting to improve
+the sanitation of labour rather than to discuss economic problems of
+production. By many it is believed that the cause of industrial hygiene
+would be furthered by the establishment of a Ministry of Labour.
+It seems an anomalous circumstance that a country like ours, whose
+reputation has been built upon commerce, should be without a department
+specially devoted to labour and labour problems. The Home Office has
+the necessary machinery and possesses all the information, but its
+jurisdiction covers too extensive a field. The Factory Department
+ought to form a separate and distinct branch of the Home Office to be
+directed by a Secretary or Under-Secretary of State. Year by year the
+work of the Department and its scope increase, and surely among the
+many Departments of the State there can be none of greater importance
+than that which watches over the millions of persons engaged in
+factories and workshops in the United Kingdom.
+
+ THOMAS OLIVER.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER II
+
+ HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF LEGISLATION
+ FOR INJURIOUS AND DANGEROUS INDUSTRIES IN ENGLAND
+
+ “Now, since both the Ages of Antiquity and that we now live in
+ shew Laws ... calculated for the good Order and Reputation of
+ Tradesmen, ’tis but reasonable that Physick should contribute
+ its quota for the Benefit and Comfort of those of whom the
+ Law has been so tenderly careful, and display itself in a
+ particular manner (that has been hitherto neglected) for the
+ safety of Tradesmen, that they may follow their Trades without
+ injuring their Health.”--RAMAZZINI: _Treatise of the Diseases of
+ Tradesmen_. English Edition, 1705. Italian Edition, Modena, 1670.
+
+ “Year after year, as far forward as any present judgment would
+ willingly speculate, the same terrible waste of adult life must,
+ with no great mitigation, continue, unless the Legislature
+ see fit to provide by special enactment for more wholesome
+ conditions of labour.... The canker of industrial diseases
+ gnaws at the very root of our national strength. The sufferers
+ are not few or insignificant. They are the bread-winners for
+ at least a third part of our population.... That they have
+ causes of disease indolently left to blight them amid their toil
+ ... is surely an intolerable wrong. And to be able to redress
+ that wrong is perhaps among the greatest opportunities for
+ good which human institutions can afford.”--_Report of the
+ Medical Officer (Dr, afterwards Sir John Simon) to the Privy
+ Council_, 1861.
+
+
+From the benevolent and learned Italian physician of the seventeenth
+century, in touch with every available source of information of his own
+and preceding ages, searching for mitigation of the diseases of workmen
+which he believes to be “incurable,” to the English State physician
+of the nineteenth century seeking to persuade men that the diseases
+must not be allowed even to arise, is indeed a long way. The way is
+long in all that concerns knowledge of the causes and treatment of
+disease, no less than in circumstances and organisation of industry.
+It is doubtful, however, whether the transformation of ideas in either
+is so great as in the general attitude of civilised society towards
+protection of labour and promotion of industrial health. The change
+cannot be accounted for, completely, either by change in the methods
+and organisation of industry, or by increased knowledge, medical,
+economic, or social. Nor can the increased breadth of conception be
+attributed solely to that increased intensity and quantity of human
+suffering which inevitably accompanied concentration and growth of
+industry. In all ages there have been physical, moral, and economic
+evils which fell to the lot of the labourer, probably differing from
+time to time on the whole more in degree than in kind, and doubtless
+felt at each stage by the sufferers, and sometimes by onlookers, with
+an intensity which relatively was great, and which with adequate
+discernment of a remedy and the duty or expedience of applying it,
+would have led to legislative action.
+
+In the great civilisations of antiquity, whether in the East, West, or
+in Europe generally, there was sufficient concentration of the forces
+of labour to produce the intensest forms of the maladies classed by
+Pliny as the “diseases of slaves.” Some of the most injurious processes
+known to us now are extremely ancient. To mention but a few: lead and
+quicksilver mining, the potters’ craft, and the textile processes of
+preparing and weaving asbestos and flax.
+
+The long history, in another department of social ills, of legislation
+and organised guild efforts for protection of buyers from dishonest
+manufacture and dishonest trading in adulterated products, or again,
+of efforts to regulate supply of labour and to enforce honest service
+from workers, affords many illustrations of the action that could be
+taken in Middle Age and Renaissance Europe, where an evil was both
+recognised and also believed to be remediable. It is to be noted how
+few the indications are that the strivings after social improvement of
+handicraftsmen and labourers were in those times inspired by any clear
+vision of the physical safety and health of individuals as part of the
+well-being to be sought. Illustrations might indeed be gathered from
+records of craft guilds and municipal organisations, of provisions and
+regulations that tended to results similar to those expressly aimed at
+by modern sanitary regulations. This is especially true of England,
+where the masses of manual workers came earlier than in other countries
+of Modern Europe to comparative physical comfort. We must, however,
+avoid the mistake of reading into past events, however interesting,
+ideas that are consciously at work in practical affairs only in our own
+times.
+
+Of much later date are the first documents that I have been able to
+trace expressly dealing with the nature and results of industrial
+occupation in dangerous or injurious processes. These are in the
+_Transactions of the Royal Society of England_, and are of the
+theoretic and reflective character that is appropriate to their
+setting. Belonging to the same century as Ramazzini’s most human
+treatise (1670 and onwards), touching both manufacture and mining in
+Europe (_e.g._, manufacture of white lead, silvering of mirrors by
+mercury, lead mining, coal mining), they would take an important place
+in a general history of European thought and action on this question.
+The vivid descriptions by the Italian as well as by the English writers
+of the effects on the worker of lead,[3] of mercury,[4] of silk
+dust,[5] of explosions in mines,[6] give one a sense now of the kinship
+of past labour with present, and a clearer perception of the magnitude
+and the worth of the object that this generation has set itself--to
+remove such causes of suffering from the path of the labourer.
+
+In those papers, however, we are still far from any practical
+preventive treatment of industrial diseases. My task in this paper is
+to trace out in England, that is in the foremost industrial community
+of recent times, the history of tentative, halting efforts, almost
+wholly within living memory, to engraft on the earlier legislative
+movements of the nineteenth century towards hygienic and moral reforms
+in industry, that special, applied regulation of injurious manufactures
+for which Sir Edwin Chadwick[7] and Sir John Simon were the earliest
+and most distinguished advocates. In this history itself, I think, is
+found the nearest attainable explanation of the wide difference between
+the general attitude of our day towards care of the health of the adult
+labourer at his trade, and that of any previous age, when the diseases
+accompanying industry were the subject of scientific observation. In it
+is to be seen the gathering momentum which could so completely sweep
+away age-long modes of regarding the worker at his bench as merely
+a means to the ends of others than himself and his family, that the
+legislature and administration could at length treat the promotion
+of the physical security of each individual labourer as a worthy end
+for the State no less than the labourer. Lord Londonderry, when he
+railed in Parliament in 1848 against the “hypocritical humanity” which
+sought by protective legislation to save the lives and limbs of the
+miners of Great Britain, represented but a singularly extreme though
+not isolated survival of the older assumption of legislators that the
+health of the masses of people, as of individual labourers, might be
+left to take care of itself, if indeed it was worth thinking about
+at all. Even the learned and humane contributors in the seventeenth
+century to the _Transactions of the Royal Society_ on dangers of
+mining and means of overcoming them, can tell without a thought of
+irony how a ventilating tube was first placed in a dangerous mine after
+an accident from fire-damp, resulting in the loss not only of men but
+of a “gentleman of quality.” There is indeed a long series of laws,
+extending back to before the time of Elizabeth, for the protection of
+the poorer wage-earner in making his contract so that he should not be
+cheated by extortionate charges or unfair payments in goods. The real
+contrast in the normal attitude of the centuries before our own towards
+the _persons_ of workers is nevertheless well seen in Macaulay’s
+wondering notice of the fact that in the latter end of the seventeenth
+century it was possible for an eminent philanthropist to exult in the
+thought that in Norwich, the centre of the clothing trade, where “a
+little creature of six years old was thought fit for labour,” boys and
+girls of “very tender age created wealth exceeding what was necessary
+for their own subsistence by £12,000 a year.” Greater degradation than
+any shadowed there had to be achieved, in England at least, before
+the first legislative foundations could be laid, on which afterwards
+was to be engrafted the special trade legislation with which we are
+here concerned. Out of the desecration of child*-life and womanhood,
+underground and in factories and workshops, recorded in the Blue
+Books of the earlier part of last century, came the needed force for
+the beginnings of a State control in England of special conditions
+of health and security, which in some other European countries had
+been for long, at least in mines, partially maintained through the
+operation of a more or less definite theory of State or Imperial
+ownership.[8]
+
+Although I refer necessarily to the general sanitary and social
+protective measures, the development of which belongs to the great
+humanitarian movements of the first half of the Victorian age, I must
+at this point make it clear that I exclude here their history, so far
+as concerns purely the control of economic and moral abuses, which were
+not inherent in manufacturing and mining industry itself. We are not
+directly concerned with physical sufferings which, owing to the apathy
+of the community, in fact accompanied the earlier developments of the
+factory system, nor with the barbarities which culpable ignorance too
+long allowed to survive, from rougher and harder times, underground
+in mines. Our concern is with those material risks in any industry
+which, when reasonably good methods of working have been developed by
+the necessary help of law, remain as ordinary accompaniments of the
+occupation itself, either because of the nature of the substance used,
+or because of the appliances necessary to the processes carried on.
+Some special regard for classes of persons employed is also necessary
+in so far as they are specially affected by risks on account of tender
+years or physical constitution, but not because Parliament was first
+and foremost compelled by unnatural conditions to safeguard young
+workers and women, nor because the force of law remains, and, humanly
+speaking, will continually remain necessary in competitive manufacture
+to maintain for them good normal conditions.
+
+We must remember that applied scientific protection of all workers
+against industrial injury was from the outset introduced step by
+step into two distinct sets of Acts of Parliament, the Mines Acts
+and the Factory Acts, both with primarily social aims, each acting
+and re-acting on the other throughout, both in Parliament and in
+the Department administering them. This compels study of the stages
+of development in those Acts, as distinct from the movements which
+produced them, in order to arrive at any comprehension of the nature of
+the now resulting form of control of injurious trades.
+
+In a complete history of this subject a long section would be devoted
+to the development of the later-initiated law relating to Public
+Health, to the origins of the two great Sanitary Commissions of 1843–5
+and 1869–71 and their reports, and adequate recognition would be
+possible of one main cause of gradually quickened public and official
+understanding of the need of special precautions for health in
+injurious industries. This cause was the introduction into the service
+of the State, first as special commissioners, later as permanent
+officials, of scientific investigators and medical officers, whose work
+brought to light not merely new facts bearing upon industrial disease,
+but also new and broad ideas as to their origin and effects, and whose
+reports secured in some instances attention far beyond the boundaries
+of England. It is difficult for a modern Factory Inspector to realise
+all that is implied in the brief allusions of a former Chief Inspector,
+Mr Redgrave, in one of his annual reports, as late as 1868, to the fact
+that cleanliness, ventilation, and prevention of disease generally, in
+factories, were then regulated only so far as they were provided for at
+all in the “Sanitary Act,” and applied by local medical officers--where
+there were any--without effective central control or organisation.
+What it meant in loss of life and injury to the bread-winners of the
+masses of the nation was only too clearly set forth in the accumulated
+evidence in Dr Simon’s and Dr Greenhow’s reports to the Board of Health
+and to the Privy Council on the sanitary state of the people of England
+from 1858 onwards. The words I quote at the head of my paper indicate
+Sir John Simon’s idea of the magnitude of the evil at that time. In
+many passages he showed his view of the worthlessness of such general
+powers as then could be applied to the more general classes of evil.[9]
+In prolonged special investigations, guided by the danger signals of
+mortality statistics, he traced out the preventible injuries going
+on steadily in half-regulated or wholly unregulated dangerous trades.
+“Certain industrial establishments,” he said, writing in 1862, “are
+subject to Government inspection, and some to a very limited extent
+are regulated by Act of Parliament.... Is there any sufficient reason
+why these precedents should not be followed in other industrial
+establishments.... There is abundant causation of premature death
+in mines which are neither coal mines nor ironstone mines,[10] and
+potters, grinders, carders, hacklers, not to mention hosts of other
+artisans, may, any of them, show the same claim as miners--the claim
+of grievous physical suffering--to have the special circumstances
+of their industry subjected to Government supervision.”[11] These
+observations were not based on vague description or casual inquiry into
+the circumstances of industry, but on systematic notes of conditions
+of employment in selected localities where mortality due to given
+diseases--for example, tubercular phthisis or irritative disease of
+the lung--was three, four, or even six times as high as in other parts
+of England. The evidence for this need of supervision by centrally
+directed specialists, working under a specialised legislation, had
+been already repeatedly touched on in Reports of Royal Commissioners
+primarily appointed to inquire into employment of children and women.
+Far more had to be later said and written before the first steps could
+be taken in some of these manufactures to remove causes of injury
+which, later, the Commissioners of 1878 referred to as a “public
+scandal,” and for which no basis of control existed until 1891.
+
+What, then, are the first beginnings of special legislation; and how
+did the succeeding steps follow each other in the Factory and the
+Mines Acts respectively? First, it must be pointed out that whereas
+the particular kind of legislative weapon (the provision for “Special
+Rules”), which was destined to be forged for use against dangerous
+trades, was first planned in connection with regulation of mines,
+it reached its most elaborate form in connection with regulation of
+manufacturing industries, that is, in the earlier and more fully
+regulated industries, under the Factory Acts.
+
+It is now almost incredible that one of the most dangerous of all
+groups of industry--mining--should have been free in England from any
+form of protective legislation until 1842,[12] when women and girls
+were excluded from underground working, and that it was not until 1855
+that any comparatively useful safeguards of health, life, and limb were
+prescribed by law. It is still more difficult to realise that before
+1814 it was not customary to hold inquests on deaths of miners killed
+by accidents in mines. With the exception of regulations against truck,
+there was no provision except such as protected the colliery owner--and
+of that kind there were many--against injury to his property by miners.
+
+Meanwhile the landmarks from the present standpoint in factory
+regulation had been the Acts of 1802 and 1833. The first, aiming
+only at the preservation in cotton mills of the “health and morals”
+of apprentices, further laid down that “visitors,” to be appointed
+by justices in every county for repression of contraventions, were
+empowered to “direct the adoption of such sanitary regulations as
+they might on advice think proper.” The Act of 1833,[13] regulating
+first the labour of children and young persons in textile factories
+generally, replaced those “visitors” of the Act of 1802 (who had seldom
+been appointed, and still more seldom had acted) by “inspectors” with
+similar powers of entry, and of calling to their aid expert advisers,
+but with additional powers: to administer oaths and to make such
+“rules, regulations, and orders” as were necessary for the execution
+of the Act, and to convict offenders and impose penalties under the
+Act, as if they were Justices of the Peace. In 1844 an Act applying
+similarly only to textile factories repealed these remarkable powers
+of Factory Inspectors to make rules, orders, and regulations, and
+to act as Justices of the Peace; at the same time it organised the
+Inspectorate, with institution of an office in London, on lines
+comparable to those of our own time. Certifying surgeons were then
+first provided primarily for the purpose of examining young workers
+under sixteen years of age as to their fitness for employment, and
+granting certificates of age and ordinary strength; but further also,
+for re-examination of such workers at the instance of an inspector
+where there was reason to believe that injury would be caused by
+continued employment. The Acts were now extended to women, and for
+the first time special provisions for health and safety (as distinct
+from general provisions for cleanliness of the factory) began to make
+their appearance. Workers in wet spinning became entitled to sufficient
+means against being wetted and against unnecessary escape of steam into
+the room if young persons or children were employed there; but far
+more important were the new attempts to reduce accidents by providing
+for the safer use of machinery, inquiry into causes of accidents, and
+penal compensation to workers for accidents due to machinery remaining
+unfenced after notice from the inspector that it was “deemed to be
+dangerous.” These provisions embodied a few of the recommendations
+made in Special Reports of the Inspectors of Factories, presented to
+Parliament in 1841, and the recommendations of the Select Committee of
+the House of Commons presented in the same year; with them, however,
+was also introduced the principle of Arbitration on the objections
+raised by an occupier. The inspector might give notice of dangerous
+machinery to be fenced, but for fourteen days the right remained with
+the occupier to require the appointment of arbitrators “skilled in the
+construction of the kind of machinery” to which the notice referred.
+Each party, the occupier and the inspector, was then to nominate his
+arbitrator, and the two arbitrators were to proceed to examine the
+machinery “alleged to be dangerous” within fourteen days. If they could
+not agree, they were together to appoint as umpire a third arbitrator
+“possessing a similar knowledge of machinery.” When the ultimate
+decision supported the occupier’s objection, the inspector’s notice as
+to danger was annulled, and even if an accident thereafter occurred,
+penal compensation could not be obtained for an injured worker. Not
+until the Act of 1891 did this principle, later so greatly extended in
+application to matters of health as well as safety, cease to control
+the fencing of dangerous machinery (other than mill-gearing) in
+factories, and it still remains for all dangers in mines not expressly
+covered by any other provision. As regards this first introduction
+into the Factory Acts of penal compensation for preventible injuries,
+it appears to have been the outcome of a discussion by witnesses
+before the Royal Commission on Labour of Young Persons in Mines and
+Manufactures in 1841. This was the “trade charge or insurance payable
+by the branch of industry liable to the accidents,” which has been at
+length secured to the worker only at the end of the nineteenth century
+by the Compensation Acts.
+
+In the year in which these considerable steps had been taken in
+factory legislation (1844), the Mines Inspector under Lord Ashley’s
+Act published his first report. Even two years later women were still
+to be found in considerable numbers underground. Progress nevertheless
+was being yearly made--through the reports on safety and ventilation of
+special scientific commissioners (including Lyell, Faraday, Playfair),
+by the action of associations of miners, by spread of knowledge of
+the dangers of mining, and not least, by the recurrence of appalling
+accidents which ever increasingly shocked the public conscience--came
+the first tentative measure for general safety in coal mines--the Act
+of 1855[14] In 1854 the Select Committee on Accidents had reported,
+adopting among other recommendations a suggestion of the Inspectors for
+legislative extension of the practice of several colliery owners, of
+framing special safety rules for working in mines. The Act, in addition
+to specifying seven general rules binding on owners and agents of
+collieries for safety, relating to: (1) adequate ventilation to dilute
+and render harmless noxious gases; (2) fencing of disused shafts; (3)
+fencing of pumping pits when not at work; (4) secure lining of shafts;
+(5) proper means of signalling; (6) indicator and break for machine
+raising or lowering persons; (7) proper gauges and valve for steam
+boiler, provided for the framing and enforcement of special rules,
+to be submitted by owners for approval of the Secretary of State, at
+every colliery. These special rules, when established, were to have
+the force of law both for owners and miners, but were enforceable only
+by penalty in the case of owners, by penalty or imprisonment with or
+without hard labour (maximum three months) in the case of miners. This
+latter distinction occasioned considerable bitterness at the time, but
+the provision which was most generally criticised was the elaborate one
+for arbitration in case of objection on the part of the owner to any
+alteration or addition to special rules made by the Secretary of State.
+Within twenty-seven days the owner had power to nominate three or more
+“practical mining engineers or other competent persons of experience
+in the district,” not “interested in or employed in the management of
+... the colliery,” and the Secretary of State might appoint “one or
+more” such persons “to determine the matter in difference.” In case
+of the owner not exercising this power within the time specified,
+arbitration could be organised on lines very similar to those provided
+by the Factory Act of 1844, with the difference that in the case of
+special rules in mines one of the parties to the arbitration was the
+Secretary of State instead of the inspector. In the framing of special
+rules following on this Act, it was common for groups of collieries
+working under similar conditions to adopt one set of special rules,
+but sometimes individual owners drew up their own special rules, and
+occasionally attempted to introduce remarkably irrelevant matter, such
+as attendance at “Divine Service at least once on the Lord’s Day,” for
+the regulation of the conduct of miners.
+
+Five years later the law relating to mines was extended, and in some
+ways strengthened, several disastrous accidents and explosions,
+entailing loss in the aggregate of thousands of lives, having in the
+meanwhile occurred. At several of the inquests strong evidence was
+given of incompetent management and neglect of rules in addition to
+disregard of inspectors’ suggestions for improvement of ventilation
+in the interests of safety; in one case the coroner’s jury returned
+a verdict of manslaughter against the manager, the overman, and the
+fireman of the colliery, though this was subsequently followed by
+acquittal at the assizes. The Act of 1860 touched on several new
+points, besides extending the law to include ironstone mines; wages and
+education sections were first introduced, but a demand for certificated
+managers of coal mines was not met until 1872. The chief advances in
+the direction of increased safety were, by extension of the general
+rules to include provision for places of refuge on engine planes,
+use of covers overhead in lowering or raising persons in every pit,
+fencing of fly-wheels of every engine, maintenance of boreholes to
+prevent inundations, by empowering an inspector to propose additional
+safeguards for dangers not covered by any rules (but in case of
+objection by the owner, the matter was to go to arbitration); by
+raising the age of those entrusted with charge of steam engines to
+eighteen years.
+
+In the meantime the course of factory legislation continued to
+illustrate the strength of the original motive--rescue of young
+workers and women in textile factories from monstrously long hours
+and overwork--rather than intelligent and steady assimilation by the
+community of the evidence of need of special control of drainage,
+ventilation, use of deleterious substances, and other matters affecting
+health in a large number of non-textile industries. Such evidence was
+first strikingly presented by the Report of the Commission on Mines
+and Manufactures, published in 1843, but later in greater detail as
+regards the injurious industries of lucifer match and pottery making in
+the Report of the Children’s Employment Commission of 1862. A long and
+fierce battle had to be waged over the form and degree of limitation of
+hours in textile works before the gradual extension of the principle
+of regulation could begin and proceed from trade to trade. It was in
+the Act of 1864, which added the largest number of these, including
+earthenware and lucifer match works, that the fruit of the labours of
+expert commissioners began to appear in explicitly sanitary measures,
+applicable to all classes of factories under the Acts.[15] In this
+Act we first find the idea of ventilation applied in order to render
+harmless “gases, dust, or other impurities generated in the course of
+manufacture that may be injurious to health.” And here we find the
+first fleeting attempt to introduce the “special rules” system from the
+Mines Acts, on the employers’ initiative, but without the arbitration
+clauses. Manufacturers were empowered to draw up special rules binding
+on workers, after approval by the Secretary of State, “for compelling
+the observance ... of the conditions necessary to ensure the required
+degree of cleanliness and ventilation, and to annex to any breach
+of such rules a penalty not exceeding one pound.” These powers were
+extended to many other trades, including indiarubber works, letterpress
+printing works, blast furnaces, and iron mills, by the Act of 1867,
+and were soon unfavourably reported on by inspectors, as throwing too
+heavy a burden on the workers, “the onus of being a principal under the
+Act,” to use Mr Baker’s words. In 1868 he reported that special rules
+were in force in most of the iron works in his district, which gave
+the employer “power over his workpeople who sub-employ in his works,”
+by holding them responsible for various sections of the Acts relating
+to employment of young persons; a purpose which we can now readily see
+to have been foreign to the general intention of such legislation.
+By the Act of 1871 penalties for breach of these rules were made
+recoverable by summary proceedings, but the provisions for framing such
+rules disappeared when the law was consolidated by the Act of 1878.
+The Workshop Regulation Act of 1867, amended in 1870, practically
+completed the application of the general law to all workplaces in which
+manual labour was exercised for gain, in the making or finishing of
+articles or parts of articles for sale. The “Sanitary Act” of 1866
+had provided for cleanliness, ventilation to remove injurious gases
+and dust, and for freedom from overcrowding in any workplace not
+under the operation of any of these Acts. The Factory Acts of 1864
+and 1867 prohibited the taking of meals in certain workrooms where
+dangerous processes are carried on, _e.g._, lucifer match making,
+earthenware dipping, china scouring, glass-making (mixing, grinding,
+cutting, polishing), and the application of power to the extraction of
+injurious dusts was furthered by introduction of provision for a “fan
+or other mechanical means,” approved from time to time by the Secretary
+of State, in case of grinding, glazing, polishing on a wheel, or “any
+other process in which dust is generated or inhaled by the workmen to
+an injurious extent.” The Act of 1878, in consolidating all previous
+Factory and Workshop Acts, re-cast some special safety provisions
+(for example, those relating to prohibition of certain workrooms for
+meals), in such a form as to empower the Secretary of State to extend
+the prohibition to other industries, a power which was exercised in
+a considerable number of industries. Employment of young workers was
+also prohibited in certain dangerous processes, and power was taken
+to extend such prohibition. Nothing was done, however, at the time of
+this great measure--which was primarily for better administration of
+existing provisions, and was accompanied, on the recommendation of
+the Commissioners of 1875, by a thorough reorganisation and extension
+of the inspectorate--towards securing more detailed regulation of
+methods and conditions of working in dangerous trades, in spite of a
+recommendation to that effect by Mr Redgrave. The first decisive step
+in that direction was taken in 1883 in the case of one of the most
+deadly of lead industries, the manufacture of white lead, whose effects
+had been recorded for centuries, and in France had been the object of
+special inquiry followed by regulation early in the century under the
+direction of the _Conseil de Salubrité_. It is rather remarkable
+to read in a report of the Chief Inspector, 1882, that although
+“employment in dangerous occupations has on several occasions been
+brought under the notice of the legislature, until recently special
+attention has not been drawn to the manufacture of white lead.”[16]
+Now, however, the evils pressed for remedy, and the “Mines Acts as to
+general precautions and special rules” were adopted as a “precedent” to
+be applied to white lead works.[17]
+
+Before touching further on this new departure and tracing out its
+sequel, a brief reference must be made to the course of Mines
+legislation since 1860. While political conditions had been
+unfavourable to additional legislation for some time after the Act of
+that year, the conditions in the coal industry had been developing
+steadily, both as regards extent and methods of getting mineral on
+the one hand, and as regards association amongst miners on the other,
+in such a way as to make a complete law possible when it inevitably
+came. Scientific knowledge as to mechanical means of ventilation and
+other provisions for safety became at the same time incomparably
+wider spread. Greatly increased public discussion brought out far
+more clearly the objects and desires both of masters and men, and
+the determination of the latter to obtain certificated and competent
+management, extension of the system of “general” safety rules,
+improvement of the method of forming “special rules,” and increased
+inspection, had its effect in the consolidating and amending Act of
+1872. The number of general rules was more than doubled, matters
+formerly left to the chances of special rules were permanently
+transferred to the general law, which now included compulsory use of
+safety lamps where needed, regulation of use of explosives in blasting,
+securing of roofs and sides, daily examination of the state of the
+mine, facilities for inspection by representatives of the miners.
+Special rules became more clearly defined as intended for the guidance,
+safety, and proper discipline of the miners at work, and they might
+only be transmitted for the Secretary of State’s approval after they
+had been posted in the mine for two weeks with a notice that objections
+to them might be sent by any person employed to the inspector of the
+district. Wilful neglect or contravention of any provision of a kind
+likely to endanger safety became punishable, in the case of employers
+as well as miners, by imprisonment with hard labour. The machinery
+of arbitration on any questions of safety under the Acts was made
+considerably clearer. In all these matters[18] the great advance was
+by way of development of previous ideas. The entirely new departure
+lay in the six sections relating to daily control, and supervision of
+every mine by a manager holding a certificate of competency from the
+Secretary of State, after examination by a board of examiners appointed
+by the latter, power being retained to the Secretary of State to cause
+inquiry, if necessary, later into the competency of the holder of
+the certificate, cancellation or suspension of the certificate being
+possible in case of proved unfitness. There is little room for surprise
+that so great an advance in the law should have given widespread
+satisfaction to the miners, and that for a considerable time efforts
+of their associations were directed to securing vigorous enforcement
+rather than extension of the law. In the same year the question of
+health and safety in Metalliferous Mines[19] received its first
+treatment in a separate code (which remains in force to the present
+time), of similar scope to the Coal Mines Act. A Royal Commission had
+been appointed in 1862, and had reported in 1864. The great excess of
+mortality and sickness among metalliferous miners, “mainly attributable
+to the imperfect ventilation of the mines” and inhalation of gritty
+particles, to excessive physical exertion in climbing up and down
+ladders of great length, to the great changes of temperature, and
+exposure to wet, were brought out in the report and made the subject
+of recommendations. It was also shown that accidents were of frequent
+occurrence from falls from ladders, falls of the rock or stuff,
+carelessness in blasting, defective gear, and sudden irruptions of
+foul air and water. The method of regulation adopted for Metalliferous
+Mines, by general rules for safety, special rules for conduct and
+guidance of miners, and the requirements as to notice of accidents,
+coroners’ inquiries, fencing of abandoned mines, being similar to those
+for Coal Mines, details are unnecessary for the purpose of the present
+essay. In 1881 the Coal Mines Acts were strengthened in regard to the
+use of explosives underground, in 1886 the Secretary of State was
+empowered to direct a formal investigation of any explosion or accident
+and of its causes and circumstances to be held (a provision embodied by
+reference in the Factory Acts in 1895). In 1887 the Coal and Ironstone
+Mines Acts were again consolidated with amendments strengthening the
+already existing provisions. By General Rule 4 more stringent provision
+for inspection of working parts of mines before commencing and during
+shifts, and the distinction between mines in which inflammable gas
+had been found within the preceding twelve months and those in which
+it had not, disappeared. By Rules 8, 9, 10, 11, construction and use
+of safety lamps became much more detailed and stringent than in the
+former Rule 7, which they replaced. By Rule 24 the age of competent
+male persons in charge of machinery for raising and lowering persons at
+the mine was raised to twenty-two. By Rule 34 provision of ambulances
+or stretchers with splints and bandages ready for immediate use at the
+mine became compulsory. Other main provisions of the Act strengthened
+were those relating to distance and height of communications between
+the two shafts required in mines; daily personal supervision of the
+mine by the certificated manager; notice of opening or abandoning
+seams. Arbitration on special rules and other matters was modified so
+that while the qualification of being a practical mining engineer was
+retained for the two representative arbitrators, the umpire, if any, is
+bound to be a county court judge, a police or stipendiary magistrate, a
+recorder of a borough, or a registrar of a county court.
+
+Turning again to the Factory and Workshop Act of 1883, which forms
+the first distinct attempt to regulate a dangerous manufacturing
+industry, we find, in its unamended form, a remarkable parallel to
+the method of mines regulation, not merely in the requirement that
+every occupier of a white lead factory shall frame and submit for
+approval to the Secretary of State special rules[20] which have been
+affixed in the factory with a notice to the workers of their power to
+send objections to the Chief Inspector; but also in the prescribing
+of six general conditions for obtaining a certificate to carry on the
+dangerous industry. These include provision for ventilation of stoves
+and stacks, means of maintaining personal cleanliness, and proper room
+for meals. The special rules, however, were not in the original statute
+liable to any process of arbitration, merely to full consideration
+by the Secretary of State, who had power to make modifications after
+hearing the occupiers’ objections, if any, to his modifications.
+This procedure was considerably modified when by the Act of 1891
+provision was made for establishment of special rules in any industry
+(not being a domestic industry) certified by the Secretary of State
+to be dangerous or injurious to health, or dangerous to life or limb.
+Then the initiative in drafting the “special rules or requiring the
+adoption of such special measures as appear to the Chief Inspector to
+be reasonably practicable, and to meet the necessities of the case”
+was transferred from the occupier to the Factory Department, but a
+counterbalancing force was provided by addition of the arbitration
+clauses wherever the occupier persisted in objections to the proposed
+special rules, and the Secretary of State could not see the way to
+accepting modifications asked for by the occupier. At the same time the
+share of the worker in framing the rules, by his legal right to make
+objections before they were established, entirely disappeared. It was
+not until the Act of 1895 that this loss was imperfectly compensated,
+by a right to representation on the arbitration on conditions
+prescribed by the arbitrators which was then secured to workmen
+interested, or any class of them. In 1896, in the Mines Acts that
+privilege was superadded to the other. The general tenor of the Factory
+Act of 1891, following as it did on the important work of the House of
+Lords’ Committee on the Sweating System, and the Berlin International
+Conference, was one of development of sanitary organisation,
+particularly with regard to workshops, and of closer regulation of
+dangerous and injurious trades. It had been preceded in 1889 by an Act
+with special reference (like the Act of 1883) to a single class of
+factories, in this case the cotton cloth factories, in which excessive
+heat and humidity produced by artificial means seriously affected
+the health and comfort of operatives. The Act not only limited the
+temperature of workrooms and amount of moisture in the atmosphere, but
+also provided for tests and records of the same, and fixed a standard
+minimum volume of fresh air, 600 cubic feet, to be admitted in every
+hour for every person employed. Power was retained for the Secretary
+of State to modify by order the maximum limit of humidity of the
+atmosphere at any given temperature, and a short Act of two sections in
+1897 extended this power to other measures for the protection of health
+recommended by a Departmental Committee appointed to inquire into the
+working of the Act of 1889. Without doubt, the most important measures
+adopted under this Act in 1898 were those tending to purify the air of
+workrooms by prescribing a CO standard of ventilation (“during working
+hours in no part of the Cotton Cloth Factory shall the proportion of
+carbonic acid in the air be greater than nine volumes of carbonic acid
+to every ten thousand volumes of air”), and by prohibiting use of
+impure water for production of artificial humidity. One other point of
+historical interest in connection with the Act of 1889 must be touched
+on. It contained a general provision enabling an inspector, where he
+considered that dust was inhaled by the workers to an injurious extent,
+to serve a notice on the occupier of the factory to adopt mechanical
+or other means for its removal, but subjecting the notice in case
+of objection by the occupier to the same process of arbitration as
+the notice of fencing for dangerous machinery provided in the Act of
+1844. In both cases the power of the employer to send the notice to
+arbitration was repealed by the Act of 1891, and, consequently, the
+ordinary procedure for the inspector to enforce such notices was by
+establishment of the evidence in support of his requirement in the
+ordinary courts. For the first time some provision was made in 1891 for
+means of escape in case of fire in factories and workshops. Certifying
+surgeons were now called upon to report annually as to the persons
+inspected and the results of inspection.
+
+On the Act of 1891 followed a period of greatly increased
+administrative activity with the new powers to initiate detailed
+regulation for promotion of special hygiene in factory and workshop
+life. No fewer than sixteen trades, including the majority of those
+referred to in the reports of Royal Commissioners and special medical
+experts of the earlier and middle parts of the century, were certified,
+under sections, by the Secretary of State, as dangerous or injurious
+within four years of the passing of the Act.[21] The Act of 1895,
+extending greatly in several directions the sanitary control of
+industrial life, followed on this period of increased activity, after
+the Royal Commission on Labour had reported on the results of its wide
+survey of industrial conditions, after two important Departmental
+Committees had reported on lead and phosphorus industries, and after
+two successive annual reports had embodied reports and recommendations
+from the women inspectors who in 1893 were first added by the Home
+Office to the staff of factory inspectors. In the year in which this
+Act came into force, medical knowledge was established as a guiding
+factor in the permanent administration of the Department. Probably no
+more important step towards control of use of poisonous substances
+in manufacture has been taken than that contained in the provision
+for reports to the Chief Inspector from every medical practitioner
+attending in certain cases of poisoning contracted in any factory or
+workshop. Complementary to this is an extension of the province of
+certifying surgeons; it included now not only examination of workers
+under sixteen, but also the duty of inquiry and report in certain
+cases of industrial disease and accident, and, under special rules,
+where required, periodical re-examination of workers. In the general
+provisions of the Act appear for the first time the questions of
+reasonable temperature, requirement of lavatories where poisonous
+substances are used, formerly only touched by special rules; it
+became possible by order of a court of summary jurisdiction to secure
+prohibition of use of dangerous structures or a dangerous machine
+until the necessary steps had been taken to remove the danger by the
+occupier of the factory or workshop. The field of factory regulation
+was extended by the inclusion of certain conditions of health and
+safety in “laundries,” and of general and special conditions of safety
+in every dock, wharf, quay, and warehouse. In the special rules it
+became possible for the Secretary of State, subject to the award
+of arbitrators if objection were raised, to introduce provisions
+prohibiting or limiting employment of any classes of persons in the
+industries scheduled as dangerous, a power which has been exercised in
+the case of white lead works (prohibition of women’s employment in the
+most dangerous processes), vulcanising of indiarubber by bisulphide of
+carbon (limitation of hours of adults), and lead smelting works (limit
+of spells in cleaning flues).
+
+A few words must be said about the dangerous industry of quarrying
+in open quarries (as distinct from underground quarries under the
+Metalliferous Mines Act). These were nominally under the Factory Acts
+by section 93 of 1878, but it was not until special rules could be
+introduced under the Act of 1891 that any practical steps could be
+taken at all to enforce the particular measures of safety applicable
+to the conditions. These proved inadequate, and in 1894, on the
+recommendations of a Special Committee appointed in 1893 to inquire
+into the whole matter, a special Quarries Act was passed which, while
+retaining those provisions of the Factory Acts that were suitable, such
+as fencing and regulation of employment, applied also those provisions
+of the Metalliferous Mines Acts which from the nature of the industry
+rendered them better adapted for control of its peculiar dangers; at
+the same time the administration passed to the Mines Department, and
+in a few years it was reported that special rules for safety had been
+established in over 2000 quarries with satisfactory results.
+
+Much remains to be said of the methods of regulation of injurious and
+dangerous industries since 1896;[22] of the steps taken by inquiries
+and action of the permanent staff, with its increasingly expert
+character; of inquiries by Departmental Committees and by specially
+appointed advisers on scientific and technical aspects of processes;
+of endeavours, successful and unsuccessful, to frame and carry through
+special rules without resort to arbitration to meet the risks to
+the life and health of whole classes of workers; of the results of
+arbitration in two of the most injurious industries, manufacture of
+earthenware and china, and of lucifer matches, where white or yellow
+phosphorus is used. All this, however, belongs so much to current
+history and controversy that its true meaning and tendency can best
+be brought out later, and perhaps by a more detached observer. At
+the very time when the proofs of this sketch leave my hands, an
+important Bill is passing to report stage in the House of Commons
+from the Grand Committee on Trade, where opinion has been shown to be
+practically unanimous in regard to the substitution of a better method
+of establishing special rules for the precarious and clumsy method of
+arbitration; power has been taken to prohibit, limit, or control use
+of any material or process in industry; and, where fruitful extension
+has been made of the principle of legislating, for details in matters
+of health by means of departmental orders. Enough has, I trust, been
+said to illustrate the rise and growth in the last hundred years of the
+still new ideas of the claim of the industrial worker in a civilised
+country to reasonable, practical measures to secure his immunity from
+needless suffering, of the claim of the community that the profits of
+manufacture shall not be bought at the expense of the life and health
+of citizens, in whose individual well-being the true wealth of the
+community lies.
+
+ ADELAIDE M. ANDERSON.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER III
+
+ REGULATION OF INJURIOUS OR DANGEROUS OCCUPATIONS IN FACTORIES
+ AND WORKSHOPS IN SOME OF THE CHIEF EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.
+
+
+In the historical sketch of the development in England of factory and
+workshop hygiene, I have endeavoured to indicate the groundwork on
+which special regulations for dangers arising out of the nature or
+the organisation of particular processes rest. Comprehension of the
+meaning of regulations for industrial health in other countries would
+be greatly increased for the student of this branch of comparative
+legislation and administration, if there were knowledge of the
+historical development of these institutions not only in one but in all
+the countries touched on. But then, equally so would there be gain in
+acquiring practical administrative experience in all those countries.
+Although both kinds of knowledge are not equally impracticable of
+attainment by one individual, the limits of space and time in such a
+chapter as this prohibit any attempt to enter on either field so far as
+details are concerned, and it is only possible to take the absolutely
+necessary step of entering a warning against over-estimation of the
+value of comparative surveys of systems of factory law and schemes of
+administration which are not followed by further research. With a view
+to such further research I trust that the slight survey attempted here
+may be of value.
+
+While fully appreciating the need of supplementing study of the law
+relating to factory hygiene in any country by reference to the system
+of local government and the law relating to public health, I am
+compelled by the limits already touched on to concentrate attention on
+the one branch of law--factory legislation proper.
+
+England stands in a special position, with its own qualities and own
+defects. Having entered long before most other European countries on
+the path of control of employment in factories owing to the earlier
+need of such regulation, and having admittedly also led the way in
+the task of building up a complete and precise sanitary code for
+regulation of public health, England has shown in the later stages
+of the part of the work which touches industry too little interest
+in the later efforts, on different lines of other countries. This
+slowness is traceable in part to the same causes as those which have
+retarded in England the general study of comparative legislation and
+administration, of which foremost, no doubt, stands the necessity of
+developing on national lines our own safeguards, yet it seems probable
+that the country which in a singular degree stimulated European
+progress in Public Health by the justly famous “Report on the Sanitary
+Condition of the Labouring Population,” 1838, and its immediate
+fruits, has latterly retarded its own progress in industrial hygiene
+by too close an adherence to its own methods. However this may be,
+it is clear that whereas Continental thinkers have already begun to
+utter warnings as to the limits of the value of comparative study of
+labour legislation, we in England are still waiting for sufficient
+material and accurate information on which to base any comparisons at
+all. Even for those who have time to do little more than mould their
+opinions by reading the daily and weekly papers, still more for those
+who desire to devote more time to these subjects, it would be well if
+we had continually accessible, in convenient form, current documents
+which would enable us to estimate more exactly what we have to learn
+from other countries, and what are the ideas applied there which are
+capable of application here under different circumstances of social
+and administrative tradition and legislative groundwork.[23] And to
+understand any one branch of factory legislation, even the sanitary,
+engineering, and medical side of prevention of industrial diseases and
+accidents, knowledge must be acquired of other sides, the economic one
+of limitation of hours and times of work, and protection of workers in
+making their contract, no less than the social side of propriety of
+arrangements in the workplace, and direct or indirect protection of
+women, home life, and children’s training. The time has come, however,
+when there is a new readiness for the interchange of ideas between this
+country and others on the question of general provision for sanitation
+and special regulation for dangerous, unhealthy, and injurious
+occupations. As I have said elsewhere, “with the rise and development
+of new methods and even entire industries in new places, old and new
+dangers and diseases are rapidly becoming clearer. The international
+interest in applying science at an equal pace to the development and to
+the sanitation of injurious industries is at once more equal and more
+urgent than in the indirectly hygienic questions of hours and holidays
+for industrial workers. At the same time the difficulties of regulation
+are far less prominently economic, legal or social, and more especially
+questions for treatment by expert scientific advisers.”
+
+In order to estimate with an approach to accuracy the value of special
+measures adopted in other countries, it is necessary to obtain some
+idea of the ordinary scope of factory legislation, and of the degree
+in which the laws are made operative by methods of administration, and
+by sanctions attached to contraventions. The regulations for ordinary
+health and safety, which “at first blush” bear considerable resemblance
+to each other, are found on closer examination to have widely differing
+effectiveness, owing perhaps in one case to lack of precise definition
+or to special limitation of the class of workplaces covered; in another
+to the powers conferred both on local and on central authorities to
+sanction exceptions either to the Industrial Code, or orders made
+under it; in another to local variations in economic organisation of
+industries affected. For example, on the first point, more cases of
+disputed application of the code, which contains no _definition_
+of the term “factory,” have in Germany come before the courts than
+in England, and in Germany the special restrictions as regards hours
+and health for women and young workers apply only in “factories.” The
+various decisions, on particular instances, of the Supreme Court lay
+stress now on one feature, now on another, of what is understood as a
+factory, such as numbers employed, size of the building, subdivision
+of labour, active personal share of the employer in the processes.
+Application of mechanical power to manufacture by machinery generally
+brings a workplace under the scope of the factory regulations, but
+power is retained for the Federal Council to exempt even from this
+rule any special undertaking. The Austrian Industrial Code does define
+the term “factory,” but very much on the lines threshed out by the
+decisions of the German _Reichsgericht_. In both these countries
+there is much less control of conditions of labour in workshops than
+in factories, although Austria makes rather less distinction than
+Germany between the two. Whereas England distinguishes these two
+classes of workplace only by relegating general sanitary control of
+the workshops to the local authority, not by differing requirements,
+France makes none of the distinction between factory and workshop which
+in one form or another is found in other European countries. In both
+these countries the general protection of the law covers alike factory
+and workshop employé; in Germany the Code has not gone further than
+to empower the Federal Council to extend the factory regulations, if
+cause should be found, to workshops. “Domestic workshops” are entirely
+exempt from regulation of labour in Germany and Austria. England
+stands alone in defining limits in domestic workshops for the labour
+of children and young persons, but hitherto has not taken the power of
+applying special sanitary regulation,[24] which both France and Belgium
+possess, for protection against dangerous or unhealthy occupations
+carried on in them. From even so brief a review of the classes of
+workplaces covered, it easily appears how in the past in some countries
+the domestic workshops in dangerous industries, _e.g._, lucifer
+match making (unknown except in factories in England), have furnished a
+disproportionate number of victims of industrial disease.
+
+While the first question necessarily is, what are the workplaces
+covered by the regulations? the second and equally important is, what
+is the system of inspection? In most countries, as in England, the
+institution of a special inspectorate has followed, not accompanied,
+the enactment of measures of protection, even though in some countries
+the idea of sanitary regulation has preceded limitation of hours for
+women and minors. In Belgium, Holland, and Sweden the institution dates
+from 1888–9; in Switzerland, and some of the German States, beginning
+with Prussia, it dates from 1878; in Austria, from about 1887; France,
+from 1874; Denmark, 1873. About 1892 to 1893 both France and Belgium
+undertook the reorganisation of their inspectorate, which corresponds
+to the thorough reconstruction that in England followed the Royal
+Commission on Factory Legislation in 1876.
+
+In several of these countries, all of which had originally to some
+extent looked to the far earlier example and experience of England in
+enforcement of the law, the important step was taken, considerably
+in advance of England, of bringing into the factory service medical,
+engineering, and chemical expert knowledge. No doubt in England, the
+delay in this matter is directly traceable to the character stamped
+on the institution by the educational, moral, and social origin of
+our Factory Acts, and to the very recent beginnings of development
+(1883–1891) of a special basis of factory hygiene. The delay in England
+was probably further increased by the introduction (referred to in my
+historical sketch) of tentative investigations of industrial diseases
+under the ægis of an entirely separate Government Department, concerned
+with local government and administration of the law relating to public
+health. This delay as compared with Germany was, however, more than
+compensated, when the Act of 1891 had introduced special means of
+control of injurious trades, by the centralised, organised character
+of the English inspectorate. Although the German Federal Council can
+make regulations for injurious industries throughout the Empire which
+over-ride special state or local rules, still each state has hitherto
+appointed its own inspectors, and when appointed these inspectors in
+order to enforce the rules must ordinarily report infringements to the
+local police authority, who may or may not always take action. Thus
+in Germany uniformity of administration in such matters outside the
+boundary of any state, so far as it depends on centralised supervision,
+can hardly be looked for. Much more closely knit is the Austrian
+inspectorate, with its chief inspector, who has some expert advisers
+on his staff, and power himself to take part in final decisions on
+cases brought up, on appeal, to the industrial authority of third and
+final instance at the Ministry of the Interior. Only in Austria, so far
+as I know, is it obligatory in fixing a penalty for a contravention
+to take into account both the amount of advantage the offender might
+expect from the infringement and the amount of harm that the worker
+may suffer. The latter consideration would be weightiest in questions
+of health and safety, and since the fines have to be paid into local
+provident funds for workers, would correspond to the penal compensation
+in case of injury through neglect to fence machinery possible under
+English law. Medical and chemical reports are less prominent in the
+Austrian inspectorate than the German, and it has been distinctly laid
+down that the inspectors are not so much engineering and sanitary
+experts as a special institution for the protection of labour; since
+1876 the supervision of dangerous and unhealthy industries has been
+one of the functions of the provincial authorities for public health.
+Although in France the inspectorate has been organised on lines, so far
+as territorial divisions are concerned, similar to those in England,
+_i.e._, with district and superintending inspectors, it is without
+a chief inspector, and works under the general supervision of a
+commission (_Commission supérieure du Travail dans l’Industrie_).
+This system has been declared by one of the oldest superintending or
+divisional inspectors to work most unsatisfactorily in the matter
+of control of dangerous industries where the great need is that the
+circumstances not of a locality, but the country as a whole, should be
+considered by a chief having under his directions both expert officials
+and an organised staff. The special expert character of the central
+Belgian inspectorate is determined by the fact that the earliest
+inspectors were appointed (1889) under the law relating to sanitation
+and safety in dangerous or unhealthy industries, and not under the
+law limiting hours of labour for women and children. The latter were
+first appointed in 1891, and the whole service organised as one in
+1895. Of the Scandinavian countries Denmark has had the most definitely
+constituted inspectorate, but here the central authority has hitherto
+been divided (as it was before 1876 in England) between two principal
+inspectors. This is now altered. An Act which came into force on 1st
+January 1902, not only amends and strengthens the law relating to
+factories, but also centralises the control by providing for a single
+chief or director with two expert secretaries, one trained in economic
+questions, the other in technical questions. Of the remaining European
+countries Hungary possesses an organised and centralised inspectorate
+of the English type. In Russia control of the methods of inspectors
+is by a system of Provincial Boards under the supreme supervision of
+the Chief Factory and Mining Board, presided over by the Minister of
+Finance, who places some of the principal inspectors on the Board.
+
+I may turn from the field of application of the laws and methods
+of organising inspection to the methods of securing _general_
+sanitary conditions and security in workplaces. England stands alone in
+both delegating certain sanitary powers to local authorities, and at
+the same time retaining power to the Government inspectors to intervene
+in these matters in case of default of the local authority, and yet
+we have nothing quite comparable to the powers of health authorities
+in Belgium, Germany, and Austria, to lay down in certificates of
+authorisation for large numbers of workplaces, conditions aimed at
+securing the health of the workers as well as the public health. In
+some cases, particularly in Belgium, this power extends beyond the
+trades here classed as noxious or offensive, and includes amongst
+many trades recognised as injurious to workers even laundries, one
+of the last of the great manual industries to be regulated in this
+country. Quite early in the nineteenth century we find laundries
+appearing in French lists of noxious or offensive trades under two
+classes, (_a_) as requiring authorisation for establishment near
+dwellings, (_b_) as requiring internal supervision on account of
+decomposing soap and water. In Germany and Austria, lists of trades
+subject to preliminary authorisation are shorter than in Belgium, but
+there is nothing in other countries equivalent to the absolute duty
+placed upon German local authorities, apart from all initiative of
+numerous Government inspectors, to visit every industrial establishment
+where protected persons are employed at least once in six months, in
+order to apply the provisions of the industrial code in all matters
+relating to safety, sanitation, and propriety of arrangements. Further,
+we have in England nothing comparable to the powers of the separate
+State Authorities in Germany to call in the advice of the Accident
+Assurance Associations under the Accident Insurance Laws in order to
+restrict hours of labour in dangerous occupations, or to carry into
+effect the general requirements of the Code relating to safety and
+health. In general, in comparing special rules against dangers in
+industry as between England and Germany, due weight must be given
+to the consideration that for many years in Germany there has been
+insurance for workers both against accident and sickness; also it must
+be remembered that the Civil Code lays a positive obligation on every
+master to secure for his servants arrangements for health, safety,
+and morality in their employment such as are also required in the
+Industrial Code. We are, moreover, in Austria and Germany reviewing
+countries in which traces of the old guild organisation of industry
+survive both in law and fact, and the industrial codes, while defining
+the duties of employers to workers, expressly require obedience and
+fidelity from the worker to his employer. Discipline thus is a far
+easier matter in a German than an English workplace, a factor of very
+considerable importance in regulation of dangerous trades.
+
+It would not be difficult to demonstrate in tabular form that England
+and Germany stand easily first among the European countries in respect
+of detailed attempts to regulate unhealthy industries by special
+Government rules, but it must suffice presently to set forth the
+trades so regulated in these two, while touching on some of the salient
+features of special rules in other countries. First, however, it must
+be indicated how the various countries stand to each other in such
+general matters as ventilation and lighting of workrooms, temperature,
+provision of meal rooms, cloak rooms, lavatories, drinking water,
+arrangements for sanitary accommodation, reporting and prevention of
+accidents.
+
+As regards _ventilation_, until the Bill of 1901 to amend the
+Factory Acts was introduced by the Government, England stood almost
+alone in requiring removal of air from workrooms _only_ so far
+as injurious dust, gases, and vapours arose from the manufacturing
+process. The laws of Germany, Austria, and Belgium recognised much
+earlier the need of ample ventilation in a workroom, quite apart from
+the special question of removal of poisonous or injurious products of
+manufacture, although for those too sufficient provision had been made.
+In Belgium, general ventilation of workrooms was one of the special
+conditions of authorisation of unhealthy trades under a decree of 1886,
+but in 1894 it was particularly laid down for all workshops that means
+of securing renewal of the air equal to at least 30 cubic metres per
+hour per worker should be provided, and that where unhealthy processes
+were carried on, the removal should be equal to 60 cubic metres. “The
+inlets for fresh air and outlets for vitiated air shall be so placed
+as to cause no inconvenience to workers.” On this followed the further
+provisions for exhaust ventilation for steam, gases, and dust. A French
+decree of the same year is rather less exacting in the matter of
+general ventilation, but more precise as to the measures necessary for
+removing or preventing injurious dusts, gases, and steam. In Austria
+and Germany, in addition to the general proviso that workrooms are to
+be maintained in such a condition as to secure the health of workers,
+both general ventilation and special provision for removing dust and
+fumes are required. These requirements are of much earlier date than
+the French and German decrees referred to. General ventilation and
+removal of dust from workrooms are required in Hungary by the law of
+1893, and will be in Denmark by the law to come into force in 1902.
+
+As regards _lighting_ of workrooms, a condition of health almost
+as important as ventilation, several of the more important industrial
+countries have provisions, although England has hitherto left the
+matter untouched. Germany by section 128, and Austria by section 74,
+of their respective industrial codes recognise sufficient light as
+an essential condition of health in factories. In France provision is
+made for proper lighting of workrooms and also of passages, staircases,
+and other accessory parts of factories and workshops. In Belgium and
+Denmark lighting has hitherto been required as a measure of safety,
+not of health. On the other hand, the important sanitary question of
+_temperature_ is more carefully provided for by the general law
+now in England than in the codes of other countries.
+
+Suitable dining-rooms, which can only be required in dangerous
+industries under special rules in England, may by the German code be
+ordered wherever it seems desirable by the local authority, who may
+also require that they shall be heated in cold weather. In France,
+although it is laid down that all workrooms must be cleared, and
+the air entirely renewed during meal hours, the law is silent as
+regards provision of meal rooms; consequently, as in certain cases in
+England, inspectors report difficulties in enforcing the evacuation
+of workrooms during meal hours. It is frankly admitted in the latest
+annual report that the law has hitherto only been strictly applied
+where the nature of the manufacturing process makes the restriction
+essential for protection of the health of the worker: mostly in trades
+classed in this country as injurious. The Belgian law does not in this
+matter go quite so far as the French, the restriction applying only to
+rooms in which poisonous substances are handled. Suitable lavatories,
+cloakrooms, and drinking water are required in all factories and
+workshops in France by the decree of 1894, a requirement going far
+beyond those of other countries, for example Germany, where provision
+of lavatories and cloakrooms depend on their being required by the
+nature of the work, and where a detailed order must be made to that
+effect by the police authority for specified classes of workplaces. As
+in the case of meals in workrooms, it appears from the official reports
+that in France the provision of washing appliances is enforced only
+in chemical works, workplaces where poisonous substances are handled,
+rag-sorting shops, tobacco factories, and a few other classes of
+workplace, where the nature of the work makes it important that such
+protection should be given.
+
+The French and the Belgian laws are as yet the only ones which attempt
+to define precisely a standard, independent of local conditions,
+for sufficient and suitable sanitary conveniences. The German code
+makes a general requirement as to sufficiency and suitability, having
+regard to number and sex of workers, and leaves details to police
+regulation. In Belgium the number must be one convenience at least for
+every twenty-five workers, in France for every fifty workers, and in
+neither country may there be direct communication with workrooms. It
+is clearly stated in inspectors’ reports that in France the conditions
+in sanitary respects are far from being fully enforced, although the
+general limit of one in fifty is not infringed. These two countries
+again have general provision for the very important matters of drainage
+of floors and frequent cleansing of workrooms, and prompt removal from
+them of organic matter. “The floor shall be cleansed, thoroughly, at
+least once a day before or after the period of employment,” in the
+French decree of 1893, is a provision which appears to be well enforced
+and is applicable to all industries. The inspectors are specially
+instructed to draw attention to the hygienic value of a cleansing which
+takes place before the entry of workers. The sanitary value of such a
+practice, whether in dusty, poisonous, or ordinary workshops, cannot
+possibly be overrated.
+
+Glancing for a moment at general regulations to protect women and young
+workers, as distinct from adult workers, two points only can be touched
+on, protection of young workers against overstrain, and women from
+accidents and from too early employment after childbirth. The brevity
+of this article makes it impossible to compare in detail the limits
+of age for child labour in the different countries, but some special
+safeguards under the French law cannot be passed by: (_a_) careful
+detailed regulation of the weights that may be pushed, lifted, carried
+by girls and boys under eighteen years of age; (_b_) prohibition
+of employment of girls under sixteen at machines driven by treadles;
+(_c_) prohibition of employment of young workers in a large number
+of processes scheduled as unhealthy; (_d_) cleaning of machinery
+in motion is prohibited not only for young workers but also for
+women. The German Industrial Code especially insists on the peculiar
+responsibility of employers to take every possible step to protect
+young workers from risks of all kinds.
+
+The limitations as regards employment of women after childbirth may be
+briefly summarised as follows:--
+
+_Belgium._--“Women must not be employed in industry within four
+weeks after childbirth” (sect. 5 of Law of 5th December 1889).
+
+_Switzerland._--“A total absence from employment in factories of
+women during eight weeks before and after childirth must be observed,
+and on their return to work proof must be tendered of an absence
+since birth of the child of at least six weeks” (section 15 of the
+Federal Law of 23rd March 1877). An order of the Federal Council, 1897,
+indicates a further abstinence from employment before confinement
+(the length of time unspecified) in certain dangerous occupations,
+_e.g._, in processes in which fumes of white phosphorus are
+produced; or in manipulation of lead or lead products; or where mercury
+or sulphuric acid are used; in dry cleaning works; in indiarubber
+works; any processes involving lifting or carrying heavy weights, or
+risk of violent shocks. As the limit of the period is undefined, and
+means of enforcing the prohibition unspecified, it is difficult to see
+how the regulation does more than outline an excellent theoretical
+protection.
+
+_Holland._--“Women must not be employed in factories or workshops
+within four weeks after childbirth” (Law of 5th May 1889).
+
+_Denmark._--“Women must not be employed within four weeks of
+childbirth except on production of a medical certificate showing that
+the mother’s employment will not be injurious to herself or the child”
+(Law of 1st July 1901).
+
+_Germany._--The Industrial Code contains the same absolute
+prohibition of employment during four weeks as the Dutch law, but
+extends it to six weeks if a medical certificate cannot be produced
+approving employment at the end of four weeks.
+
+_Austria._--The Industrial Code lays down the same prohibition as
+the Dutch law.
+
+_Spain_, by a law of 13th March 1900, prohibits employment of
+women within three weeks of childbirth, but lays a further obligation
+on employers to allow one hour at least in the ordinary period of
+employment (for which there must be no deduction from wages) to nursing
+mothers to nurse their infants. This hour may be divided into two
+separate absences of half-an-hour, and may be fixed at pleasure by the
+mother, whose only obligation is to notify the times she chooses to the
+overlooker.
+
+Turning to _accidents_ and their prevention in factory and
+workshop employment, it is probable that only in Germany and Austria,
+through the operation of the long-established insurance laws, is there
+anything approaching the completeness of information with regard to
+occurrence and causes of accidents secured in England by the duty of
+reporting so precisely defined in the Factory Acts. On the other hand,
+through the operation of the same insurance laws, the fencing and other
+precautions against occurrence of accidents, necessarily tend to be
+far completer than in any country where this motive has only recently
+arisen (as in France and England). It is indeed expressly stated in
+the last annual report of the French inspectors, that the statistics
+of accidents are very far from indicating the real state of affairs,
+and that it cannot be known until the law of employers’ liability for
+accidents, of 1898, has come fully into operation. Possibly to the
+admittedly ineffectual control by Government in France of the causes
+and prevention of accidents is due the formation and steady growth
+of Employers’ Associations with the object of reducing industrial
+accidents by careful fencing and organisation of work. Details as
+to methods adopted in the various countries for guarding machinery
+and reducing risk of accidents would be too elaborate and technical
+for this article. So far as the various laws, distinguished from
+administrative regulation, are concerned, none contain so complete
+a series of provisions as the English Factory Acts, though Belgian
+and French decrees contain some excellent safeguards. In Germany,
+as can be readily verified by reference to any volume of Government
+inspectors’ reports, much of the detailed work of enforcing use of
+safeguards is done by the Trade Accident Associations, often acting in
+co-operation with the State inspectors. Not only are rules relating
+to safeguards--for example, the elaborate ones in aerated water
+works--drawn up by the Trade Associations, but they are enforceable
+by penalty both on employers and employed after they have been duly
+authorised by the Imperial Insurance Office. Employers neglecting the
+rules may be condemned to pay double their ordinary contribution to the
+Trade Association, and the fines imposed on workers are payable to the
+Sick Insurance Fund.
+
+Turning now to governmental regulation of specially unhealthy or
+injurious occupations by more closely applied and more easily amended
+rules than are possible in a general code, I must revert again to
+the observation made above, that only in England and Germany can a
+clear comparison be made of “special rules”; this applies both to the
+method of formulating such rules, and to the number and variety of
+trades so regulated. Other countries have in their general factory
+law powers to make somewhat similar regulation, but have relied in a
+greater degree on control of injurious occupations by local authorities
+concerned with the law relating to public health, or have endeavoured,
+especially in France, to lay down in a single administrative decree
+general requirements as to exhaust ventilation for dust and fumes,
+washing appliances, meal-rooms, etc., which would be likely to cover
+the special risks in many industries. In Belgium, where special rules
+for safety of workers in dangerous industries (such as manufacture
+of lucifer matches by means of white or yellow phosphorus) have been
+drawn up, both in pursuance of the general law regulating factories
+(1889) and of the laws relating to noxious industries, under control
+of local authorities, there is an increasing tendency for sanitary
+regulation of workplaces to pass into the control of the central
+factory inspectors.[25] There we find in the decree of 1894, relating
+to general precautions in unhealthy industries, very similar provisions
+to those in the French decree of the same year; but the Belgian decree
+is declared in its preamble to be a codification of the conditions
+liable to be attached to certificates of authorisation by the local
+authorities, whereas in the French decree we clearly find the first
+step in an attempt to apply the general law of 1893, relating to
+hygiene in factories and workshops. An exceedingly interesting
+commentary on the incomplete and unsatisfactory effect of this latter
+method is found in the summary to the annual report of the French
+inspectors for 1899. I gave a translation of the terms of the decree
+in my annual report for 1894 to the Chief Inspector of Factories, and
+need not repeat them here. The difficulties since complained of in
+France are twofold--(_a_) judicial, as to interpretation in the
+courts of some of the exceedingly vague terms employed, (_b_)
+technical, owing to the inappropriateness in some of the industries
+of rules which are admirable in others. There is a growing demand,
+likely to be met after completion of current investigations in various
+unhealthy industries, for more detailed and precise rules, applicable
+to special processes or to classes or allied groups of industries.
+Such special rules were clearly originally intended to be the outcome
+of the law on hygiene, 1893, but in only one case, the manufacture
+of emerald or Schweinfurth green, have special rules binding both on
+employers and workers been applied (decree of 29th June 1895) to the
+peculiar risks of the processes. “Does that mean,” says the official
+report of 1900, “that it is only in this branch of manufacture that
+the need for special protection of workers against the injurious
+effects of the processes has appeared? No. The Government have had
+under consideration a certain number of draft rules for application
+to particular industries ... for example, industries in which lead
+and lead compounds, mercury, arsenic, or arsenious acid, and varnishes
+with an alcoholic base are used.” In the meantime the result of their
+considerations has been that draft rules for electric accumulator
+works, vulcanisation of india rubber, laundries (against danger from
+infectious diseases), horn and woollen factories, handling of foreign
+hides and skins, were referred to the Committee of Public Hygiene, for
+an opinion to guide the Minister of Commerce and Industry before he
+finally issues the decrees, embodying the rules. It appeared, however,
+that the statutory powers of this Committee do not go beyond the
+framing of recommendations applicable to industries in general, and the
+Minister of Commerce and Industry appointed, therefore, in December
+1900 a special Dangerous Trades Committee, composed of nine members,
+under the Presidency of M. le Docteur Napias, Member of the _Académie
+de Médecine_. The aim in selecting the members of the Committee
+was to secure the technical and scientific knowledge necessary for
+preparation of special rules suitable to particular classes of
+industry, processes, or modes of working. In addition to expert
+members such as M. Bouquet, M. Fontaine, and Professors of Chemistry,
+Economics, and Representatives of Employers and Employed, four other
+members may be appointed for the special technical considerations
+belonging to each trade or class of work to be regulated.
+
+As regards poisonous processes, in all but the deadliest, where the
+frequency and severity of illness (as, _e.g._, amongst white
+lead workers) long ago led to inquiry followed by special local
+precautions, inquiry must be greatly handicapped in France, as it has
+been in Germany, by the lack of complete statistics of industrial
+poisoning such as have been secured in England. In no other country
+has the step been taken of laying both on the occupier of a factory or
+workshop and on every medical practitioner the duty of reporting to
+a chief inspector of factories, or the central authority, individual
+cases of industrial poisoning. The lack of information would possibly
+have been earlier felt in all its seriousness in both France and
+Germany had there been the centralised responsibility that followed
+the appointment of a single chief inspector in England. Although in
+France the attention of the Minister of Commerce and Industry has been
+repeatedly drawn to the effects of lead poisoning in potteries, and
+special precautions are recognised as necessary, it is difficult, as Dr
+Oliver pointed out in his report of 1899 to the Home Secretary, “to
+estimate the amount of lead poisoning that occurs in the potteries in
+France,” owing to the incompleteness of statistics. In Germany, where
+considerable information can be obtained in some districts, through
+the records kept under the Sickness Insurance Laws, the incompleteness
+and uncertain character of the information supplied is the subject of
+frequent report by the factory inspectors. In the Potsdam district,
+where there are innumerable glazed-tile stove factories, great service
+was done by the action of a sick fund doctor, who reported that in the
+dipping department nearly every worker suffered, more or less, from
+lead poisoning. Energetic precautionary measures were taken by the
+local authority, and great improvement in health of workers was soon
+reported by the doctor. In other districts, on the other hand, comments
+are frequent from the inspectors on the lack of effective assistance
+from sick funds and their doctors in tracing the origin of industrial
+diseases.
+
+In spite of this defectiveness in statistics of industrial disease,
+it is with the German Imperial Regulations (Orders of the Federal
+Council made in pursuance of section 120 of the Industrial Code)
+that the English method of regulating dangerous trades can be best
+compared.[26] Some years before it was possible in England under
+section 8 of the Factory Act of 1891 to schedule as dangerous or
+injurious any process, machinery, or particular description of manual
+labour in a factory or workshop, the Federal Council of the German
+Empire, or the central authority in any one of the Federal States, was
+empowered to draw up special rules to guard against risks of injury
+to life, health or limbs of workers, and to limit hours of adults as
+well as of minors. Such rules, bearing date 1888 and 1889, are still
+in force. This power was strengthened by an amendment in 1891 to the
+Industrial Code, applying to protected persons, which empowered the
+Federal Council to forbid entirely the employment of women or young
+workers, or to make it dependent on very stringent conditions in
+occupations dangerous to health or morality. At no time has there been
+under the German Code a power reserved to employers, similar to that
+in force in the English law until 1901, of compelling such objections
+as they can sustain to proposed rules to be settled by arbitration.
+It has been repeatedly remarked by competent observers that special
+hygiene in German factories, particularly chemical factories, has far
+surpassed the standards obtaining until recently in England. This is
+not surprising when the greater facilities in Germany for giving effect
+by administrative measures to expert recommendations are remembered;
+but the readiness of workers to submit to regulations, to which I have
+referred already, is certainly a factor of importance. It is remarkable
+that, in spite of the difference, more or less stringent special rules
+have been established in twenty-four classes of unhealthy industries
+in England, as compared with fifteen similar sets of rules in Germany;
+it must be observed that in some of the latter more than one class of
+works is included, as, for example, in the special rules of January
+1899, which cover both horsehair spinneries and brushmaking works.
+
+It is of interest to compare as follows the classes of industries
+included, and the date of the regulations:--
+
+
+ SPECIAL RULES FOR INJURIOUS OCCUPATIONS.
+
+ ENGLAND.
+
+ Date of
+ Industry or Process. Schedule.
+
+ 1 Bichromate works, 1892
+
+ 2 Bottling of aerated water, 1896
+
+ 3 Brass and alloy mixing and casting, 1896
+
+ 4 Bricks, glazing of, by lead, 1898
+
+ 5 Chemical works, 1892
+
+ 6 Earthenware and china, 1892 & 1898
+
+ 7 Enamelling of iron plates, 1892
+
+ 8 Electric accumulator works, 1894
+
+ 9 Explosive works in which
+ dinitrobenzole is used, 1892
+
+ 10 Flax spinning and weaving, 1894
+
+ 11 Lead (red and orange) works, 1894
+
+ 12 Lead (white) works, 1883 & 1893
+
+ 13 Lead (yellow) works, 1892
+
+ 14 Lead smelting works, 1894
+
+ 15 Lead, yellow chromate of, 1895
+
+ 16 Lucifer match factories, 1892
+
+ 17 Paint and colour works,
+ and extraction of arsenic, 1892
+
+ 18 Skins and hides, sorting, 1898
+
+ 19 Tinning and enamelling of
+ iron hollow ware, 1894
+
+ 20 Tinning and enamelling of
+ metal ware, 1894
+
+ 21 Transfers (lithographic) for
+ decoration of china,
+ etc., 1898
+
+ 22 Vulcanising of indiarubber, 1896
+
+ 23 Wool sorting, 1896
+
+ 24 Wool combing, 1899
+
+ GERMANY.
+
+ Date of
+ Industry or Process. Regulation.
+
+ 1 Basic slag works, 1899
+
+ 2 Bichromate works, 1897
+
+ 3 Brick works, 1892
+
+ 4 Brushmaking works and
+ horsehair spinning, 1899
+
+ 5 Cigar factories, 1893
+
+ 6 Chicory works, 1892
+
+ 7 Electric accumulator works, 1898
+
+ 8 Glassworks, 1892
+
+ 9 Hackling and preparing
+ rooms in textile factories, 1893
+
+ 10 Lead, colour and acetate
+ of lead works, 1893
+
+ 11 Letterpress printing works, 1897
+
+ 12 Lucifer match works, 1884 & 1893
+
+ 13 Sugar refineries, 1892
+
+ 14 Vulcanising of indiarubber, 1888
+
+ 15 Wire-drawing mills, 1892
+
+It must not, however, be forgotten that some dangers for which no
+apparent provision is made in the list of German rules are to some
+extent covered by other means--for example, mercurial poisoning among
+thermometer makers by rules of the Accident Insurance Associations, or
+earthenware works by regulations of local authorities or by action of
+separate State authorities.
+
+On first comparison of the two sets of special rules in detail, it
+would appear that whereas white lead works, earthenware works, and
+indiarubber works, are far more stringently regulated in England
+than in Germany, other industries, for example, electric accumulator
+works, letterpress printing works, are subject to closer control
+than any here. In the German rules for electric accumulator works
+we find prohibition of employment of women and girls, limitation of
+hours for men, detailed conditions as to construction and cleansing
+of premises and floors, in addition to the more common regulations
+for baths, lavatories, medical examination, sick registers; whereas
+in the English rules there are only provisions for baths, lavatories,
+respirators, and gloves, no restrictions on employment beyond the
+ordinary factory limits, and no medical examination. It must be noted
+that the enforcement of these rules does not rest solely in the hands
+of the Government inspector, and that before action is possible,
+the matter must be referred to the local police authority, whose
+powers in Germany, however, are considerable. The special rules for
+letterpress printing works are so interesting and typical that I append
+a translation herewith for comparison with similar English regulations.
+It seems clear that some of the rules are directed as much against
+propagation of tubercular disease as against risks of lead poisoning.
+
+In closing this brief survey, reference must not be omitted to the
+experiment that has been made in three European countries--Switzerland,
+Holland, and Belgium--of limiting in a single instance (in the
+interests of the health of workers) the use of a poisonous material in
+industry. I refer to the use of white phosphorus in the manufacture of
+lucifer matches. In Switzerland and Holland the use of the material in
+this industry has been prohibited; in Belgium its use has been limited
+to a maximum of 8 per cent. in the paste.
+
+ ADELAIDE M. ANDERSON.
+
+
+ APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III.
+
+Order of the Federal Council of July 31, 1897, regulating Letterpress
+Printing Works and Type Foundries in pursuance of section 120_e_
+of the Industrial Code.
+
+ I. In rooms in which persons are employed in setting up type
+ or manufacture of type or stereotype plates the following
+ provisions apply:
+
+ 1. The floor of workrooms must not be sunk deeper than half
+ a metre (1.64 feet) below the ground. Exceptions may only be
+ granted by the higher administrative authority where hygienic
+ conditions are secured by a dry area and ample means of lighting
+ and ventilating the rooms.
+
+ Attics may only be used as workrooms, if the roof is underdone
+ with lath and plaster.
+
+ 2. In workrooms in which the manufacture of type or stereotype
+ plates is carried on the number of persons must not exceed such
+ as would allow at least 15 cubic metres of air space (529.31
+ cubic feet) to each. In the rooms in which persons are employed
+ only in other processes there must be at least 12 cubic metres
+ of air space (423.450 cubic feet) to each person.
+
+ In cases of exceptional temporary pressure the higher
+ administrative authority may, on the application of the
+ employer, permit a larger number in the workrooms for at the
+ most 30 days in the year, but not more than will allow 10 cubic
+ metres of air space (352.87 cubic feet) for each person.
+
+ 3. The rooms must be at least 2.90 metres (8.528 feet) in height
+ where a minimum 15 cubic metres are allowed for each person, in
+ other cases at least 3 metres (9.84 feet in height).
+
+ The rooms must be provided with windows which are sufficient
+ in number and size to let in ample light for every part of the
+ work. The windows must be so constructed that they will open and
+ admit of complete renewal of air in workrooms.
+
+ Workrooms with sloping roof must have an average height equal to
+ the measurements given in the first paragraph of this section.
+
+ 4. The rooms must be laid with a close fitting impervious
+ floor which can be cleared of dust by moist methods. Wooden
+ floors must be smoothly planed, and boards fitted to prevent
+ penetration of moisture.
+
+ All walls and ceilings must, if they are not of a smooth
+ washable surface or painted in oil, be limewashed once at least
+ a year. If the walls and ceilings are of a smooth washable
+ surface or painted in oil, they must be washed at least once a
+ year, and the oil paint must, if varnished, be removed once in
+ ten years, and if not varnished, once in five years.
+
+ The compositors’ shelves and stands for type boxes must be
+ either closely ranged round the room on the floor so that no
+ dust can collect underneath, or be fitted with long legs so that
+ the floor can be easily cleaned of dust underneath.
+
+ 5. The workrooms must be cleared and thoroughly aired once at
+ least a day, and during the working hours means must be taken to
+ secure constant ventilation.
+
+ 6. The melting vessel for type or stereotype metal must be
+ covered with a hood provided with exhaust ventilator or chimney
+ with sufficient draught to draw the fumes to the outer air.
+
+ Typefounding and melting may only be carried on in rooms
+ separate from other processes.
+
+ 7. The rooms and fittings, particularly the walls, cornices,
+ and stands for type, must be thoroughly cleansed twice a year
+ at least. The floors must be washed or rubbed over with a damp
+ cloth so as to remove dust, once a day at least.
+
+ 8. The type boxes must be cleansed before they are put in use,
+ and again as often as necessary, but not less than twice at
+ least in the year.
+
+ The boxes may only be dusted out with a bellows in the open air,
+ and this work may not be done by young persons.
+
+ 9. In every workroom spittoons filled with water, and one at
+ least for every five persons, must be provided. Workers are
+ forbidden to spit upon the floor.
+
+ 10. Sufficient washing appliances with soap, and at least one
+ towel a week for each worker, must be provided as near as
+ possible to the work for compositors, cutters, and polishers.
+
+ One wash-hand basin must be provided for every five workers,
+ with an ample supply of water laid on.
+
+ The employer must make strict provision for the use of the
+ washing appliances by workers before every meal, and before
+ leaving the works.
+
+ 11. Clothes put off during working hours must either be kept
+ outside the workroom, or hung up in cupboards, with closely
+ fitting doors or curtains, which are so shut or drawn as to
+ prevent penetration of dust.
+
+ 12. Artificial means of lighting which tend to raise the
+ temperature of the rooms must be so arranged or provided with
+ counteracting measures, that the heat of the workrooms shall not
+ be unduly raised.
+
+ 13. The employer must draw up rules binding on the workers,
+ which will ensure the full observance of the provisions in
+ sections 8, 9, 10, and 11.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ II. A notice must be affixed, and a copy sent to the Local
+ Police Authority, showing: (_a_) the length, height, and
+ breadth of the rooms; (_b_) the air space in cubic measure;
+ (_c_) the number of workers permitted in each room.
+
+ A copy of rules 1 to 13 must be affixed where it can be easily
+ read by all persons affected.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ III. Provides for the method of permitting the exceptions named
+ above in sections 2 and 3, and makes it a condition of reduction
+ in cubic air space for each person employed as typefounder or
+ compositor, that there shall be adequate mechanical ventilation
+ for regulating temperature and carrying off products of
+ combustion from workrooms.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER IV
+
+ PRINCIPLES OF PROSPECTIVE LEGISLATION FOR DANGEROUS TRADES
+
+ “Quot manus atteruntur ut unus niteat articulus.”--PLINY.
+ _Natural History_, Book II., chap. lxiii.
+
+
+He who attempts to deal with the future of industrial legislation is
+confronted at the outset by two obstacles. The one is inherent in
+most endeavours which relate to prospective law-making. The barque
+which sets forth into the sea of futurity should, if its voyage is to
+terminate in the safe anchorage of a fair haven, steer clear of those
+currents which only too easily carry it upon the shoals and quicksands
+of controversial politics. Once launched, it is scarcely possible to
+avoid stranding upon the sterile shore of party. And even a successful
+cruise must bring it perilously near the Scylla and Charybdis of
+government and opposition. The effort of this chapter will be to steer
+as even a course as possible between these opposing forces.
+
+The second difficulty is more of a particular than general nature:
+particular to the subject under consideration. A study of what has gone
+before, especially of the historical chapter preceding this, must force
+the conclusion that what has up to now been achieved seems to have been
+more the result of accident, or of some extraneous agitating forces,
+than of any carefully considered or preconceived plan. How piecemeal
+the work has been, and how intricate a fabric! Upon what lines can so
+patchy a structure be developed? Upon what principle applicable to
+the whole code can our industrial legislation, already a congeries of
+partially connected details, proceed?
+
+Students of the British Constitution will be tempted to draw an analogy
+from their favourite example; and indeed there is much at first sight
+in common between the histories of the Factory Acts and the British
+Constitution. The structure of each is compounded of small accretions,
+contributed by what seemed the necessity of the moment. But in the one
+case, in spite of the seemingly haphazard nature of the work, judged by
+the manner in which it has been performed, the British Constitution is
+firmly established upon a solid foundation, the independent blocks have
+fitted well into their time-assigned places, and have become welded
+together into a sound, cohesive whole in the process Mr Walter Bagehot
+has admirably called “the cake of custom.” How far has this been the
+case with the Factory Acts? Certain warring elements have gradually
+become adjusted; incongruous items have in certain cases been made to
+harmonise. The best example of this is to be found in the Consolidating
+Act of 1878, by which many inconsistencies were corrected. But even
+this admirable piece of work left the door open to the recreation of
+the incongruities and anomalies. In many cases the loopholes have been
+but too freely utilised, and exemptions and exceptions have been widely
+extended. These have largely tended to weaken the law and to create
+confusion.
+
+This want of homogeneity in the base work suggests problems of
+procedure difficult of solution. In view of the danger that any weighty
+superstructure would threaten foundations thus composed, it might be
+urged that our first care should be to remodel the foundations that the
+base may be secure. Such a course would involve the inevitable risk of
+disturbing what is already firmly rooted, and the true answer is that
+only a few reforms in the foundation work are required. These reforms,
+successfully executed, would produce a basis upon which the most
+elaborate fabric might rest secure.
+
+A glance at the general nature of the work, which has been ably
+described, reveals the fundamental doctrine that protection is
+necessary, protection of the wage earner against cruelty or harsh
+treatment, against fraud, against accident, against poisoning, even
+against himself. There is a small and rapidly diminishing school of
+thinkers, who hold that any protective law is wrong unless it be
+applied equally to men and women. But as men and women are not equally
+subject to the same risks and dangers, it is idle to argue that they
+can be treated in the same way. Those who are sceptical of the value
+of protective law would do well to remember that it was during the
+heyday of the Manchester School, when freedom of action, and of trade,
+and non-interference generally were at the zenith of their popularity,
+that some of the earliest Factory Acts were passed into law. If the
+necessity for the regulation of the labour of women and children was
+recognised at a time when such restrictions were eminently repugnant
+to the public mind, that necessity must have been great indeed. Is
+it suggested by the opponents of protective measures, that although
+such a necessity did exist in the past it has been dealt with and no
+longer exists? The facts go to show that the need continues, and even
+increases, with the volume of trade.
+
+Statistics make it abundantly clear that there is much sickness and
+mortality engendered by industrial occupations, and that a large
+proportion of this is preventable. The method of prevention is the
+subject which has to be considered, and before doing so, it is
+desirable for a moment to refer to the historical chapter preceding
+this. There it is shown that there is a multitude of injunctions laid
+upon manufacturers in the form of rules known as “special rules.” The
+imposition of these rules is limited to such trades as are certified
+by the Secretary of State to be dangerous or injurious. The rules
+are all imposed with one end in view, the safety of the worker, and
+though they deal with an infinity of matters, the cleanliness of the
+operative is one of the objects most commonly designed. To effect this
+many forms of words have been drafted and are at present in use. In
+these varying forms the duty of providing and maintaining the means for
+cleanliness is laid upon the manufacturer, and the duty of availing
+himself of those means is laid upon the operative. Not only does this
+injunction vary in form in different trades, but different codes
+embracing different standards are found in separate factories in the
+same trade. It will be asked how did this come about? How could a sane
+legislature or an administration outside Bedlam permit one law for the
+good employer and another for the less sensitive in conscience, though
+more sensitive in pocket? How could such a system creep into any code
+of law? As a matter of fact, it is the creation of that hysterical
+fear of compulsion, that nervous concern for the liberty of the
+subject, which has carried its mischievous influence into many spheres
+of activity. The plea that the employers’ grievances should be heard
+has gradually developed into an argument that each employer should
+be allowed to object, and objecting, he has eventually, by a process
+called “arbitration,” been enabled to procure a law to his own liking.
+
+It is scarcely necessary to demonstrate the great inconvenience
+and injustice which arise from such a system. Two men carry on the
+same trade; two standards of efficiency are demanded by the law.
+One manufacturer is required to set up and keep in good repair an
+apparatus, which is as nearly perfect as human ingenuity can devise.
+The other, perhaps sceptical of the advantages of such an apparatus, or
+more often for the sole reason that he objects to the cost and trouble
+of erecting it, is permitted to provide something less efficient. This
+system, happily described as “the creation of industrial Alsatians,” is
+open to five obvious objections: (1) As between the two employers it is
+a substantial injustice; (2) it is not less unjust to the operative,
+compelled in his need to accept worse conditions than his comrade; (3)
+it puts a premium upon resistance, in that the objecting employer is
+rewarded; (4) it imperils the dignity of the law; and lastly, (5) it
+embarrasses those who administer it.
+
+The situation then demands redress. How can this best be effected?
+Two reforms, one already indicated, suggest themselves as most ripe
+for decision. The first is the consolidation of the special rules and
+the direct enactment of such of them as are common to all or many of
+the dangerous trades. Of this class consideration has already been
+given to washing appliances. Such other matters as the provision of
+a dining-room, the prohibition of taking meals in dusty workplaces,
+the provision and maintenance of mechanical apparatus for withdrawing
+fumes, gases, or dust, the prohibition of certain classes of persons
+from working in certain places and processes, might each and all be
+embodied in the general Acts with specific reference to particular
+industries. And indeed they do find a place in the general Acts,
+but owing sometimes to capriciousness of reference and sometimes to
+vagueness in form, their inclusion has failed to effect that simplicity
+and uniformity in the law which is so much to be desired. By such a
+consolidation the multiplication of codes of special rules would be
+avoided, and even in some cases their elimination would be secured. But
+not only so: an immense gain would result from the uniformity which
+could be achieved. If the sporadic and capricious incidence of these
+obligations could be abolished, the gain would be indeed enormous.
+
+Not less simple is the reform which is called for in the employer’s
+power of objection and the system of arbitration. The working of
+the existing system has long been condemned. Nobody in the House
+of Commons is found to defend it; and yet, like other friendless
+doctrines, such as that of “common employment” in the law of Employers’
+Liability, it has lived into the twentieth century. Last year an
+attempt was made to alter the law. Although this attempt would have
+been a step in advance of the present situation, it was so slight a
+step that it was not greeted with enthusiasm by those for whose benefit
+it was intended. The proposal was to substitute a system of reference
+for that of arbitration. Some advantages were claimed for this proposal
+in that uniformity would be secured. But the uniformity would have been
+at the expense of a thorough and stringent code of rules, which might
+have been acceptable to some of the employers. The referee’s court
+would have inevitably toned the rules down to suit the objectors. Evil
+as is the existing system, no alteration would be a gain which, while
+it purchased uniformity at such a cost and amended the procedure to so
+trifling an extent, postponed a radical and effective change to the
+Greek Kalends.
+
+Full inquiry into the alleged dangers of a trade and full hearing of
+the manufacturers’ case are carefully designed by the present system.
+This design might well be satisfied, these effects be yet retained,
+and without revolutionary change additional advantages be secured;
+the advantages of a decision of the Secretary of State, unjeopardised
+either by arbitration or by reference, given after consultation not
+only with employers but with workpeople, and subject only to the
+control of Parliament. Legal provision should be made for full inquiry
+(such as it is now the practice to make by departmental committees)
+into the special conditions of the trade alleged to be dangerous;
+if, on the conclusion of the inquiry, regulation by Special Rules
+be recommended, and the Secretary of State certify the trade to be
+dangerous, he should issue to the manufacturers, and by public notice
+in the factories or workshops to the workpeople, a copy of the rules he
+proposes to make. The manufacturers and workpeople should be entitled
+to make objection in writing to the rules, or any of them, within one
+month of the receipt of such notice. Then the Secretary of State, in
+consultation with the Chief Inspector of Factories and the recommenders
+of the rules, should consider any objections so made, and the rules
+as drawn up after such consideration should be laid on the Table of
+both Houses for forty days, and have the force of law if during that
+period no objection to them be raised. It might often be desirable
+that the rules should be considered individually by Parliament, and
+provision for such consideration should be made. Under this scheme the
+clumsiness and delay now inevitable would be averted, and with proper
+safeguards for his interest being retained the manufacturers’ power of
+rejection would be transferred to Parliament.
+
+Other reforms in the regulation of dangerous trades demand mention. It
+is true of most poisonous substances in use in dangerous trades that
+adults whose constitution is fairly established can resist their danger
+more easily than can young persons. This is especially true of lead,
+whose insidious character has often been dwelt upon by scientists and
+statesmen; the inevitableness of its action is now recognised, and
+wherever risk of poisoning by this agency is established, there are
+to be found regulations and restrictions of a more or less effective
+nature. But it is also true of other substances, the absorption of
+which is injurious, and in all cases where much dust is generated, as
+in the manufacture of flax or hemp, or in trades where steam is given
+off in considerable volume, the labour of persons of immature years
+should be prohibited. This would be one reform.
+
+Again, there are other trades in which the degree of danger is
+peculiarly influenced by the continuity of the exposure to it. Such,
+for example, is the use of inflammable paints, where continuous
+employment during the normal period of five hours inflicts injury
+appreciably in excess of that caused by exposure of the same
+duration but broken in its continuity. Shortened spells of work were
+recommended by the Dangerous Trades Committee in the indiarubber trade,
+where carbon bisulphide is used, and in the painting of ships with
+inflammable paints. The special rules applying to indiarubber works
+embodied this recommendation, and there should be no great difficulty
+in extending the principle to other trades where it is obvious that the
+danger of employment is increased by long periods of exposure to these
+deleterious influences. Such trades as bronzing in lithographic works,
+in wallpaper, and in paper-staining works would greatly benefit by such
+a provision.
+
+Another reform was recommended by the Dangerous Trades Committee, which
+made its final report in 1899. All officials who have had occasion and
+opportunity to investigate the subject are convinced that many deaths
+occur which are primarily due to some industrial occupation, but are
+never so classified or reported. Diseases of occupation are so numerous
+and varied in character, and liable to disclose themselves in such
+diverse symptoms, that the initial cause of illness is often lost sight
+of, or still oftener never discovered. It consequently arises that
+the statistics of illness and death from industrial causes are most
+imperfect. Any improvement in the manner of obtaining such statistics
+and eventually of striking at the _causa causans_ would be
+valuable. All cases of death where the person has worked in a certified
+dangerous trade, or in a trade to which any of the consolidated special
+rules are applicable, within a prescribed period before death, should
+be reported to the coroner, who would, if he thought fit, conduct an
+inquiry into the circumstances of the case.
+
+No chapter dealing with the future government of dangerous trades
+would be complete without an appeal for drastic and thorough measures.
+Loose wording in the rules, or, still worse, small omissions, may
+involve mischief out of all proportion to their apparent significance
+or to the value of the compromise effected. Numerous instances of the
+injury caused by the admission of small concessions to protesting
+manufacturers could be given. Possibly none is more striking than that
+of the bottling of aerated waters. Conducted under proper conditions
+there is no reason why the operatives should be subject to any but
+unimportant and minor casualties, but conducted as it often is, grave
+accidents occur with a persistent and alarming regularity. Many cases
+of persons losing their eyesight, and even cases of death, from
+injuries received by the bursting of bottles could be quoted. The rules
+as originally outlined by the Dangerous Trades Committee contained
+provisions for the protection of all persons engaged in the labelling
+of bottles, but in the rules as finally issued to and accepted by
+the manufacturers, persons engaged in labelling bottles standing in
+cases were exempted from the safeguards. From this simple omission,
+many accidents and much suffering have resulted. One is tempted to
+ask how, in the first place, this apparently small precaution was
+omitted, and when its importance was discovered, why the defect was
+not remedied. The answer to the first question is probably that the
+manufacturers demurred as to its necessity, upon which for the sake
+of peace and economy of time and temper their view was adopted. This
+is but a surmise. The explanation of the subsequent inaction requires
+no surmise. After the danger had been established, Sir Matthew White
+Ridley, in answer to a question upon the occurrence of one of these
+accidents, said in the House of Commons:--“I have not the power at
+pleasure to make or alter special rules. They must be settled either
+by arrangement with the employers or by arbitration, and in the
+present case I cannot regard the occurrence of a single accident,
+much as I regret it, as sufficient reason for re-opening a question
+which has just been settled, after long and difficult negotiations.”
+From this answer the importance of thoroughness in translating the
+recommendations of committees into special rules becomes obvious.
+
+Nor is it sufficient to hope that by persuasion or agreement with
+employers rules suggested by the Factory Department or the Secretary of
+State will be effectually carried out. In some cases they may be, in
+others they will not. The same unfortunate results proceed from such
+a course as are to be traced to the existing system of arbitration.
+It has been shown how that system is unjust both to employers and
+workpeople, how it encourages the careless and irresponsible employer,
+how it derogates from the dignity of the law and embarrasses its
+administrators. This is true of persuasion.
+
+As in human nature there is every gradation of sensitiveness of
+conscience, so must there be in the factory, if reliance be placed
+on the forces of moral suasion alone, a corresponding gradation of
+conditions from excellence and thoroughness to indifference and
+neglect. Uniformity in these matters is an urgent necessity; and
+uniformity is incompatible with the substitution of persuasion for
+compulsory powers.
+
+Let thoroughness, then, be the watchword of those whose prerogative it
+is to frame these protective measures. Let the loopholes for escape
+from the provisions of the rules be closed up; let the channels for
+contracting out of just obligations be carefully dammed; and do not
+let small pretexts of irksomeness, or the employer’s scepticism, or
+the manager’s contempt, or the workpeople’s want of care, weigh in the
+balance for a moment against the health, the well-being, and the lives
+of masses of working men and women.
+
+For a strong Government and a humane House of Commons, the few reforms
+indicated would be but a light undertaking. They would put no undue
+strain upon the executive or the legislature; and they would, directly
+and indirectly, prevent a large amount of suffering, now patiently
+borne by a lowly and an inarticulate portion of the community. If
+simplicity, uniformity, and thoroughness be established in the
+government of the trades which carry grave risk to those engaged in
+them, the national conscience will be relieved of an oppressive burden,
+sometimes perhaps but dimly realised, but always real, and assuredly
+its removal will enhance the security and confidence with which this
+generation entrusts to its heirs the great destinies of our race.
+
+NOTE.--The year 1901 has witnessed the efforts of the
+Government and the House of Commons to amend and consolidate the
+law relating to Factories and Workshops. In this effort, so far as
+dangerous trades are concerned, certain changes have been effected.
+There is a prohibition of eating meals in factories and workshops where
+lead, arsenic, or other poisonous substance is so used as to cause
+dust or fumes. Power, too, is granted to the Secretary of State to
+prohibit, limit, or control the use of any material or process; but
+although he had not this power before, he could practically exercise
+it under section 28 of the Act of 1895. Electrical generating works,
+and those railways which connect factories with each other and the
+main lines, are now brought within the law for certain purposes; and
+dangerous trades conducted in domestic factories or workshops can now
+be regulated.
+
+But the most important alteration is that which transfers the
+responsibility for the special rules from an arbitrator or umpire
+to the Secretary of State. Under the new law the Secretary of State
+may frame regulations, and if they are not accepted, modified, or
+withdrawn, he must (unless the objection to them is withdrawn, or
+is, in his opinion, frivolous) order a public inquiry to be held by
+“a competent person.” The Chief Inspector, and any person affected
+by the draft rules, may appear at the inquiry either in person or by
+counsel, solicitor, or agent. This inquiry will take the place of the
+present arbitration, and the person holding the inquiry has, unlike the
+arbitrator or umpire, no power of adjudication. He will report to the
+Secretary of State, who is not bound to adopt his recommendations. The
+responsibility for the rules will rest with the Secretary of State,
+subject only to the control of Parliament (the rules will lie on the
+table for forty days), and in this lies the main advance effected. This
+advance may, however, prove more theoretical than practical, for it
+is unlikely that the Secretary of State will reject the advice of the
+person whom he has specially selected to advise him. The Government
+insisted on retaining the competent person, in spite of the contention
+of the reformers that reliance should be placed in the Committee of
+Inquiry, in whose minds all the circumstances and evidence taken would
+still be fresh, and in the Secretary of State’s permanent official
+advisers.
+
+After full credit has been given for the transference of the final
+responsibility, the question arises: Are the two main defects of the
+present system remedied? Can uniformity be said to have been achieved,
+when we find that the new regulations “may provide for the exemption
+of any specified class of factories or workshops either absolutely
+or subject to conditions”? And is it satisfactory that we should
+have still with us, in the form of the “competent person,” in one of
+the most important advisory positions in the State, “the man in the
+street,” “the irresponsible outsider” so properly described by Mr
+Ritchie in his introductory speech on 28th March 1901?
+
+ H. J. TENNANT.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER V
+
+ INFANT MORTALITY AND FACTORY LABOUR
+
+
+ I
+
+“What is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bee.” A
+better appreciation of this truth and there had been less cause for
+this chapter. But in so grave a degree is a demonstrated danger to the
+race tolerated in the pursuit of an imagined profit to the individual,
+that it cannot be impertinent to recall the general truth and to point
+its specific application.
+
+That there is danger to the race in the engagement in factory life
+of the mothers of young children, should be beyond challenge: always
+danger to the child, often danger to the mother; and sacrifice of
+infant life, failure of infant promise follow, have followed, and must
+follow, as surely as leaves fall to frost. Statistics abound, but
+for the most part they have received their lot of Bluebook burial;
+and the purpose of this article is, in the main, to rescue from the
+obscurity of the past its array of facts and its store of warnings.
+Upon the statistical evidence of the present there is less need to
+dwell. Dr Reid, in his admirable chapter, has dealt fully with the
+striking results of an inquiry conducted by him as Medical Officer to
+the Staffordshire County Council; and an inquiry instituted throughout
+England, upon similar lines, by the Parliamentary Bills Committee of
+the British Medical Association, supported, Dr Reid tells us, “in a
+remarkable way the conclusions drawn from the Staffordshire figures.”
+These are the Staffordshire figures:--
+
+
+ _Deaths of Children under 1 year in Three Classes of
+ Artisan Towns in Staffordshire per 1000 births._
+
+ CLASS I. CLASS II. CLASS III.
+ Many Women Fewer Women Practically no Women
+ engaged in work. engaged in work. engaged in work.
+ 10 years (1881–90) 195 166 152
+ 9 years (1891–99) 210 177 168[27]
+
+At all moments they are figures to command concern, at this moment
+they compel alarm. On the one hand is the infant death-rate steadily
+rising, on the other the birth-rate steadily falling;[28] and to the
+rising death-rate maternal neglect gives impetus, while the State
+inattentively takes note. But though statistical speech is eloquent of
+death, it says nothing of withering injury to life; nothing of injury
+to the mother who, herself affected in health, produces less fitting
+children; nothing of those children who escape death to endure life,
+crippled in body and in mind, drugged and starved in infancy, neglected
+in childhood. What dare we ask of their womanhood and their manhood?
+What service of citizenship have we any right to demand, any reason to
+expect? We must seek our answer from within our reformatories and our
+asylums, from our hospitals, our workhouses, and our prisons. For the
+feeble in body and dwarfed in mind there is no room in the struggle for
+industrial supremacy. Their drifting place is among criminals, in the
+lowest ranks of industry, or in the homes of charity.
+
+Every deadly industry has its octogenarian; and so, too, under this
+system there are those who escape, or escape at least its greatest
+evils of physical and mental disability. For the girl-children full
+escape seems impossible. Victims in their ignorance of home, they
+become vehicles to perpetuate the system; without knowledge of the
+sacred, the helpful, even the elementary elements of home life, they
+in their turn, in their own married life, seek mill employment as
+did their mothers before them. It is, in fact, the only occupation
+they know. Baking, washing, sewing, are dead arts; and in these
+children of mothers, “to a grievous extent denaturalised towards their
+offspring,”[29] the deepest forces of nature seem asleep. So from
+generation to generation the service of the mother to her child is
+entrusted to a stranger, whose introduction as substitute housewife,
+substitute mother is not without its cost. The net gain is sometimes
+in money a few shillings: in influence and training there is always
+loss; even in money sometimes loss. In evidence given to the Royal
+Labour Commission, a Yorkshire employer quotes a case “in which the
+woman drew 10s. a-week in wages, and paid 12s. a-week for the care of
+her home.”[30] The case may indeed be exceptional, but an abundance of
+other cases may be found where the actual gain in money is but slight.
+The companion to this picture of the mother in the factory and the
+paid stranger in the home, is that of the mother drudge who, neglecting
+her duty to her children, placing it perhaps in pathetically inadequate
+child hands, yet tries to fulfil it to her home. She may have worked
+in the factory from six in the morning to six or eight in the evening;
+but worker in the factory, she is worker too in the home. For her the
+day is never done, and through her youth of unending labour she is
+hastening to old age. There are advocates of such freedom to labour who
+can be convinced of hardship to the mother, who yet claim benefit for
+the child. Better far, they urge, the mother’s laboured addition to the
+family fund than scanty meals; home care and influence are necessary
+enough, but without bread what are they?
+
+To this argument the answer comes from homes bread-starved during the
+cotton famine in Lancashire, during the great depression of trade in
+Coventry, and during the siege of Paris. “During the Lancashire cotton
+famine, while privation increased the actual death-rate, the infant
+death-rate was greatly lessened owing to mothers being compelled to
+suckle their infants. During the siege of Paris also, while the general
+mortality was doubled, the infant mortality fell 40 per cent. from
+similar causes.”[31] And, writing of the effect in Coventry of the
+prostration of trade in 1861, the Registrar-General says:--“The care of
+the mothers of Coventry has, it would seem, counteracted some of the
+effects of privation, so that neglect of their homes by mothers at work
+in factories is apparently more fatal than starvation.”
+
+In the comparative figures given by the Registrar-General for the ten
+years (1859–68), the reduced infant mortality during the three cotton
+famine years (1862–64) is strikingly shown.
+
+
+ _Deaths of Infants under 1 year of age per 1000 Births in Lancashire,
+ and in the whole of England and Wales, 1859–68._
+
+ Year. Lancashire. England and Wales.
+
+ 1859 176 153
+ 1860 169 148
+ 1861 184 153
+ 1862 168 142
+ 1863 171 149
+ 1864 174 153
+ 1865 189 160
+ 1866 200 160
+ 1867 185 153
+ 1868 187 155
+
+The Registrar of Little Bolton held that the decrease of deaths was
+mainly due to a greater amount of domestic superintendence, and other
+registrars united in similar conclusions. The slight rise in 1863 and
+1864 was apparently due to the prevalence of smallpox, scarlatina,
+typhus, and measles, caused by overcrowding in workhouses and bad
+sanitary conditions.
+
+Comparison between privation and maternal care on the one hand, and
+good cheer and maternal neglect on the other, to the advantage of the
+meaner diet and the greater care must, as the Registrar-General admits,
+be within limits. Under the stress of absolute starvation, no mother
+could provide nourishment for her child. But the obviousness of the
+limitation cannot diminish the significance of facts, and evidence,
+official evidence of convincing weight and appealing eloquence is, if
+we look for it, at our hand. It is easy to realise in its light, why
+the mother, even though poorly fed herself, is a better mother than the
+mother who earns a certain keep-money for her child.
+
+Sir John Simon,[32] writing in 1897 of the inquiries conducted between
+1859 and 1872 by the Medical Department of the Privy Council, of which
+he was Medical Officer, says of one:--“In addition to showing on a
+very large scale those sanitary wrongs of certain sorts of industry,
+we had also shown as an industrial influence of very wide operation,
+that in proportion as adult women were taking part in factory labour or
+in agriculture, the mortality of their infants rapidly increased; that
+in various registration districts, which had such employment in them,
+the district death-rate of infants under one year of age had been from
+two and a quarter to three times as high as in our standard districts;
+and that in some of the districts more than a few of the infants were
+dying of ill-treatment which was almost murderous.” Considering the
+subject in greater detail, in his fourth report to the Privy Council,
+he recalls the report[33] made to the General Board of Health in 1858,
+in which he drew attention to the fact that in different districts
+of England there were enormous differences of infantile mortality:
+“Such differences, that children in some districts die at perhaps four
+or five times the rate of children in other districts.” These wide
+differences of death-rate he attributed “to the varying prevalence
+of two local causes:--first, to differences of degree in _common
+sanitary defects of residence_; ... and secondly, to _occupational
+differences_ among the inhabitants; there being certain large towns
+where women are greatly engaged in branches of industry away from home;
+where, consequently, the home is ill kept; where the children are
+little looked after; and where infants who should be at the breast are
+improperly fed or starved, or have their cries of hunger and distress
+quieted by those various fatal opiates which are in such request at the
+centres of our manufacturing industry.” An inquiry was conducted by Dr
+Greenhow into the second of these influences, and commenting upon his
+report, Sir John Simon says: “It gives a very sad picture of suffering
+and demoralisation, caused by the present circumstances of female
+employment in factories. It corroborates very exactly the opinion above
+expressed as to the probable causes of the high mortality of infants
+in places of female factory occupation. And it shows that, while
+the infants perish under the neglect and mismanagement which their
+mothers’ occupation implies, the mothers become to a grievous extent
+denaturalised towards their offspring.”
+
+The following quotations, Sir John Simon continues, tell the main
+facts of the case:--“Factory women soon return to labour after their
+confinement. The longest time mentioned as the average period of their
+absence from work in consequence of child-bearing was five or six
+weeks; many women among the highest class of operatives in Birmingham
+acknowledged to having generally returned to work at the expiration
+of a month.[34]... Mothers employed in factories are, save during the
+dinner-hours, absent from home all day long, and the care of their
+infants during their absence is entrusted either to young children, to
+hired nurse-girls, sometimes not more than eight or ten years of age,
+or perhaps more commonly to elderly women, who eke out a livelihood
+by taking infants to nurse. Young girls, aged seven or eight years,
+are frequently removed from school for the purpose of taking charge of
+younger children while the mother is absent at work, and are sometimes
+said to return, on the death of the child, evidently rather pleased
+that this event has released them from their toil.... Pap, made of
+bread and water, and sweetened with sugar or treacle, is the sort of
+nourishment usually given during the mother’s absence, even to infants
+of a very tender age; and in several instances, little children not
+more than six or seven years old were seen preparing and feeding babies
+with this food, which in such cases consisted only of lumps of bread
+floating in sweetened water.... Illness is the natural consequence of
+this unnatural mode of feeding infants.... Children who are healthy at
+birth rapidly dwindle under this system of mismanagement, fall into
+bad health, and become uneasy, restless, and fractious. To remedy
+the illness caused by mismanagement various domestic medicines are
+administered, more particularly some kind of opiate such as Godfrey’s
+cordial or laudanum. Wine, gin, peppermint, and other stimulants are
+often given, for the purpose, as alleged, of relieving flatulence, the
+actual effect being, however, rather to stupify the child. The quantity
+of opiates sold for the purpose of being administered to infants in
+some of the manufacturing towns is very large.... Indeed, there seems
+to be no doubt that the habitual administering of opiates to infants
+must be included among the causes of a high infantile mortality in
+certain manufacturing towns, not only on account of an overdose being
+given, but also because infants kept in a state of continual narcotism
+will be thereby rendered disinclined for food, and be but imperfectly
+nourished.... Parents who thus entrust the management of their children
+so largely to strangers become more or less careless and indifferent
+about them, and as many of these children die, the mothers become
+familiarised with the fact, and speak of the deaths of their children
+with a degree of nonchalance rarely met with among women who devote
+themselves mainly to the care of their offspring.... Abundant proof of
+the large mortality among the children of female factory operatives
+was obtained during the inquiry. An operative of the better class in
+Birmingham reported that he collects money for the expenses attendant
+on the deaths of children among the workers in a factory where 150
+women were employed, and that he believed ten out of every twelve
+children born to the married women in this factory died within a few
+months after birth. Many married women were questioned, as opportunity
+served, in the several factories visited regarding their families,
+the number of children they had borne, the number that survived, and
+the manner in which they were brought up. The evidence of these women
+tallied exactly with that of other persons.... It was frequently found
+that two-thirds or three-fourths of the children borne to these women
+had died in infancy.” In his report, which appears in the Appendix,[35]
+Dr Greenhow continues: “And on the other hand, it was remarkable how,
+in other instances, the majority of the children were reared when the
+mothers did not work in factories, or discontinued doing so whilst
+nursing, or when the infant’s supplementary food consisted partly or
+chiefly of milk.” In the same report Dr Greenhow states that “all the
+medical men who gave evidence on the subject of the present inquiry,
+besides several clergymen, ladies who are accustomed to visit the
+poorer classes at their dwellings, scripture readers, relieving
+officers, and other persons who have paid attention to the subject,
+unhesitatingly expressed an opinion that the system under which the
+mothers of young children are employed at factories and workshops away
+from home is a fruitful cause of infantile sickness and mortality.”
+
+Among the most interesting figures in the report are those which relate
+to the sale of Godfrey’s cordial. It appears that in Coventry alone
+at least 12,000 doses weekly were administered, and “even a larger
+quantity of opiate, in proportion to the population, is said to be sold
+in Nottingham than in Coventry.” In conclusion, Dr Greenhow reports:
+“The results of the inquiry may be stated as follows:--
+
+“_1st._ The infantile death-rate bears no definite relation to the
+general death-rate, but their comparative proportions to each other
+vary in different districts.
+
+“_2nd._ The infantile death-rate bears the largest proportion to
+the general death-rate in districts where the infantile population
+is specially exposed to unwholesome influences, as in Coventry,
+Nottingham, and other manufacturing towns.
+
+“_3rd._ The unwholesome influences to which infants are exposed
+in the manufacturing towns comprised in the present inquiry may be
+attributed mainly to the industrial employment of the married women,
+which leads them to consign the tendance of their infants at a very
+early age to young children or strangers.
+
+“_4th._ That infants thus deprived of the mother’s care are
+habitually fed on diet ill adapted to their digestive powers, and
+are very frequently drugged with opiates, in order to allay the
+fractiousness arising from the illness induced by improper food.
+
+“_5th._ That infants in manufacturing towns where women are much
+engaged in factory labour are likewise exposed to other causes of
+sickness, proceeding from the ignorance or carelessness of the mothers
+or nurses, such as deficiency of exercise, and exposure to inclement
+weather.”
+
+There is constant reference in public inquiries to the excessive use
+of opiates. Mr Ernest Hart, giving evidence in 1871 before the Select
+Committee on the Protection of Infant Life, says:--
+
+“... We wish also to take measures to prevent the habitual drugging of
+children in those day-nurseries. You will get evidence easily from the
+manufacturing districts that opiates are sold by gallons by druggists
+there. The sale of opiates for that purpose forms a very large part of
+the trade of many of the druggists in those districts.” Later, Dr Lyon
+Playfair (afterwards Lord Playfair), a member of the same Committee,
+in examining a witness, refers to “the evidence of three druggists
+in Deansgate, who state that they supply 1260 families per week with
+opiates,” and to the experience of “Mr Ransome, a distinguished surgeon
+who lived in Manchester, ... that out of the children who attended his
+dispensary, about one-half he found to be drugged with opiates.”
+
+Mr Curgenven, another surgeon witness before the Committee, speaking of
+the high death-rate among insured children, says:--
+
+“... They know that if they put their children out with their
+neighbours, as it is said, to be nursed, brought up by hand, while they
+are at work in the factories, there is very great chance that they will
+die, and therefore they calculate that the sum which they receive from
+the burial club will more than cover the expense of the burial. And
+the deaths amongst the children of the operatives in the manufacturing
+towns amount to about 40 to 56 per cent., because they are left by
+their mothers at an early age, when they are only a few weeks old, and
+are placed in the hands of women to be brought up. They are drugged
+frequently with Godfrey’s cordial and other opiates to keep them quiet.
+They are fed upon bread and water with very little milk, so that they
+are half-starved. The consequence is that more than half of them die.”
+
+And again:--“... The infantile mortality has decreased so far as
+the mothers were enabled to remain at home to nurse their children.
+It is only when they are employed in the factories, away from their
+homes, leaving their children to be brought up by hand by their kind
+neighbours, that they die.”
+
+Turning to another inquiry, we find Mr Foulkes, a certifying surgeon,
+giving evidence before the Factory and Workshops Acts Commission of
+1875, and pleading for a prohibition upon the return of mothers to
+their employment within six months of their confinement. “... Many
+of the women are at work within a month after they are confined; the
+result is that the child is left at home, and it is invariably fed
+upon the same thing, bread, water, and sugar, and the children dwindle
+away, and that has a great deal to do with the infant mortality of the
+place. What is done with the children in this district generally when
+the mothers are at work? They are often left with the other children;
+there is no provision made, and they are very badly treated and sadly
+neglected....”
+
+Before the same Commission, Mr Baker, first a surgeon in practice at
+Leeds and then joint chief of the Factory Department with Mr Redgrave,
+gives it as his experience that “very considerable mischief arises with
+women going to work, not only to the mother, but also to the child.”
+He is then asked by the Chairman Sir James Fergusson: “We may take it
+for granted that it is not theoretically desirable that women should
+go to daily work immediately after confinement, leaving the child all
+day to somebody else; but, practically speaking, do you think from
+your experience of this matter, that if Parliament interfered with it,
+it could be enforced with uniformity and without hardship?” And his
+answer is: “Yes, I think it might. I think that by the visitation of
+certifying surgeons it might be enforced decently, and delicately, and
+sufficiently, so as to make it very useful.”
+
+One more reference to Sir John Simon shall almost close this array of
+quotations from buried reports. In this last instance the inquiry was
+conducted in agricultural districts:--
+
+“The discovery that an enormous infantile mortality was prevailing in
+several purely agricultural districts, suggested at first sight that
+perhaps in these districts some third[36] sort of destructive influence
+was at work. The result of this new inquiry, however, has been to show
+that the monstrous infantine death-rate of the examined agricultural
+districts depends only on the fact that there has been introduced
+into those districts the influence which has already been recognised
+as enormously fatal to the infants of manufacturing populations--the
+influence of the _employment of adult women_. ‘The opinions’
+(says Dr Hunter) ‘of about seventy medical practitioners, with those
+of other gentlemen acquainted with the condition of the poor, were
+obtained. With wonderful accord, the cause of the mortality was traced
+by nearly all these well-qualified witnesses to the bringing of the
+land under tillage--that is, to the cause which has banished malaria
+and has substituted a fertile though unsightly garden for the winter
+marshes and summer pastures of fifty or a hundred years ago. It was
+generally thought that the infants no longer received any injury from
+soil, climate, or malarious influences, but that a more fatal enemy
+had been introduced by the employment of the mothers in the field.’ On
+this agricultural employment of women there follow identically the same
+results as have already been traced to result from the employment of
+women in manufacture.”
+
+This, then, is the finding of skilled inquirers, the teaching of half
+a century’s statistics: that, for the child, the employment of the
+mother in the field is “a more fatal enemy” than malaria; and her
+employment in the factory, “apparently more fatal than starvation.”
+And what is our answering record of effort? A pathetic capacity for
+inquiry. Not certainly because we lack facts, or because the need for
+action has passed; for, on the contrary, it becomes cumulatively more
+acute. In Dundee, for example, in 1881, 19.4 per cent. of married
+women were employed in its mills and factories; in 1891, 24 per cent.
+were so employed, and the infantile death-rate rises accordingly. In
+the following table, prepared by Dr Templeman, Dundee’s able medical
+officer of health, this death-rate can be seen for a period of
+twenty-eight years:--
+
+ Average General Death-rate of Infantile
+ Death-rate. Children. Death-rate.
+
+ 1860–69 30.4 per 1000 Not ascertained Not ascertained
+ 1870–79 25 „ 81 per 1000 153 per 1000 births
+ 1880–89 22.2 „ 63 „ 155 „ „
+ 1890–97 20.8 „ 68 „ 176 „ „
+
+First among the causes Dr Templeman puts “Industrial Conditions:”
+first, too, this recognition should be in the conscience of the
+parent, in the conscience of the employer, in the conscience of the
+State. Of all who are responsible, the State has least acknowledged
+the responsibility. The examples may be rare, it is true, of parents
+who make sacrifices themselves that their homes and children may have
+benefit, but yet there are examples. The efforts of employers of
+labour may, too, be rare, but still they are appreciable, notably in
+Yorkshire; more frequent are the efforts of philanthropy: there is one
+effort by the State;[37] not to save the life of the child, for that
+admittedly it does not do, one effort, barely calculable in its result,
+to protect the health of the mother.
+
+All credit to those who, singly as employers, or collectively as
+philanthropists, have endeavoured to save life and preserve efficiency
+for the nation. But such effort of necessity is ineffective. It
+can never be complete, and the abstention of a few mill owners in
+a district is sufficient to annul the effort of the majority. The
+helplessness of such a position was so strongly felt by one mill owner
+in Yorkshire, that his rule prohibiting the employment of married women
+was abandoned: “Other mills being open to married women, the rule
+failed to serve the purpose for which it had been designed--that of
+keeping the women at home.”[38]
+
+The attempt of philanthropy to establish day nurseries, discouraging
+as it has been, would even in apparent success serve but as a prop to
+an evil system, as an anæsthetic to the manufacturer’s conscience. It
+can but alleviate, it cannot cure; and its condemnation many years
+ago, for the involved exposure of the infant to unsuitable hours
+and inclement weather, holds equal force to-day. Better than the
+drug-nursery, but bad in itself, for the most excellently managed
+crèche might well provoke the situation described by Dr Greenhow, in
+Coventry[39]:--“Women being obliged to attend at the factory at an
+early hour are always hurried in the morning, and may be seen on their
+way to the mills, hastening along the street with their children only
+half dressed, carrying the remainder of their clothes, and their food
+for the day, to be left with the person who has charge of the child
+during its mother’s absence; and this ofttimes on a cold winter’s
+morning in the midst of sleet or snow.”
+
+Widows without children of earning age may, as part of their burden,
+be forced to imperil the welfare of their infants in one direction
+while they seek it in another. And here philanthropy has just scope,
+for, save in exceptional cases, the crèche is the only practicable
+form of aid to the mother. Better, then, this care of her infant than
+its abandonment to a child, itself a candidate for the nursery, or to
+the elderly woman who confesses unfitness for all other employments.
+But this is the smallest section of the whole. In its widest aspect
+it is not a question for the make-shift, though devoted, benevolence
+of philanthropy; it is a problem for the State in its responsibility
+to the nation. What are the terrors that lie in its handling? The
+dread of a barrier raised before the freedom of employment: the fear
+that the prohibition of employment within say six, or even three,
+months after childbirth might embarrass a large class in its endeavour
+to earn a living. But the freedom to labour is no sacred right when
+its exercise involves injury to others; it is not even so held when
+it clearly threatens injury to ourselves. The worker in a dangerous
+trade is suspended from employment on the verdict of the certifying
+surgeon during such period as he considers to be necessary: in certain
+departments in a white-lead factory the employment of women and girls
+is altogether prohibited. There is therefore no inviolate right. Is
+there in this case necessity? What is the motive-power which drives
+the mothers of young children into factories? Commonly, ignorance of
+home duties, and the consequent unattractiveness of the home; the
+companionship of factory life, where the companionship of children has
+no meaning; often, fashion; least often, true poverty. There is poverty
+in Glasgow and in Paisley, as in Dundee, but its cure is not felt to
+lie in the employment of mothers. The father accepts the obligation of
+breadwinner; he is ashamed that his wife should work outside his home.
+“If a Glasgow lad wearies o’ work, he must marry a Dundee lassie.”
+There poverty conjures excuse, and a man is not ashamed to claim his
+wife before her time in the hospital is over, that she may come out and
+earn his bread. Exceptional, it must be hoped, are such cases, but at
+least the system which breeds them is not, and what some towns claim as
+a necessity, others will not tolerate, in their rejection disproving
+the need.
+
+Within the space of this chapter it has been impossible to consider
+arguments to which place would otherwise have properly been given.
+It is left only to suggest a comparison of the possible evils which
+lie in action, and the certain evils which have come of inaction. The
+principle of regulation is already accepted in our laws, and in the
+laws of other countries, as Miss Anderson’s deeply-interesting chapter
+shows; it but needs extension to render it effective. The State holds
+the scales: difficulties on the one side, not light it is true; but
+on the other, forces weighted already with accomplished evil, charged
+with greater evil to come: on the one side, the fancied interests of
+the individual; on the other, the deepest interests of the nation. “It
+cannot be too distinctly recognised,” says Sir John Simon, “that a high
+local mortality of children must almost necessarily denote a high local
+prevalence of those causes which determine the degeneration of the
+race.”
+
+ MAY TENNANT.
+
+
+ II
+
+Although a steady decline has taken place in the general mortality of
+the country coincident with, and, no doubt, in the main, consequent
+upon sanitary progress, it cannot be said that the infant mortality
+has diminished in like proportion, and among the many factors which
+contribute to the maintenance of a lamentably high death-rate among
+infants, not the least important is improper feeding, the result of
+ignorance on the part of mothers. If by some means the simple fact
+could be brought home to mothers that milk, and preferably human milk,
+is the only permissible diet for infants, the natural instincts of
+motherhood would prevail in the majority of cases, and thousands of
+otherwise healthy infants who do not now survive the first few months
+of life would reach an age when greater license in diet is permissible,
+and the chances of living are immensely greater. But, in a humanitarian
+sense, the saving of life which would thus be effected is of small
+moment when compared with the mitigation of the pain and misery which
+infants now have to suffer, and which has to be borne, not only by
+those whom death ultimately relieves, but by the still larger number
+who manage to survive the ordeal, and who thus have to suffer for a
+longer period.
+
+From inquiries made some years ago, Dr Hope of Liverpool came to the
+conclusion that among the artisan classes in that town upwards of 50
+per cent. of infants during the first three months of life are entirely
+breast-fed, 35 per cent. are reared on other food in addition to
+breast-milk, and 15 per cent. are entirely artificially fed. Analysing
+upon this basis a large number of deaths from diarrhœa, he found that
+for every death attributed to that cause among entirely breast-fed
+infants under three months’ old, 15 occurred among the mixed class,
+and that for every death which occurred among the breast-fed and mixed
+class combined, 22 occurred among the entirely artificially fed class.
+He also found that among infants aged from three to six months, for
+every death from diarrhœa among the partially breast-fed, 6 occurred
+among the entirely artificially fed class. Other observers who have
+devoted attention to this matter bear out Dr Hope’s conclusions, and
+it is a well-known fact that in countries where artificial feeding of
+infants is largely practised, the mortality is very high compared with
+other countries where natural feeding prevails.
+
+Now the practice as regards the feeding of infants varies in different
+districts according to circumstances which will presently be referred
+to, and no one can dispute the fact that, other things being equal,
+infants reared for the first few months entirely on breast-milk have a
+far better chance of survival than either of the other two classes. No
+doubt this is very largely due to the gross ignorance which prevails,
+especially among the artisan classes, as to the only permissible
+substitutes for breast-milk; but we must deal with circumstances as
+we find them, and, up to the present at any rate, our efforts to
+bring about a better order of things have proved unavailing. When
+we ultimately succeed, as we must do, in getting the teaching of
+elementary hygiene introduced as a compulsory subject in all elementary
+schools, the more rational feeding of future generations of infants
+must follow as a natural consequence, and then, even if the proportion
+of breast-fed infants is not increased, the difference in the
+death-rates among the different classes (entirely breast-fed, partially
+breast-fed, and entirely artificially fed) will be greatly lessened,
+for the artificial food administered will more nearly approach nature’s
+requirements.
+
+From what has been said, it follows that if from any cause the
+proportion of entirely artificially fed infants in a district were
+abnormally large, in the absence of any counteracting influences the
+infantile death-rate of the district would compare unfavourably with
+that of other districts in which circumstances did not prevail which
+disturbed what may be called the normal grouping of the children
+according to the methods of feeding. If, for example, taking Dr Hope’s
+figures, instead of 15 per cent. only of the infants under three months
+being entirely artificially fed, the number, from disturbing causes,
+more nearly approached say 85 per cent., the remaining 15 per cent.
+only being either partly or entirely breast-fed, it would certainly
+be surprising if the effect were not apparent in a greatly-increased
+mortality among infants.
+
+Some twelve years ago, when, in my capacity as County Medical Officer,
+I first had occasion, among other duties, to inquire into the mortality
+returns of the various districts in Staffordshire, I was greatly
+impressed by a very marked dissimilarity in the infant mortality of
+the two groups of populous artisan towns, one in the north and the
+other in the south of the county, a dissimilarity which I subsequently
+found could not be accounted for by any apparent difference in the
+sanitary surroundings of the northern and southern towns. In view of
+the fact, however, that, generally speaking, the trades carried on
+in the southern group of towns did not afford much employment for
+women, whereas in the northern group the conditions in this respect
+were different, it occurred to me that in this was to be found the
+explanation of the high infant mortality of the northern compared with
+the southern towns. In order to test the accuracy of this conclusion,
+with the help of the District Medical Officers of Health, and from
+information obtained from manufacturers regarding the proportion of
+married women workers, I classified the purely artisan towns in the
+county into three groups, and obtained the infant mortality figures for
+previous years, in order to allow of more reliable conclusions being
+drawn. Since then I have continued to record the figures according
+to the same plan annually, and I have now records covering a period
+of 20 years, and relating to artisan towns only, with a mean total
+population of about 529,000. One may fairly claim, allowing that the
+home conditions in the towns in question, in other respects, apart from
+the proportion of artificially-fed infants, are practically identical,
+that records from such a large population and for so long a period
+may legitimately be used for our purpose from a statistical point of
+view, provided care is exercised in the classification of the towns in
+accordance with the number of young married women workers employed away
+from home, and who are thus prevented from suckling their children.
+
+In the classification of the towns it was found impossible to arrive at
+the actual number of married women workers, but one was able to divide
+them into three groups, as follows:--
+
+ (1) Many Married Women Workers.
+ (2) A good number of Married Women Workers.
+ (3) Practically no Married Women Workers.
+
+Adopting this classification, the figures of infant mortality in the
+different groups of towns are set forth in the following table:--
+
+
+ _Deaths in Children under One Year per Thousand Births in Three
+ Classes of Artisan Towns in Staffordshire._
+
+ CLASS I. CLASS II. CLASS III.
+ Many Women Fewer Women Practically no Women
+ engaged in work. engaged in work. engaged in work.
+ 10 Years (1881–90) 195 166 152
+ 10 Years (1891–1900) 211 177 167
+
+The figures speak for themselves, and it will be noticed that while
+there has been a general increase in the infant death-rate, practically
+the same relative proportion has been maintained between the three
+groups of towns.
+
+As the outcome of a paper I read before the Public Health Section
+of the British Medical Association, at the Annual Meeting held at
+Nottingham in 1892, the question was taken up by the Parliamentary
+Bills Committee, with a view to securing some legislative remedy, and
+an inquiry was instituted throughout England on similar lines to the
+Staffordshire inquiry. Returns were thus obtained from a large number
+of artisan towns, and these returns bore out in a remarkable way the
+conclusions drawn from the Staffordshire figures.
+
+It appears, then, to be a fact that the State is permitting a
+practice to be followed which is directly responsible for the deaths
+of thousands of infants annually. Deliberate cruelty on the part of
+parents is a punishable offence, and in a strict sense starvation comes
+within this category; it does not seem to matter, however, what sort of
+food is provided, so long as, theoretically, some provision is made for
+the care of the infant during the absence of the mother. Possibly, in
+many cases, owing to ignorance and other causes, the infant might not
+receive any better care at home, but there, at least, the natural food
+would be available, and in the majority of instances it would be given.
+It is true we cannot legislate as to how mothers shall feed their
+infants, but surely it is not too much to ask that the legislature
+shall not allow any deliberate disregard of parental responsibilities.
+
+The law at present does provide some amount of protection, by making it
+illegal for a mother to return to work under one month after the birth
+of her child; but although this restriction is valuable from the point
+of view of the mother’s health, it can hardly benefit the child, for,
+if factory work is to be engaged in after a month’s interval only, it
+is not likely that the mother will commence suckling her child. The
+period of restriction should undoubtedly be extended, and the shortest
+serviceable time is probably three months. The probability is that if
+such an extension of time limit were enforced the mother would suckle
+her child until she returned to work, and thus the most precarious
+period in the life of the child would be tided over, and its chances of
+survival would be considerably increased.
+
+In many cases the wife--it may be from choice, or because of
+improvident habits on the part of the husband--goes to work, while at
+the same time the husband is earning ample wages. In Lancashire it is
+common for a man to receive 25s. a week while his wife earns from 15s.
+to 20s., and in Staffordshire, when the potting trade is ordinarily
+prosperous, the weekly wages of a man and his wife amount to 30s. and
+12s. respectively. These figures represent a fair average, but many of
+the men workers receive much higher wages.
+
+In seeking for a solution of the question, we may learn something from
+other countries. In Switzerland, for example, a period of absence from
+work of eight weeks is enforced on mothers, the time to be counted
+from two weeks before confinement; and in Germany, by a process of
+compulsory assurance, the working woman, while prevented from working
+owing to childbirth, receives a sum equal to half her ordinary daily
+wages. In the former case the period, for reasons already given, is not
+long enough, and the latter expedient could hardly be made applicable
+to economic conditions in this country. However, a way out of the
+difficulty ought to be found, and it would seem that it should be
+sought for in the direction of State control.
+
+ GEORGE REID.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER VI
+
+ CHILD LABOUR
+
+
+The half-time system is dying. The age of the full-timer in the mill
+or factory is being steadily raised. But as long as poverty exists
+children must feel the pinch of it. They must help also to bear the
+burdens of their parents, and share their anxieties and cares. One
+would be very wrong, however, in supposing that the most anxious and
+harassed parents and children are to be found at the bottom of the
+social ladder. At the bottom of the social ladder will be found little
+care and much movement--a _tourbillon_ of change--marriages,
+accidents, tragedies, crimes, all succeeding each other pell-mell, and
+obliterating one another. The parents and the children of the slums are
+occupied, not with thoughts of to-morrow, but with thoughts of to-day.
+Here, for example, is a large Board School in a slum district of a
+big northern city. It is difficult for the head teacher to keep the
+register, for large numbers of children are always flowing through the
+school like a shoal of mackerel on a tide. Families arrive, and encamp
+in the fair ground close by, or find shelter in the poor lodging houses
+of the neighbourhood. The children attend school for a short time,
+pick up a smattering of the three R’s., and then disappear. There are
+of course regular residents, and the children of such people are much
+better attenders. But they have this in common with their migratory
+neighbours, that their lives are varied by exciting and gruesome
+events, which they do not take to heart too seriously. A certain
+unfortunate mother of ten loses several of her children in succession.
+Then suddenly her husband, who is a drunkard, falls down some steps and
+is killed. There is a tragic gathering of friends at the house on the
+eve of the funeral. A few months later the widow marries again. But the
+second husband turns out to be a scamp. She leaves him and takes refuge
+with a married daughter. The children change homes, take the ups and
+downs of their rocky life, and attend school pretty regularly. Some
+children are deserted, and go into neighbours’ homes. The strong ties
+of kinship are dispensed with; and other ties, equally strong, for the
+hour at least, take their place.
+
+Apart from the family drama, the children have their own struggles and
+adventures. They have to help to earn the living. In some families a
+child is the breadwinner. In many, children are important co-helpers
+with the parents. How does a child earn money? In provincial towns,
+also in London, the newspaper offices are responsible for a great deal
+of out-of-door child labour. A crowd of boys rush every afternoon to
+the “offices.” Some of these children are already employers of labour.
+They engage a smaller or less lucky comrade to deliver some of the
+papers, and pay him twopence or threepence, according to his success.
+They--the small employers--may earn 6s. per week and even more at
+times. Besides the newsboys there are the errand boys, and those who
+help shopkeepers. These form a large contingent of the children’s army
+of labour. And so, alas! do the vagrant sellers of chips, flowers,
+etc., who have to cultivate the beggar’s as well as the vendor’s art.
+At a Conference in April 1900 between the School Board and Board
+of Guardians of Bradford, a return was presented showing that 91
+children--84 of whom were of school age--were found begging and hawking
+in the streets in the course of three evenings of December 1899.
+
+The domestic toilers in such a district as that which we are now
+considering would be mainly nurses. Little cooking and less washing
+is done in some of the homes. There are no regular meals, no regular
+duties, and the elder children are useful therefore mainly in taking
+charge of the younger ones, or earning pence in the street. Taking
+their roving habits into account, it is strange to learn that such
+children suffer from lack of proper exercise. Yet such is the case.
+About a year ago Dr Kerr, the medical adviser of the Bradford School
+Board, made an examination of the children attending a school situated
+in an “insanitary area.” He found that nearly all the children were
+ill-nourished. And this ill-nutrition was not simply the result of
+insufficient food. “Lack of exercise,” he writes, “has a very large
+share in it. And the exercise required is not careful gymnastics, but
+coarse work, such as running round the playground.”
+
+There are many kinds of physical exercise, just as there are many kinds
+of food, and one order of exercise does not take the place of another.
+Moreover, the same kinds of movements, executed under different
+conditions, have quite different effects. This is the important fact
+which is lost sight of by those who declare that the child can rest
+from the labours of the school by engaging in the labours of the mill.
+It is ignored also, or forgotten, by those rural educationists who
+believe that six hours of weeding or potato-picking mean the same thing
+for a child as six hours of free play. But the fact remains that work
+does not take the place of play, not even when that work is very easy,
+and involves walking or running. Here in this school of the slum,
+“careful gymnastics” are not required. And we may safely add that
+running about the streets, and the carrying of milk-cans and babies,
+are not required. For the children have had a good deal of this kind
+of physical exercise, and are suffering, nevertheless, from defective
+circulation and want of muscular tone. Only movements that imply the
+removal of tension from the nervous system are required. There is
+no real substitute for such free, natural movements in any factory,
+schoolroom, nor even we may add in any gymnasium in the world.
+
+Let us turn from those whom we may call the “casuals” of the
+child-labour world, to the State-recognised little toilers who work
+in factories or mills. These form still a large contingent of the
+child-labour world, numbering as they do over a hundred thousand
+children, one-third of whom work in Lancashire cotton-mills. A goodly
+proportion, too, work in Yorkshire, the seat of the woollen and worsted
+trades. The rate of decline of the half-time system among factory and
+non-factory child-workers may be seen from the following figures,
+compiled in Bradford.
+
+Number of half-time cases in Bradford in each year for the past twelve
+years:--
+
+ +-------+----------+-----------------+------------------+--------------+
+ | | | Non-Factory. | | |
+ | Year. | Factory. | Domestic Errand | Total granted in | Number on |
+ | | | Boys, etc. | each year. | School Roll. |
+ +-------+----------+-----------------+------------------+--------------+
+ | 1889 | 3.194 | 679 | 3.873 | 7.046 |
+ | 1890 | 2.567 | 575 | 3.142 | 6.490 |
+ | 1891 | 2.129 | 708 | 2.837 | 6.151 |
+ | 1892 | 1.838 | 728 | 2.566 | 5.624 |
+ | 1893 | 1.653 | 540 | 2.193 | 5.097 |
+ | 1894 | 1.434 | 655 | 2.089 | 4.178 |
+ | 1895 | 1.887 | 580 | 2.467 | 4.309 |
+ | 1896 | 1.509 | 306 | 1.815 | 3.276 |
+ | 1897 | 1.451 | 250 | 1.701 | 2.564 |
+ | 1898 | 1.329 | 314 | 1.643 | 2.211 |
+ | 1899 | 1.187 | 193 | 1.380 | 1.869 |
+ | 1900 | 1.444 | 129 | 1.573 | 2.198 |
+ +-------+----------+-----------------+------------------+--------------+
+
+The half-time system is dying fast in some towns, more slowly in
+others--but it is passing away even in Lancashire. No one appears to be
+more indifferent than the masters. It is not even fair to say that the
+masters are indifferent, for many of them have tried to hasten the end.
+And yet forty or fifty years ago the masters, as a class (there were,
+of course, honourable exceptions) opposed the raising of the age. Even
+ten years ago some masters showed concern when it was proposed to raise
+the age of half-timers to eleven. “Younger children,” they said, “have
+special aptitudes which the elder ones have lost.” The wails of regret
+came usually from masters who could remember long bye-gone days. “Ah!”
+they cried, letting their thoughts drift back into the dim past, “when
+the children came to us very young, say at five or six years old, a
+great deal was possible that has since become quite impossible! It is
+of no use to speak of that now.” No, it is of no use to speak of it,
+since the age had been raised, and raised again. And with every rise
+the commercial value of the child in the labour world has diminished.
+And now you may hear a manager say, “The child who comes at twelve
+years old is more dexterous than the one who comes at thirteen,” but
+the masters are evidently of opinion that so far as they are concerned
+the matter is no longer worthy of discussion. That the children come a
+year earlier or later makes little difference when the minimum age is
+raised to twelve.
+
+The masters’ claim that the younger children had special aptitude,
+undoubtedly rests not upon fiction but upon fact. Every physiologist
+knows that the various sensory centres of the brain are plastic in
+early childhood, and that this period of plasticity is very short.
+It begins to wane already in the seventh year. Previous to this age,
+however, every human being is in a peculiarly receptive and responsive
+state. So that, during the first six or seven years “a great many
+things,” as the silk manufacturers said, “are possible.” For example,
+the sense of touch may be developed within very narrow limits, and
+complex and specialised movements may be learned so well that they
+become automatic. This can be done. It can be done only at great cost.
+(Probably the employers did not know the actual cost.) It implies the
+atrophy of many cells, the impoverishment of the whole life. It is
+a kind of psychic mutilation. But it can be done, and it has to be
+done quickly, since the spring tide of opportunity soon wanes. Alas!
+for the old adage, “It is never too late to mend.” The mending, and
+making, and altering time is over for a great many people at the
+age of eight, and of this employers were well aware, thanks to their
+opportunities for observation and experiment. So as the age of the
+half-timer was raised the masters’ interest in him declined, and
+the latter-day champion of the half-time system stepped forward in
+the person of _the half-timer’s own father_,--his father, not
+his widowed mother. For the “poor widow,” who looms so large in the
+consciousness of controversialists on the half-time question, is seen
+and known wonderfully little in the school attendance rooms, where
+applications for half-time are considered. The applicants belong very
+largely to the better class of working people. Mechanics, engineers,
+railwaymen, overlookers, and, now and again, a mill operative. Of
+course these various trades represent a great variety of wages. Some
+applicants earn but £1 per week, or even less, and out of this support
+a large family. But many earn from 30s. to £2 or £3 per week. Indeed,
+men with £4 and upwards per week coming in have been known to apply,
+though these are exceptional cases. It is certain that the average
+working-man champion of child-labour to-day is not a thriftless,
+irresponsible person. He is, very often, a man with money in the bank,
+with ambitions and views of his own, also with a will of his own, and
+a strong Trades organisation behind him, through which he can express
+that will. Neither is he a person lacking in parental susceptibility
+and ambition. It is almost impossible to overrate the influence which
+custom has on sentient beings. The caterpillars of the Bombyx Hesperus
+feed in a state of nature on the leaves of the _café diable_. Yet
+Darwin found that certain caterpillars of the Bombyx family, having
+been reared on another variety, refused to touch the leaves of _café
+diable_. They preferred to die of hunger. Thus caterpillars can
+become, in a sense, unnatural. Kindhearted people, too, may follow a
+course of conduct with their own offspring which appears monstrous to
+the stranger. In certain districts where child-labour is a tradition
+and custom, the very idea of associating it with inhumanity does not
+occur to the people. “Why, they mun be all clean off their heads,”
+cried a Yorkshireman, who had been hearing of poor parents who sent
+their sons to school till they were fifteen or sixteen years old. He
+had gone to “t’ miln” at seven, and it seemed to him that all “workin’
+foaks” children should do the same.
+
+It is not then to the parent you must go in order to learn what
+the effect of half-time is on the young. Nor need you turn with
+very confident hopes to the statistician. It is, indeed, a little
+discouraging to reflect how little the statistician can help us in
+establishing the most obvious ill effects of child-labour. The effect
+of half-time exemption a little while ago was to filter off a number
+of mentally sharp children who passed their standards rapidly and were
+ready to go to work at eleven. These bright children were a continual
+stumbling-block to the statistician. For example, it was proposed to
+test the vision of the half-timers and other children with a view to
+finding out the effect of the mill life on this important sense. Now
+the stupidest boys and girls are those who have most defective visual
+acuity. They are also the deafest.[40] And the bright children who
+went to the mill at eleven, are, of course, the children gifted with
+the keenest senses. By the time these bright young half-timers had got
+to full time, the duller ones came on as half-timers, and by their
+transference appeared to increase the percentage of defective vision
+with age in half-timers and diminish it among the non-half-timers. Thus
+defective vision apparently increased with the age of half-timers,
+only because those kept back by defective brain or eyes alone were
+half-timers at the age of twelve. This is but one example of the great
+difficulty of collecting reliable evidence to establish even the most
+reasonable assumption.
+
+But it is hardly an “assumption” that children suffer in England
+through half-time labour, and unregulated toil out of school hours. You
+cannot put tired eyes, pallid cheeks, and languid little limbs into
+statistics, and yet when you see them they are more convincing than
+figures. And in many schools you can receive this kind of evidence.
+The younger children who work out of school hours have undoubtedly the
+worst time of it. They come to school looking dull and heavy-eyed. Some
+are irritable and restless, others so languid that they appear almost
+oblivious of everything around them. “It seems as if they haven’t the
+force to work through the school day,” said a young master in a school
+of very poor children. “They may be bright enough children, but they
+haven’t the strength to show it.”
+
+The factory half-timers are doubtless more fortunate than the younger
+casuals; for the former have arrived at an age when many of the
+critical turnings of child life have been passed. And yet the child
+of twelve no sooner enters a mill than the teacher begins to see a
+deplorable change in him. He loses interest in his school work, his
+manners become rougher. Manners are forms of mental expression, so the
+teacher may presage from this fact alone a certain decline of brain
+power. But there are many other indications of decline. The other day a
+teacher showed me the copy-books of children who had been at the mill
+_for one week_, and allowed me to compare these with the work done
+by the same children while they were whole-day scholars. As full-day
+scholars they all did creditable work. Their sums were correct, their
+writing good, and books were kept perfectly clean. Yet in the course
+of one week the progress of months seemed to be cancelled: for the
+half-timers’ sums were all marked with a “W.” The writing was careless,
+the pages soiled and blotted. The children had changed and their work
+had changed. Their achievements had slipped from their grasp as a
+waggon slips back when driver and horse are arrested suddenly on a
+steep hill.
+
+Indeed, though the factory child suffers less in some ways than the
+“casual,” he appears to be under certain great disadvantages from
+which the latter is exempt. Ask any master of an elementary school
+and he will tell you that the characteristic of the factory child is
+_dulness_. The casual is not dull. Not at all, he is glad to talk
+to-you about his “business,” and the chances of his work-a-day life in
+the street. Not so the young factory hand. After the first fortnight in
+the mill he is a disillusioned person. He does not want to talk about
+his work or his prospects. He loses interest not only in others but in
+himself.
+
+What is the secret of this subtle change? Why does the factory boy
+of twelve become so torpid? It is because in the mill growth and
+development are _arrested_. At the age of twelve a boy or girl
+is still a child, not an adult. It is true he has passed already
+through certain stages of growth, but the whole period of growth
+and development has not come to an end. His sensory organs are as
+acute, rather more acute, indeed, than a full-grown man’s, and yet
+in the matter of sight and hearing he is inferior. It is through
+_psychic_ development that the full harvest of the sensory and
+motor powers is reaped. This is why, at the age of twelve, if growth
+is to continue, the boy or girl should enter an atmosphere of varied
+mental interests and activities. The richer the forces of human life
+the more intricate will be the means by which they can be put into
+operation. The mill does not provide an atmosphere in which the new
+order of human development _due_ at this hour can take place.
+“Still the mill-child is not always dull,” you will say, “sometimes
+he is very noisy.” Yes, at “loosing time” the mill-yard and streets
+ring with loud talk and laughter. But the noise itself proves the same
+thing as the torpor of the mill child. In the jostling and shouting of
+the youth or mill girl the scientist sees not a vice but a reaction.
+In the desire for alcohol, the feverish love of betting and gambling,
+we behold the revolt of nascent human powers. These human powers, so
+varied and so subtle, are dammed up all day long, without possibility
+of exercise or escape. So the wild torrent of life surges free at
+last round the mill-gates, and escapes in the voice and glance of the
+excited lads who learn to love gambling and betting to the despair of
+good people. “A weak or insensible limb is certain of rough usage,”
+said Donaldson, for, obeying a natural instinct, its owner will insist
+on having a sensation through it. If the whole nature is dwarfed or
+blunted, only violent pleasures can be appreciated.
+
+It is said that the poor “have no room to live”; what is even as
+serious--they have no time to grow. As long as such is the case
+we may be sure that, despite all the efforts of educationists and
+philanthropists, there will be a great many undeveloped persons.
+Meantime the scientist advances, taking account of all, and stating
+all fearlessly. Year by year the processes of growth and development
+become clearer, and the conditions of human progress more defined.
+And although we cannot at once remove even the more obvious causes of
+arrested development and weakness, yet it must be evident to all that
+the future belongs to the nations who permit and enable their children
+to come to full human stature.
+
+ MARGARET M’MILLAN.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER VII
+
+ HOME-WORK
+
+
+There is perhaps no section of industrial life regarding which so much
+misconception prevails as out-work, or, as it is popularly called,
+home-work.
+
+To many persons the name home-work is synonymous with the idyllic term
+cottage industries, and this again calls up the picture of the model
+villager in the model village. The clean and tidy widow, so dear to
+the heart of the philanthropist and of the district visitor, is the
+favourite type. She dwells in an ivy-clad cottage surrounded by all
+the accessories of highly picturesque poverty, the kettle sings on her
+well-burnished hob, and geraniums bloom perennially on her window sill.
+
+How does this picture compare with the grim realities of home-work in
+our city slums? We shall see from the cases which I quote further on,
+and which have been revealed by the investigations of the Scottish
+Council for Women’s Trades, and the Women’s Industrial Council of
+London.
+
+The reason why the popular conception of home-work has lagged so far
+behind actual fact is, that this is practically the No Man’s Land of
+the industrial world. Here treads not the foot of the labour agitator,
+for the home-workers are composed largely of “casuals”--dreary
+phantoms, who come and go, whence and whither no man can tell, and no
+organising secretary of any trade union, however enterprising, would
+waste time or effort in inducing them to join its ranks. Each worker is
+a sort of industrial Ishmael, working only for his or her own hand.
+
+Nor has the home-worker been much better off in respect of Government
+protection. For while the factory and workshop hand has had the
+conditions of her work regulated by law, the home-worker has been
+treated as a step-child by the State, and has been left outside the
+protecting pale of the Factory Acts.
+
+Apart from the points of starvation wages and excessive hours, one of
+the main facts brought out by recent investigations into home-work is
+the grave danger to the health of both the worker and the community at
+large arising from the making of garments, etc., in disease-infected
+and otherwise insanitary houses, and public opinion has been gradually
+ripening to the conclusion that legal regulation of some kind is
+necessary as a protection to public health. Further, it is beginning
+to be recognised that the application to out-work of the laws that
+regulate labour in the factory is a perfectly reasonable and logical
+extension, as out-work, in the modern expression of it, is practically
+an extension of factory work, or it may be more properly described as
+its back-wash. Out-workers are employed mainly on the surplusage of
+the factory orders--the unskilled, poorly paid work that the workshop
+hand rejects, or that the pressure of a big order prevents her wholly
+overtaking. The low degree of skill required for the most part, and the
+consequent low earnings, have their inevitable result in placing this
+section of the industry in the hands of the very class of workers whose
+conditions most need supervision and control.
+
+Previous to the passing of the Factory and Workshop Act of 1891, some
+agitation with respect to the conditions of home-work had begun to make
+itself felt, and in recognition of this a provision was made in that
+Act giving the Secretary of State power to require employers to keep
+lists of all the out-workers they employed. These lists were to be open
+to the inspection of the Factory Inspector and the Sanitary Inspector.
+This was carried a step further by the Act of 1895, in which it was
+decreed that copies of these lists should be sent twice a year to the
+Factory Inspector. But while the latter may visit the homes of the
+out-workers, he has no power to remedy any defects he may find there;
+all he can do is to report insanitary conditions to the Local Sanitary
+Authority; except, of course, in the case of out-workers who employ
+others to help them, and whose premises thus become a workshop within
+the meaning of the Factory and Workshop Acts, and are accordingly
+subject to their provisions. But these after all form a comparatively
+limited class; consequently the great majority of out-workers are left
+entirely outside the scope of these Acts.
+
+The following cases will convey some idea of the actual conditions
+under which out-work is carried on:--
+
+1. Is the wife of a labourer, who is sick and in the infirmary; works
+from twelve to sixteen hours per day finishing trousers; is paid 4½d.
+and 5d. per pair; earns 2s. per day; supplies thread and twist, which
+cost about 8d. per week; works in a very untidy, dirty kitchen. Has no
+time to clean up except once a week. Children carry the work to the
+workshop.
+
+2. Is a widow living alone; finishes trousers; is paid 2¼d. and 2½d.
+per pair; earns 9½d. per day of nine and ten hours, and provides
+thread, which costs about 9½d. a week. Her earnings are supplemented by
+2s. 6d. a week from the parish.
+
+3. Married woman, husband out of work; finishes shirts; is paid 2½d.
+per dozen, and earns about 7½d. per day of eighteen hours; supplies
+thread, which costs about 8d. per week. When work is brisk she can earn
+4s. 8d. a week by getting up at three and four in the morning.
+
+4. Is the wife of a bricklayer; she works eight to nine hours a day
+making matchboxes; is paid 2¼d. per gross, and earns about 1s. 4d. a
+day. A girl of eight out of school hours helps the mother, who has to
+supply paste and hemp, which costs about 6d. a week.
+
+5. Is the wife of a porter; works ten to twelve hours a day making
+matchboxes; earns 1s. 3¾d. per day, and her little boy, who is four
+years old, helps her by folding the paper after it is pasted over the
+cardboard.
+
+6. Is a married woman; makes bead trimming; is paid ¾d. to 1¼d. per
+yard, and earns from 1s. to 1s. 6d. per day, working twelve to fifteen
+hours. Little boy of eight helps out of school hours.
+
+7. Two girls work at fur-pulling eleven hours a day, and earn about 8s.
+6d. per week each. Three girls sleep in workroom in one filthy bed.
+Elder girl said her chest was bad, but she was accustomed to this.
+
+8. Is the wife of a labourer in irregular employment; finishes shirts,
+and works from 5 A.M. to 11 P.M.; is paid 2½d. to 5d. per dozen; pays
+about 1d. out of every 1s. earned for thread. The highest wage she ever
+earned was 4s. 10d. a week, “working late and early.” The eldest girl
+does the housework. House in filthy condition; work piled upon the
+floor.
+
+9. Two single women living together, the daughters of a city missionary
+deceased; work about ten hours a day finishing children’s shirts and
+making pinafores, and earn from 4s. to 6s. per week each. On the day
+visited, one had worked seven hours and had made 7d. Her wages-book
+for ten consecutive weeks showed 2s. 4d., 4s. 4d., 5s. 8d. (week and
+half), 7s. ½d., 3s. 1½d., 3s., 2s. 3d., 3s. 9d., 3s. 1d., and 5s.
+House, attic room, beautifully clean, rent 8s. per month.
+
+10. Is the wife of a labourer irregularly employed; has three young
+children; “makes shirts throughout and finishes them,” earns 5s. to 6s.
+per week, working twelve to fourteen hours per day. She pays 1s. 6d.
+per week for machine, and 4d. per six dozen for thread. Occupies house
+of two rooms, very dirty and almost destitute of furniture.
+
+11. Is a widow; lives in one-roomed house, which is very dirty;
+“finishes” woollen shirts; is paid from 2½d. to 6d. per dozen,
+according to the amount of work put upon the garments. Her average
+earnings are from 5s. to 6s. per week. Two children were lying ill in
+the room, and were covered up with the shirts on which the mother was
+employed; she could not tell what was the matter.
+
+12. Is the wife of a surfaceman earning 16s. a week; makes aprons,
+pinafores, and chemises, and earns about 5s. per week. She is in
+delicate health; has had eight children, only one of whom now survives.
+
+And so on, through this dreary tale “of poverty, hunger, and dirt.”
+
+The evidence collected in respect to out-work by expert investigators
+in these and other cases seems to prove conclusively that it is usually
+accompanied by very low wages, inordinately long and irregular hours,
+and distressingly insanitary conditions. With the matter of wages
+British legislators have not yet seen fit to deal directly, and it is
+obvious that any regulation of hours for work carried on by workers in
+their own homes would be extremely difficult to enforce. What remains
+is the sanitary condition of the house and of the worker. And there is
+the double ground for interference here, in that the making of clothing
+and other articles for public use in insanitary dwellings is not only a
+danger to the workers themselves, but also to the public generally.
+
+How does the law on this point at present stand? Perhaps the most
+important legislation we have had dealing with out-work is to be found
+in sections 5 and 6 of the Factory Act of 1895, which contain the
+following provisions:--
+
+ See. 5. (1) “If an inspector gives notice in writing to the
+ occupier of a factory or workshop, or to any contractor employed
+ by any such occupier, that any place in which work is carried
+ on for the purpose of or in connection with the business of the
+ factory or workshop is injurious or dangerous to the health
+ of the persons employed therein, then, if the occupier or
+ contractor after the expiration of one month from receipt of the
+ notice gives out work to be done in that place, and the place
+ is found by the court having cognizance of the case to be so
+ injurious or dangerous, he shall be liable on summary conviction
+ to a fine not exceeding ten pounds.
+
+ (2) “This section shall apply in the case of the occupier of any
+ place from which any work is given out as if that place were a
+ workshop.
+
+ (3) “Provided that this section shall not apply except in the
+ case of persons employed in such classes of work, and in the
+ case of persons giving out employment and employed within
+ such areas, as may from time to time be specified by the
+ Secretary of State by order made in accordance with section 65
+ of the principal Act, and no such order shall be made except
+ with respect to an area where, by reason of the number and
+ distribution of the population or the conditions under which
+ work is carried on, there are special risks of injury or danger
+ to the health of the persons employed and of the district.
+
+ Sec. 6. “If any occupier of a factory or workshop or laundry or
+ of any place from which any work is given out, or any contractor
+ employed by any such occupier causes or allows wearing apparel
+ to be made, cleaned, or repaired in any dwelling-house
+ or building occupied therewith, whilst any inmate of the
+ dwelling-house is suffering from scarlet fever or smallpox,
+ then, unless he proves that he was not aware of the existence
+ of the illness in the dwelling-house, and could not reasonably
+ have been expected to become aware of it, he shall be liable to
+ a fine not exceeding ten pounds.”
+
+I have no doubt sub-section 1 of section 5 might have gone a long
+way to improve the sanitary conditions under which out-workers are
+employed, and reduce the danger to the public, had it not been for
+the restriction imposed by sub-section 3, which makes it practically
+inoperative.
+
+Notwithstanding the many overcrowded and insanitary districts in our
+large cities, I am not aware that a single area has been specified to
+which the section should apply. The reason for this will probably be
+found in the difficulty to prove the existence of “special risks of
+injury or danger to the health of the persons employed _and_ of
+the district.” And in any case the month’s notice to be given would
+simply mean that by a system of removing--which would be nothing
+unusual with the class of workers concerned--the purpose of the Act
+could be successfully evaded.
+
+It would seem to be the desire of the legislature to place all
+responsibility for compliance with the law upon the employer, or the
+person giving out the work, but it stops short at providing him with
+the means of ascertaining whether the law is being complied with.
+
+The limited space at my disposal will not allow me to deal with the
+many economic issues involved in the question of out-work. I can only
+make a brief reference to its possible effect on wages.
+
+Many of the more intelligent workers in the factories and workshops
+speak very strongly against it on the ground that the long and
+irregular hours tend surely, if indirectly, to lower wages, and
+workshop hands in some cases, even where the total earnings were very
+low, have on principle refrained from taking work home to finish after
+the workshop hours, through fear of thus producing an artificial
+standard of wages. Out-workers are often used as a lever for reducing
+rates of wages. They are not restricted by any law to a specified
+number of hours per day as in factories, and they are often found
+working from early morning till late at night. With the help of some
+other members of the family, a fair wage may be earned, in consequence
+of which the employer is inclined to make comparisons which show the
+factory hands at a disadvantage. Subsequently rates are reduced for
+everybody.
+
+It may be interesting to note that a large number of out-workers met
+with during these inquiries were in receipt of parochial relief,
+although they were working full time for their employers. Attention
+has been directed to this subject from time to time in the official
+reports of the Factory Department, and various suggestions have been
+put forward as to the best methods for the efficient regulation of
+home-work; but sooner or later the Government will be obliged to deal
+with this question, and as the matter will therefore be in the hands of
+the Home Office it would be unwise of me to anticipate the manner in
+which they might treat the subject.
+
+ A. BALLANTYNE.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER VIII
+
+ THE PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY OF WORK AND FATIGUE
+
+
+There is a limit to man’s power of doing work. This varies in different
+individuals. In an ordinary way work is conducive to health, and
+even under abnormal circumstances work is often the main factor that
+tends to prolong life. Mental not less than physical occupation has
+been known to raise men and women above worries that otherwise would
+have crushed them and lifted them above the depressing influences of
+an incurable malady. In itself work is a good thing. It is when we
+come to consider the effects of overwork and fatigue in an age when
+all is hurry and excitement, when every one is pressed, and work is
+undertaken under such unhealthy conditions as exist in some overheated,
+overcrowded, and ill-ventilated factories, that one of the worst sides
+of excessive toil is seen. In order to understand more fully the evils
+of overwork and fatigue, physical and mental, let us learn something of
+the physiological conditions under which muscular work is performed.
+
+We are frequently reminded that the human body resembles a
+steam-engine. From the circulation within the body of the absorbed
+products obtained from digested food are evolved those chemical and
+mechanical forces which direct all work, physical and mental. The
+human body differs from the steam-engine in being able to transform
+some of the food products into living tissue, whereby during work it
+calls upon its stored-up energy and loses weight. Human life can only
+be supported by oxygen and the ingestion of foods of vegetable or
+animal origin. In the internal laboratory of the human body chemical
+changes are continually taking place, resulting in the formation of
+such waste products as carbonic acid, water, and urea. These have to
+be removed by the lungs, the kidneys, and skin. A pure atmosphere,
+healthy surroundings, and an adequate supply of water and proper
+food, are therefore required in order to introduce into the system
+the ordinary necessaries of life. Health can only be maintained by a
+normal functional activity of the emunctories, whereby waste products
+are eliminated.
+
+All organs when in a state of greater functional activity than usual
+draw to them, by a kind of automatic arrangement of the nervous system,
+a larger supply of blood. The demand upon the muscles of the labourer
+is met by an increased flow of blood at the time, therefore, when most
+required, and when changes within his muscular system are most active.
+In a similar fashion, a quickening of the cerebral circulation occurs
+during the processes of thinking and mental attention. We are, however,
+at this particular part of our inquiry concerned rather with that
+large army of workers, men, women, and young persons, who are either
+day or weekly wage earners, whose life is one of hard toil, and who in
+reaching home of an evening are frequently tired out with the day’s
+labour. Work while physiologically making for health may, if pushed too
+far so as to induce fatigue, ultimately unfit the individual for his
+allotted task.
+
+By means of an instrument known as the _ergograph_, physiologists
+can estimate the amount of muscular work done. We can thus learn
+something of the laws of muscular activity and of fatigue in man.
+Work is only done by muscle when it is contracting. By means of the
+ergograph we can register the character, the frequency, and rhythm
+of these contractions, and estimate the weight of a load lifted, or
+the amount of work accomplished, in a given time. In addition to the
+physical work accomplished, heat is also generated within the muscle,
+and certain waste products are formed which escape by the veins and
+lymphatics. A healthy fresh muscle responds practically at once to
+an electrical stimulus, but when it has been over stimulated so that
+the individual muscular contractions follow each other too rapidly,
+the tissue becomes fatigued and no longer responds to the induction
+shocks. The ergograph shows us the manner in which we become fatigued.
+Professor Mosso, of Turin University, found that the instrument
+registers very much the same results in the same people over a period
+of years, allowing for certain minor modifications depending upon
+the conditions of the organism, the state of health at the time,
+diet, sleep, and the amount of intellectual fatigue present at the
+moment. We are all familiar with the influence of volition upon
+muscular contraction. By a strong effort of will we can force our
+jaded muscles still to accomplish work, but in doing so we often add
+to the muscular tiredness a sense of brain fatigue as well. There
+is a marked difference in the character and amount of work done by
+muscles that have been gradually trained compared with that done by
+those not so prepared. Professor Aducco found that at the end of a
+month, after having practised a few hours daily with the ergograph,
+he could perform twice the amount of muscular work than he could at
+the commencement. A moderate amount of work, physical and mental, is
+attended by a feeling of pleasurable satisfaction. It is when work is
+carried too far, and when a man’s daily labour becomes too hard, or
+makes lengthened and unusual demands upon his strength, that there is
+experienced a sense of extreme weariness and fatigue. When a muscle has
+become fatigued its irritability is lessened. It no longer contracts
+with the same vigour, less energy is set free, and the muscle relaxes
+and regains its original form less quickly. Under any circumstances
+energy is only liberated at the expense of the nutriment stored up
+within the muscle and the oxygen absorbed from the blood. A process
+akin to oxidation takes place within the muscle during its contraction
+whereby waste products are formed that act as poisons to the muscle
+protoplasm. Muscle is only capable of doing work so long as energy
+holding explosive compounds are formed within it and the waste products
+are excreted.
+
+What, then, causes fatigue? Since during muscular contraction oxygen
+is absorbed, and carbonic acid and other waste materials are formed,
+fatigue might in the first instance be considered as dependent upon
+processes of a chemical nature, and be due to the non-removal of the
+harmful substances formed by muscle when doing work. That fatigue is
+largely the result of this is shown by passing some simple saline
+solution through the blood-vessels of a limb removed from a recently
+killed animal, and where the muscles of the limb have been thrown into
+a state of fatigue by excessive stimulation. As the liquid percolates
+through the muscles and washes out the waste products, fatigue
+disappears, and the muscular contractions on stimulation become again
+as vigorous as they were before. Over-use of muscles obliges us to
+breathe more frequently. By increased frequency of respiration the
+temperature of the body is lowered owing to evaporation of water from
+the interior of the lungs. Add to this the cooling influence of the air
+inspired, for it is of lower temperature than that within the lung.
+Respiration too is the medium through which we throw off the excess
+of carbonic acid from the blood. As long ago as 1845, Helmholtz, a
+German physiologist, demonstrated that when a muscle is in a state of
+repose it contains very few substances that are soluble in alcohol.
+For the sake of comparison we shall name this amount 1. In fatigued
+muscle the quantity of these soluble substances rises to 1.3. Healthy
+muscle in repose has an alkaline chemical reaction, fatigued muscle
+is acid. Some of the substances formed during muscular contraction
+possess distinctly poisonous properties and are toxic to the individual
+himself. While fatigue is induced by local conditions in the muscles,
+the sense of tiredness which we experience is the result of general
+rather than local causes. During the course of a long walk, or a day’s
+hard toil, the muscles are constantly forming waste products which it
+is the function of the internal organs to throw out of the system. It
+is not deprivation of food, for example, that is the cause of fatigue,
+although it may be contributory. The real cause is the circulation
+in the blood of fatigue products. These act upon the nerve-endings
+in muscle and paralyse them, and they also act upon certain portions
+of our brain, and create the sense of fatigue. Ranke made an aqueous
+extract of fatigued but otherwise healthy muscle, and taking the
+poisonous substances he injected them into a living muscle that had
+been removed from a recently killed animal, with the result that its
+power of doing work at once diminished. Were it not for the watchful
+activity of our emunctory organs, _e.g._, the liver, kidneys,
+skin, and bowels, the human body would soon be poisoned by the toxic
+substances formed within the system. The sensation of fatigue is due
+to the temporary retention of these harmful substances. The blood of a
+fatigued animal is more poisonous than that of a healthy one which has
+been in a state of quietude for some time previously. When some of this
+blood is injected into a healthy animal, it induces the phenomena of
+fatigue. If, for example, the blood of a fatigued dog is injected into
+a healthy one, the receiving dog will shortly afterwards show signs
+of fatigue, creep into a corner and go to sleep. The effect of hard
+work upon the blood is also shown in a diminution of its hæmoglobin
+or colouring matter. When we are mentally tired, it would seem as
+if the sensation of fatigue was located in or depended upon certain
+conditions of particular portions of our brain, for if we change the
+subject of meditation or take up some game that requires even a great
+amount of thought, _e.g._, chess, the sensation of tiredness often
+disappears. It is difficult to prove whether brain or muscular work
+is the more fatiguing. It depends upon the training, the occupation,
+and constitution of the individual. The personal element is a factor
+in fatigue that cannot be ignored. _Prima facie_, owing to nerve
+tissue being the more highly organised, this circumstance suggests
+that the brain would be the more easily fatigued. Against that must
+be placed the fact that the muscles form a much larger portion of the
+body by weight than the nervous system, and consequently within them
+must be formed a much larger amount of poisonous waste material. Some
+people we know are more easily tired than others, both mentally and
+physically. There is for each person apparently a definite rate of
+muscular contraction essential to the amount of work accomplished in
+a given time. If this is true for the muscular, it is none the less
+so for the nervous system. People who have inherited a weak nervous
+system become readily exhausted, even with very little work, and
+they recuperate slowly. They are said to suffer from neurasthenia,
+or nerve weakness. In addition to muscular work being accompanied by
+the production of toxic substances, it should be remembered that the
+individual is perhaps standing all day at work in a heated factory,
+and as a consequence of the fatigue the circulation becomes languid,
+and his feet swell. Muscle can after all do only a limited amount of
+work, and in order to recover from fatigue there must be a period
+of repose or relaxation. This raises the question of the number of
+hours per day a man should work, also the length of the break for the
+mid-day meal. On the Continent the mid-day break is in some factories
+longer than it is in this country, but the work is carried on further
+into the evening. It is admitted that in iron works and factories,
+where the hours of labour have been unusually long, say ten and eleven
+hours, the work done in the latter part of the day is not so good as
+that done in the forenoon, and managers say that where the experiment
+has been tried, the men have turned out in eight hours an amount of
+work equal to what was previously done in nine. The problem can only
+be solved by experience. It is right to mention that fatigue does not
+always, or necessarily, depend upon the amount of work done. A good
+deal depends on the state of the body at the time. We know that good
+work can never be done by a tired brain or fatigued muscles, and that
+the amount of work accomplished is always greater where the limit of
+exhaustion has never been reached. If we are tired and feel that we
+have to make a fresh spurt to accomplish something, the end, it is
+true, may be gained, but it is by using up a certain amount of reserve
+force stored away in our muscles, and by making an additional demand
+upon our nervous system. The physical fact of muscular fatigue has its
+psychical counterpart in the sensation of tiredness. When muscular
+work is light and of short duration there may be only a sense of
+weight, but if the labour has been hard there may be a sensation of
+actual pain which continues for a time. Intellectual work when carried
+on too long and without sufficient recreation, interferes with the
+innervation of the heart and blood-vessels. In cerebral fatigue there
+are often languor, or its opposite restlessness; the pulse may be small
+and excitable; the head hot, the feet cold, and there may be noises
+complained of in the head. The nervous control of the blood-vessels
+is destroyed, so that while the extremities are cold and their
+blood-vessels small and contracted, those of the brain may be dilated
+and overfilled. Protracted brain work is followed by irritability
+of temper, by inability to concentrate the attention and to reason
+out problems. It becomes an effort to think. There is headache, for
+the brain is, in a similar manner to the muscles, affected by the
+circulation through it of waste products. These at first, like alcohol,
+may stimulate and excite the brain, but they end by paralysing it. It
+is an interesting fact that while the brain is particularly sensitive
+to the action upon it of poisonous substances and of an altered
+circulation, as seen, _e.g._, in bilious headache, the headache of
+kidney disease, plumbism, etc., the surface of the brain is insensitive
+to touch, as is demonstrated in cases of injury to the skull where
+the brain is protruding. The brain can be gently touched without any
+sensation being experienced; if there is any at all, it is certainly
+not one of pain; any effects that follow are the result of pressure.
+While insensitive to a great extent to touch, the surface of the brain
+will respond to an electrical stimulus. Levy (_British Medical
+Journal_, 13th September 1900), after stimulating the motor areas
+of an animal’s brain by electricity, found that fatigue was rapidly
+induced, and when this occurred, that the brain failed to respond to
+fresh stimulation until after a period of rest. When interruptedly
+stimulated, so that there are periods of rest, the brain does not
+become readily fatigued, but is rendered capable of expending a greater
+amount of energy.
+
+Hodge (_Journal of Morphology_, 1892) has studied the effects
+of work upon nerve structures. He found after prolonged electrical
+stimulation of spinal nerves certain structural alterations in the
+cells of the ganglion on their posterior root. When the nerves were
+over-stimulated the cells became shrunken, their protoplasm crenated
+and vacuolated. The amount of shrinkage was proportional to the length
+of stimulation, _e.g._, if it was continued for--
+
+ 1 hour there was 22 per cent. }
+ 2.5 hours „ 21 „ } Shrinkage in volume
+ 5 „ „ 24 „ } of the nuclei of the
+ 10 „ „ 44 „ } stimulated cells.
+
+Hodge’s experiments demonstrate that there is a relation between the
+amount of structural change in nerves and the length of time during
+which the stimulus has been applied. The influence of rest in restoring
+the cells to their normal size was equally apparent. In order to
+determine how far these changes were really dependent upon work, Hodge
+examined the nerve-cells of birds and bees after a day’s work and after
+a night’s rest. At the beginning of the day, when the animal had rested
+over night, the nerve-cells were found to be large and turgid, and with
+prominent nuclei, but after a day’s work, the contents of the cells
+were vacuolated and shrunken, and their nuclei altered in shape.
+
+Dr Guido Guerrini (_Lancet_, 21st October 1899, and 10th November
+1900) confirms the statement just made, that as a result of fatigue
+the nerve centres exhibit certain alterations of structure. Beyond
+being more vascular than usual, a fatigued brain does not exhibit
+anything special to the naked eye. Guerrini caused dogs to run a
+certain mileage every day, but it was not until they had covered a
+distance varying from 22 to 61 miles that they appeared fatigued. On
+examining their brain microscopically, he found the lymphatic spaces
+around the cells distended, the chromatin network of the brain-cells
+changed, and the pigment disintegrated, while the protoplasm exhibited
+numerous vacuoles, the outline of the nucleus was irregular, and its
+contents vacuolated. These changes were always proportional to the
+amount of fatigue undergone by the animal, and were most pronounced
+in those parts of the brain known as the motor areas, _i.e._,
+those which innervate the muscles. The cause of these alterations of
+structure in nerve-cells in fatigue is the circulation in the blood of
+waste products formed during work. The presence of this waste material
+in the blood not only creates a sense of fatigue, but so alters the
+structure of nerve-cells that they require a lengthened period of
+repose before they become quite recuperated. Additional changes were
+found by Guerrini in the liver and kidneys. On examining these organs
+in fatigued dogs, he found that there were changes in the cells of the
+convoluted tubules of the kidney, and in the loops of Henle. The cells
+were observed to be larger and more brittle than in health, so that
+they readily disintegrated and filled the tubules with _débris_,
+in the midst of which the liberated nuclei could be seen. The liver
+cells too were found to be enlarged, and the seat of cloudy swelling,
+which is always one of the earliest indications of pathological change
+occurring in cell protoplasm.
+
+In considering the question of work and fatigue, there are in addition
+certain other factors that cannot be ignored, for example: (1) the
+social conditions in operation upon the individual at birth, and
+during his upbringing; (2) habits such as the use of alcohol; (3) the
+atmosphere in which his work is carried on; and (4) the nature of his
+employment, and the number of hours per day spent at it.
+
+Roughly speaking, the working classes may be divided into artisans, the
+majority of whom make good wages, are well housed, well clad, and well
+fed; and into labourers, who do unskilled work, whose occupation is
+irregular, and who, when out of work, are not well fed.
+
+To some even of the regularly employed labouring classes, when the
+family is large and the wages small, or where work is interrupted on
+account of recurrent ill-health, life is a hardship, and the children
+are occasionally more or less deprived of their proper food; while
+in the case of the textile industries where women are employed in
+the factories, the infants, bereft of maternal attention and proper
+nutriment, necessarily suffer. The children born in the alleys of our
+large towns cannot, as they grow to manhood, be possessed of that
+well-developed bodily frame required to fit them for undertaking
+hard muscular work. The offspring of parents, both of whom work in
+textile or jute factories, are inferior in size and general physique
+to children born under healthy surroundings and under more normal
+conditions. When these grow up and enter the factory as half-timers,
+their rate of growth lags far behind that of children of their own
+age who still remain at school. The trend of civilisation is for
+hard manual labour to be more and more replaced by machinery in all
+industries. By some social economists, however, as we shall see later
+on, this is not always regarded as an unmixed benefit. When a child
+commences work and earns a weekly wage he is to that extent more able
+to procure the additional food his growing frame requires. From this
+point of view the object is good; and if only the physical labour is
+gradually undertaken, is not too long, and is tempered to the strength
+of the juvenile worker, the training, like the muscular exercises
+alluded to in the earlier part of this paper, may be beneficial than
+otherwise. It is not always thus, however, with children who go into
+factories. Children brought from the country, and with good physique
+to start with, will be found after two years’ work in a mill in a
+large town to exhibit a smaller rate of growth than those who engage
+in outdoor work. The children of the poorer classes commence life at a
+great disadvantage compared with those of the well-to-do. There is more
+sickness, and the death-rate among them is higher, owing very largely
+to bad feeding, exposure, and neglect. Pagliani found as a consequence
+of women continuing to do hard muscular work when _enceinte_,
+and commencing their industrial duties again too soon after their
+confinement, even though giving their infants the breast, that the
+children were of shorter stature and of feebler force than those not
+similarly treated. A fairly reliable test of the effect of severe
+manual labour upon children in Continental countries is seen in the
+large number of conscripts rejected from military service on account of
+some physical disqualification. In no place perhaps more than in Sicily
+are the harmful effects of fatigue and exhaustion on young people
+so apparent. An excessive proportion of the conscripts who had been
+in their earlier years engaged in carrying heavy baskets of sulphur
+out of the mines near Catania are found to be physically feeble,
+ill-developed, and unfit for military service. Is a similar condition
+of things, although to a minor degree, not taking place in our own
+country? The standard of height and of chest measurement required of
+recruits is not rising but falling. The improper feeding, bad housing,
+imperfect clothing, and absence of pure air in the home, which are the
+lot of an increasing number of the poorer working classes, are not the
+conditions that favour the development of such healthy labouring people
+as are required to enable us as an industrial community to compete with
+other nations, perhaps more favourably circumstanced. The point is,
+whether in this respect other nations do not come under the same ban as
+ourselves.
+
+After work there must be relaxation, in order that an opportunity may
+be given for the muscles to recuperate, and for waste products to
+be removed. For working men, physical rest and recreation, sleeping
+in good air amid healthy surroundings, are desiderata, and yet how
+few there be who find these. With the toil of the day over, home
+reached and supper finished, there is little in the immediate dingy
+surroundings that is attractive, and so the working men saunter out to
+the nearest street corner to converse with their comrades, or adjourn
+to a public-house, where in an overheated bar and ill-ventilated
+rooms the remaining hours of the evening are spent. Nor is the married
+working woman much better off, so far as rest is concerned, for after
+her day’s work in the factory she attempts to overtake, often unaided,
+her neglected maternal and domestic duties. It is desirable that
+healthy recreation for our working classes should be provided to a
+greater extent than it is. In this matter employers could do a great
+deal. The proper housing of the working classes is even a greater need.
+How can the poorer working men have good health, good morals, and be
+long lived, when they do not have in their homes and surroundings those
+conditions that enable them, during periods of relaxation, to sleep
+well, and to eliminate by their lungs and skin the waste materials
+formed during toil. After all, we are each of us, physically and
+mentally, very much what the circumstances of life make us. Personal,
+not less than national character, is partly moulded by external
+surroundings.
+
+The habits of the poorer working classes, too, as regards alcohol
+are not without their bearing upon this important question. It is a
+subject, therefore, upon which there should be some definite expression
+of opinion, especially since both at home and abroad there is a belief
+that alcohol is a necessity for the working classes. This matter has
+been recently brought to the front in France by the socialist leader,
+M. Fournière, in an address delivered to working men, the gist of
+whose argument is, that alcohol is a hydrocarbon, capable of supplying
+during combustion within the body the necessary elements for muscular
+work, and that therefore it is a food. Among foods of the hydrocarbon
+type Fournière places alcohol in the first rank. He maintains that
+the insufficient food of the workman imposes upon him the necessity
+for alcohol; his hard work creates a desire for it. Alcoholism as a
+social infirmity is therefore regarded as a direct consequence of the
+excessive demands made upon the muscular system by present-day labour.
+This is dangerous teaching to working men, and cannot be allowed to
+pass unchallenged. The insufficient food of the working man is in many
+instances the result of his small wages and uncertainty of employment,
+but it is a monstrous evil for any political leader to recommend him to
+spend more of his wages upon drink. Money purchases less alcohol than
+food; besides, what is spent upon alcohol is consumed by the individual
+himself, leaving less of the wages, therefore, to be spent on food for
+his wife and family. It is pandering to selfishness, and the teaching
+tends to encourage the idea that what a man produces by his labour he
+has a sole right to spend upon himself, leaving to Society the care
+of those who are naturally his own. But quite apart from this side of
+the question, what is the teaching of physiology?[41] It can be shown
+that the administration of alcohol in more than moderate doses is
+followed by a diminution of muscular energy, which fresh doses of the
+stimulant do not readily compensate; that to the period of excitement
+there succeeds one of depression, so that in a given time the amount
+of work accomplished under alcohol is less than that done without
+it. I think I may safely say that no literary man ever did his best
+work under the influence of alcohol. In moderate quantities alcohol
+stimulates the brain for a brief period, and quickens the flow of
+ideas, but this is followed by a reaction of depression. In a paper
+read before the Académie des Sciences, January 1901, M. A. Chauveau
+detailed the results of his experiments upon alcohol and muscular work.
+He set himself this problem: how far a man who works and whose blood
+is saturated with alcohol obtains from the combustion of alcohol the
+energy necessary for the functional activity of his muscles? In order
+to estimate this he measured the “respiratory quotient,” that is to
+say, the relation existing between the volume of carbonic acid excreted
+and the amount of oxygen absorbed. His conclusions are drawn mostly
+from dogs. In an ordinary way meat and sugar were administered to these
+animals, and subsequently for 84 grammes of sugar 48 of alcohol were
+substituted. Under the normal feeding the mean respiratory quotient
+was 0.963, but during the period of the administration of alcohol
+it only reached 0.922. Chauveau proved by this and other means that
+alcohol is not utilised as potential energy either for the execution
+of physiological functions acting together in a state of repose or for
+muscular work during states of activity. In substituting alcohol for
+sugar he found in a given time--(1) a diminution of muscular work; (2)
+loss of body weight, and (3) increased expenditure of energy relative
+to the amount of work accomplished. We are familiar with the fact of
+the large quantities of stout consumed by the London dock labourers,
+who, either as the result of experience or imagination, have come to
+look upon malt liquor as a necessity and as a food. Without denying the
+fact of stout in small quantities when taken with food supplementing,
+through its hydrocarbons and the sugar it contains, muscular energy,
+it can only to a limited extent contribute to those combustion
+processes from which the muscular system derives the necessary energy
+for its functional activity. Reverting for the moment to Chauveau’s
+experiments, it was found that during the period of normal feeding a
+dog ran a distance of 23.924 kilometres every day in two hours, and
+that its weight increased 1.245 kilos.; but during an equal length of
+time when it was taking alcohol instead of sugar, the distance coursed
+in the two hours daily was only 18.666 kilometres, and its weight fell
+115 grammes. It is true that we cannot apply _in toto_ the results
+of this experiment to man, but they are not without their meaning.
+Sugar is a well recognised muscle food. The experiment shows us that
+in dogs, when alcohol is substituted for sugar, the result is not to
+the advantage of the individual. There is a diminution in the amount
+of work done. More than this, alcohol tends, and the more impure it is
+the greater the tendency, to load the blood with harmful substances,
+and to induce pathological changes in such of the eliminating organs
+of the body as the liver and kidneys. Even admitting that it may
+contribute to the production of muscular energy, it imposes upon these
+organs a greater burden than a proportional quantity of food, and thus
+it happens that as a consequence of the circulation within the body of
+the toxic substances formed in muscle during work and of those derived
+from alcohol, also the fact that alcohol checks the power of the liver
+and kidneys to throw off the toxic material circulating in the blood,
+there are induced at an early age in working men who are intemperate,
+pathological changes in the liver, kidneys, and nervous system,
+structural alterations which play a very large part in the causation of
+the high death-rate of the poorer working classes.
+
+In considering the question of fatigue of working people we must not
+overlook the nature of their employment, the rooms in which the labour
+is carried on, and the number of hours daily spent in work. When the
+air in a factory is close, and is not renewed frequently enough,
+there is an impediment to the escape of carbonic acid from the lungs,
+and when the air is overheated and moist, the natural cooling of the
+body through respiration cannot occur. Labour carried on under these
+conditions entails an additional tax upon the strength of the workers
+and burdens their system with impurities. We live in an age that
+creates, because there is a demand for, labour-saving machinery. The
+introduction of steam has revolutionised industry. Manufacturers keep
+increasing their production and throwing goods in larger quantity
+and at lower price upon the market. Machinery acts with unerring
+uniformity. At times so simple is its mechanism that a child can almost
+guide it, yet how exacting are its demands. While machinery has in
+some senses lightened the burden of human toil, it has not diminished
+fatigue in man. All through the hours of work in a factory the hum of
+the wheels never ceases. Requiring constant attention, to stop the
+machinery running is to lose money, and so men and women are obliged
+to wrestle with the forces of steam and mechanical ingenuity. While
+the machinery pursues its relentless course and is insensitive to
+fatigue, human beings are conscious, especially towards the end of the
+day, that the competition is unequal, for their muscles are becoming
+tired and their brains jaded. In many factories the system of double
+shifts allows the work to be carried on by night as well as by day.
+It is not urged that where double shifts of men are employed and the
+work conducted in well-ventilated factories, the shifts alternating
+every fortnight (night being the ordained period for man’s rest) with
+no Sunday labour and Saturday afternoons off, that the double shift
+system is necessarily prejudicial to health. But what shall we say
+of double shifts that practically never know of any interruption? A
+short while ago I visited a large iron works on the Continent where
+steel rails were being made. By means of a day and night shift the
+work went on continuously. On the occasion of my second visit to the
+works at eleven o’clock at night I met with a strange sight. The men
+were working almost naked; they were only wearing loose, coarse cotton
+garments like shortened nightdresses, and even in these they were
+bathed in perspiration. As they flitted about in the darkness, lit up
+by the lurid glare of the furnaces, they looked more like demons than
+men. For nearly seven years had the furnaces been going almost without
+cessation. From the first day of one year to the commencement of that
+following, Sunday, Saturday, and Christmas Day, the men had worked
+their particular shift, never knowing what twenty-four hours’ respite
+from labour was unless when off ill. The company pensioned the men
+when they were too ill or too old to work, and gave them a house with
+a small garden and pasturage for a cow; but what availed these when
+the best years of the workmen’s lives had flown and the enfeebling
+influences of old age had fallen upon them? The men were old at the
+age of forty, and many of them were broken down in health. It is the
+continuous demands made by machinery that are so trying, there being
+no time left for relaxation. Presentday factory labour is too much a
+competition of sensitive human nerve and muscle against insensitive
+iron, and yet, apart from an appropriate shortening of the hours of
+labour, it is difficult to see how this can be remedied. The greater
+the number of hours machinery runs per day the larger is the output for
+the manufacturer, but the feebler are the human limbs that guide it. To
+the machine time is nothing; to the human being, each hour that passes
+beyond a well-defined limit means increasing fatigue and exhaustion.
+There are some social economists, Marx among others, who maintain that
+while machinery has diminished the price of products it has made the
+lot of the worker worse, since by disregarding human strength it has
+introduced into factories a larger number of women, thereby reducing
+wages and diminishing the number of men required; so that, while there
+has followed a diminution in the number of hours of employment, the
+tension when at work is greater, and the output larger, thus resulting
+in more work being done. Machinery, too, by obliging man to do and to
+keep at one particular detail of work, is reducing him to a mere unit,
+and causing him to be ignorant of the other processes of manufacture,
+and to be less and less the handy man of an age now all but past. It
+remains to be seen how far this enforced relegation of man’s labour to
+the production of one particular product is for his own ultimate good
+and that of Society.
+
+There is, it seems to me, too great a tendency even on the part of
+working men themselves to insist upon uniformity in regard to the
+number of hours they shall be employed. This is seen in the attempt to
+nationalise an eight hours’ day for coal-miners, when it is known that
+in Northumberland and Durham they do not work eight hours from bank to
+bank. There are local and social conditions that cannot be ignored, and
+before which the leaders of working men must bow. As regards dangerous
+trades, it goes without saying that the number of hours spent daily
+in a factory should be fewer than in healthy trades or in outdoor
+occupations; and a similar remark applies to those industries in which
+the work is hard and makes severe demands upon the muscular system of
+the labourers. It was surely never meant that work should be other
+than invigorating to man, and educive of all that is best within him.
+Healthy persons, therefore, should work to keep healthy; those who
+do not work, miss one of the greatest charms of life and stimuli to
+health. Fatigue is not due to work but to overwork, and excess of every
+kind is injurious.
+
+ THOMAS OLIVER.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER IX
+
+ MORTALITY OF OCCUPATIONS
+
+
+Having undertaken, at the invitation of the editor of the present
+work, to contribute a section on the mortality of occupations, I think
+it just to him and to my readers to premise that inasmuch as the
+results of the forthcoming census cannot possibly be available for a
+considerable time to come, the statistical _data_ on which I shall
+have to base my present observations must inevitably be those which
+were collected some years ago for the purposes of the second volume
+of my previous work.[42] And, seeing that those _data_ were to a
+large extent exhausted in the preparation of the work referred to, it
+follows that I can offer comparatively little that is actually new in
+the remarks which I am now about to submit. The best that I can hope to
+accomplish is to select from the mass of statistical matter that was
+compiled for my larger work such particulars as may seem appropriate
+for the present article, adding from time to time such explanatory
+comments as a careful review of my previous book may show to be
+desirable.
+
+Before entering on a discussion of the special subject with which the
+present essay is concerned, it may be well to offer a few preliminary
+remarks on the variations of mortality in general, as affected by
+conditions other than those of occupation, and in different parts of
+the country.
+
+In a paper read before the Royal Society in 1859, my distinguished
+predecessor, Dr Farr, produced evidence to show that in sixty-three
+of the registration areas of England and Wales, which he designated
+“Healthy Districts,” the death-rate in 1845–50 did not exceed 17 per
+1000 persons living. Improvement in the health conditions of England
+and Wales has now made it practicable to establish a higher standard
+for healthy districts: for whereas in 1845–50 less than 6 per cent. of
+the total population lived in localities where the death-rate was 17
+per 1000, we are now able to state that in the years 1881–90 not less
+than 25 per cent. of the people lived in districts where the death-rate
+ruled below 17 per 1000, including a proportion of 4.5 per cent. in
+districts where the death-rate did not reach 15 per 1000. At the same
+period the general death-rate of England and Wales was 19 per 1000
+living: about one-fourth part of the English population experienced
+a death-rate of from 12 to 16 per 1000, one-half were subject to
+death-rates ranging from 16 to 22 per 1000, whilst one-fourth part
+of the population experienced death-rates varying from 22 to as many
+as 36 per 1000 living, or more than double the rate obtaining in the
+healthy districts. It is not of course suggested that these enormous
+differences of mortality are to be accounted for exclusively by
+circumstances of locality, or even by circumstances of occupation
+and locality combined. The true causes of excessive local mortality
+are for the most part well known to the sanitary authorities who are
+responsible for the health and well-being of the communities among whom
+such unfavourable conditions prevail; in any case, these causes cannot
+be specially discussed here.
+
+The foregoing remarks, with respect to fluctuations in general
+mortality, may have little obvious bearing on the subject in hand,
+namely, the mortality of occupations. But I adduce them in order
+to assist in explaining what will be further emphasised later
+on, _i.e._, the fact that even in the same industry the
+workers in various places experience wide differences in their
+mortality--differences which can only be accounted for on the theory
+that conditions of environment determine, to a greater degree than is
+usually believed, whether the mortality of a given industry shall be
+favourable or the reverse.
+
+In connection with each of the last four census enumerations, and with
+the aid of the death registers for the several intercensal periods,
+attempts have been made to ascertain the influence of occupation on
+the health and vitality of the people. The results have been published
+in successive “Decennial Supplements,” and to these works reference
+must be made on points of detail. The earlier investigations of Dr
+Farr, which were based on the census populations and the deaths in 1861
+and 1871, were limited to the mortality from all causes incidental to
+men engaged in certain well-defined occupations--account being taken
+only incidentally of the diseases to which that mortality was due.
+This omission, however, was supplied by Dr Ogle in the third Decennial
+Supplement, which dealt with occupational mortality in 1880–2. On
+that occasion Dr Ogle undertook the laborious task of abstracting and
+analysing large numbers of deaths in combination with ages, causes,
+and occupations, and thus succeeded in preparing the valuable series
+of tables concerning “causes of death in different occupations” which
+illustrate his work.
+
+For the last decennial supplement I am myself responsible. In Part
+II. of that work the calculations were based on the population, as
+enumerated at the census of 1891, and the deaths registered in the
+three years 1890–2. Details of age, occupation, and cause of death,
+with respect to every male over fifteen years of age who had died
+during these three years, were abstracted from the registers and
+entered on separate slips of paper: these slips, more than half a
+million in number, were then examined by specially selected clerks, who
+had been employed in classifying occupations for the census reports,
+and each slip was distinctively marked with the heading under which the
+occupation should fall.
+
+In the course of the work it speedily became apparent that the
+mortality of men employed in the several occupations is seriously
+affected by the surroundings in which they work, and, as before
+mentioned, these surroundings vary considerably, even for the same
+occupation, in different parts of the country. In order to ascertain,
+if possible, the extent to which the mortality of certain occupations
+was modified by these conditions, the following plan was pursued: the
+slips belonging severally to London, and to certain groups of districts
+the populations of which are mainly engaged either in industrial, in
+agricultural, or in mining pursuits, were counted separately from
+those belonging to the remaining parts of England and Wales, and the
+mortality of the same occupations was ascertained in each of these
+areas.
+
+The group of _Industrial Districts_ was constituted as
+follows--The county of Lancaster was selected as the seat of the cotton
+industry; the towns of Huddersfield, Halifax, and Bradford, as that of
+the woollen industry; Wolverhampton, Birmingham, Leeds, and Sheffield,
+as that of the iron and steel industry; and Leicester as concerned in
+the manufacture of boots and hosiery.
+
+The _Agricultural Group_ contained all those counties of England
+and Wales in which at least one-third of the occupied males over ten
+years of age were returned at the census as farmers and farm labourers;
+to these were added parts of counties in which, after exclusion of
+some of their principal towns, a like proportion of the population was
+found to consist of farmers and their labourers. In order to avoid
+possible confusion, as between different grades of labourers, it may
+be mentioned that all those who were described simply as “labourers”
+in these agricultural districts have been reckoned here as “farm
+labourers.” For comparison of the mortality among _coal miners_
+in different parts of the country, separate statistics for this
+industry were compiled for the following six local areas: (1) Durham
+and Northumberland, (2) Lancashire, (3) The West Riding of Yorkshire,
+(4) Derbyshire and Northamptonshire, (5) Staffordshire, and (6)
+Monmouthshire with South Wales.
+
+The extracts from the death-register were limited, for the purpose
+of my Decennial Supplement, to facts concerning males aged fifteen
+years and upwards. Hitherto no attempt has been made to deal with the
+occupational mortality of females. The uncertainty attaching to the
+statement of occupations in the case of females has been urged as a
+reason against such an attempt. Much importance has also been held to
+attach to the fact that only 38 per cent. of the women aged between
+fifteen and sixty-five years were returned at the census as following
+any definite occupation, whereas 94 per cent. of the men at the same
+ages were so returned. Having regard, however, to the vastly increased
+attention which is now devoted to female industries, especially those
+which are carried on under the control of the Factory Acts, it is
+much to be desired that the mortality of the more important of these
+industries, at any rate, should be subjected to careful statistical
+investigation at the earliest possible opportunity.
+
+The choice of an occupation by a labouring man is not always, nor is
+it mainly, determined by personal caprice. It is matter of common
+observation, that in industries of the more laborious type, such as
+those of railway navvy, engine fitter, boiler maker, blacksmith, etc.,
+only men in the prime of life, or of more than average physique, are to
+be found. The operatives in these industries are selected men, quite
+as much so as are soldiers or sailors, but the process of selection
+is a different one. They can continue their arduous toil only so long
+as their bodily strength remains at its best: and when, from sickness
+or from advancing age this gives way, they are forced to relinquish
+their labour. They then either turn to some employment which makes less
+exacting demands on their energy, or else fall out of the ranks of
+definite employment entirely, and descend to the sad lot of those who
+are described as of no settled occupation. It follows, therefore, that
+the men in actual work in the laborious occupations above mentioned
+enjoy a special advantage over the workers in less arduous trades; and
+their mortality, although high in spite of that advantage, appears
+far lower than it would do if every individual could be traced from
+the time of his entry on the occupation to the end of life. But what
+of the men who, after trial of a laborious calling, perhaps for the
+best years of their lives, are forced by ill-health or other infirmity
+to relinquish it? Very many of these will be found struggling to eke
+out a living either as cab-drivers, omnibus guards, or messengers,
+and being for the most part broken down in health as well as careworn
+and ill-nourished, they must further increase the already high
+apparent mortality of these workers. Failing this, they will go to
+swell the ranks of the classes indefinitely known as costermongers,
+dock labourers, street sellers, hawkers, and general labourers, or
+less fortunate still, they will drift into the yet lower grade of the
+unoccupied, whose terrible mortality I shall shortly have to describe.
+
+The mortality prevailing in a given industry from time to time can
+only be regarded as, at best, a rough measure of the healthfulness
+of that industry. The reason for this will be explained presently.
+It is, however, beyond question that when the public mind becomes
+sufficiently appreciative of the economic value of human life, and of
+the wastefulness of ill-health, to demand a registration of sickness
+corresponding with that which is now in force with regard to mortality,
+we shall be in a position to measure with a near approach to accuracy
+the amount of damage done by the several industries to the health and
+vitality of the workers, although it may not be practicable to suggest
+in all cases a remedy for the waste and the suffering so caused.
+
+Meantime it is desirable to indicate briefly some of the chief reasons
+which detract from the value of mortality statistics as _criteria_
+of the healthfulness of occupations. And first with regard to the data
+concerning the living in the various industries. It might seem at first
+sight a simple matter to sort out the units of an industrial community
+according to their occupations as stated in the census schedules: but
+even a superficial study of the experience of those responsible for the
+conduct of past censuses will show that even this initial process is,
+in reality, a highly complex and difficult one.
+
+The number of names of more or less distinct avocations in England is
+enormous; at the last census it was about 12,000, but at the present
+time it is probably far greater than this. The vast additions that have
+accrued to our nomenclature of occupations is due in a great measure to
+the circumstance that new branches of industry have sprung up amongst
+us in recent years, and that with advancing times, old trade processes
+have undergone more and more minute subdivision. Nevertheless a large
+number of more or less obsolete names are still of necessity retained
+in the list of occupations, for the guidance of the abstractors,
+although many of those in current use are scarcely more than ephemeral
+nick-names, which are of but rare occurrence in the schedules.
+
+In recent years the industries of the English people have come to
+be very minutely subdivided, each group of workers in the several
+subdivisions being known by a special name; and what is worse, the
+same name frequently indicates one thing in the north of England, and
+another thing in the south. Nay, more, it frequently happens that
+these arbitrary names give no clue whatever to the character of the
+industry to which they are assigned. Perhaps the most serious and
+perplexing difficulty met with in connection with classification is the
+fact that very frequently one and the same name is used to indicate
+totally dissimilar occupations. Thus, for example, the term joiner in
+some places is used to designate a carpenter, but in others it means a
+maker of lace. By clothier is sometimes meant a cloth-maker, in others
+it stands for a dealer in clothes. By jobber is understood in some
+cases merely an artisan, whilst in others it takes a more definite
+meaning in connection with the exchange of money (stockjobber). A
+drummer is either a soldier or a blacksmith’s striker. A miller is
+either a dealer in corn or a stone mason. An engineer may be either
+a maker or a driver of machinery. A placer may be either a potter or
+an iron manufacturer. In the above-mentioned cases the confusion is
+only between two occupations, but there are other instances far more
+numerous and much more troublesome, in which one particular name is
+used in common for a similar process in a considerable number of
+different trades. For instance, there are spinners, weavers, warpers,
+winders, etc., alike in cotton, silk, wool, and flax factories, and
+when an operative is returned under one or other of these names,
+without further distinction, it is impossible to decide to which
+of the several manufactures he ought to be assigned. Nor is the
+worker necessarily to be blamed for this; for he, failing to see the
+importance of precision, and perhaps ignorant of the use in other
+industries of a designation similar to his own, not unnaturally returns
+himself under some such familiar heading, without further question.
+Nevertheless it will readily be understood that the existence in the
+returns of such indefinite headings as “miner,” “labourer,” “artisan,”
+makes it difficult to estimate the precise number of workers in any
+industry, if, indeed, it does not in certain cases seriously reduce the
+value of such estimates. Fortunately, however, the numbers of workers
+thus vaguely returned at the census are small when compared with the
+enormously greater aggregates of those employed in the more important
+industries, and whose exact occupations are definitely known: so that,
+with respect to these principal industries, at any rate, the numbers
+can be ascertained with sufficient accuracy for practical purposes.
+
+Thus far a few of the difficulties and possible errors connected
+with the returns of the living in the several industries having been
+considered, we now come to speak of the other factor of relative
+mortality, viz., the deaths occurring in the several occupations,
+and their classification according to age and probable cause. The
+difficulties encountered in relation to estimates of population have
+already been shown to be considerable; and yet they are not only
+fewer in number, but also less serious than those we shall now have
+to notice. The vagueness with which occupations are too often stated
+in the schedules has already been referred to, but unfortunately even
+greater vagueness is discoverable in the death returns. In proof of
+this the large group of men, some six hundred thousand in number, who
+are designated “agricultural labourers,” may be taken as a case in
+point. In the census returns of the living these men are doubtless
+correctly described, but in the death registers they are in many cases
+entered simply as “labourers,” without qualification of any kind.
+Consequently there is danger lest these men, who for the most part
+are remarkably healthy, sober, and well-conducted, should be confused
+with “general labourers,” a sadly unhealthy, degenerate set of men,
+whose occupation is uncertain, who live from hand to mouth, and whose
+mortality is nearly double that of agricultural labourers. Coal miners,
+again, are a class of workers who are likely to be differently entered
+in the census returns on the one hand, and in the death registers
+on the other. In consequence of the very commendable efforts which
+are made to secure accurate returns of the living at each census, it
+is probable that for the most part miners are classified accurately
+according to the mineral in which they work, but in the death registers
+coal miners and iron miners, tin miners and copper miners, are alike in
+many cases classed simply as “miners,” without further distinction, and
+thus much uncertainty results as to the exact class of workers to which
+a particular death should be assigned.
+
+In his Decennial Supplement for the period 1871–80, Dr Ogle dealt with
+this subject very thoroughly; and inasmuch as his opinion is deserving
+of great weight, I make no apology for quoting here the following
+extract from that work. Speaking of the difficulties which occasion
+flaws in the calculations of occupational mortality, he says:--“There
+are many trades and occupations which require a considerable standard
+of muscular strength and vigour to be maintained by those who follow
+them; such occupations, for instance, as those of a blacksmith, of
+a miner, and the like; and so soon as from any cause the health and
+strength of a man fall below this standard, he must of necessity give
+up the occupation, and either take to some lighter form of labour,
+or, if his health be too much impaired for this, retire altogether
+from work. And even in those industries where no excessive amount
+of muscular strength is required, there must nevertheless be always
+a certain time beyond which continuance in the business becomes an
+impossibility. The weaker individuals, and those whose health is
+failing them, are thus being drafted out of each industrial occupation,
+and especially out of those which require much vigour; and the
+consequence is that the death-rates in these latter occupations are
+unfairly lowered, as compared with the death-rate in occupations of
+an easier character, and still more, as compared with the death-rates
+among those persons who are returned as having no occupation at all. A
+very considerable proportion of those who are forced to give up harder
+labour take to odd jobs of a more or less indefinite character, and
+are returned both in the census schedule and eventually in the death
+registers as general labourers, as messengers, or as costermongers,
+street sellers, etc.; and thus it comes about that the death-rates of
+general labourers, of messengers, and of street sellers ... appear to
+be of appalling magnitude, as also do those of persons returned as
+of no occupation. Under these headings, however, are comprised the
+broken-down and the crippled, who have fallen out of the ranks from all
+the various industries, as well as those who have been throughout life
+debarred, by natural infirmities or other causes, from following any
+definite occupation. Another very serious flaw in these death-rates,
+when taken as measures of the relative healthiness of different
+industries, is due to the fact that these several industries do not
+start on equal terms as regards the vitality of those who follow them.
+A weakling will hardly adopt the trade of a blacksmith, a miner, or a
+railway navvy, but will preferentially take to some lighter occupation,
+such as that of a tailor, a weaver, or a shopman. This defect in the
+death-rate gives an unfair advantage to such industries as demand much
+strength or activity in those that follow them. Such industries are in
+fact carried on by a body of comparatively picked men; stronger in the
+beginning, and maintained at a high level by the continual drafting out
+of those whose strength falls below the mark.”
+
+In comparing the mortality of occupations at different and perhaps
+remote periods of time, it is important to ascertain whether any
+epidemic or pandemic diseases have been seriously prevalent among
+the general population during either of the periods compared; for in
+that case considerable allowance will have to be made for this fact,
+if anything like accuracy of result is aimed at. Thus, for example,
+in any comparison that may be instituted between the mortality of
+1891 and that of 1881, it is necessary to take into account the
+far-reaching effects of the influenza epidemic which exceptionally
+and with great severity prevailed throughout the more recent period.
+It is unquestionable that the fatality of diseases not only of the
+respiratory but of the nervous and circulatory systems also was
+seriously increased by this complication, and that the value of any
+comparison between the mortality statistics of the two periods has been
+considerably diminished as a consequence.
+
+The foregoing are a few of the more important defects which are
+unavoidably present in the data from which comparative statistics of
+occupational mortality are prepared. They are serious and far-reaching.
+In using such statistics as a means of distinguishing between different
+industries with respect to their healthfulness, it is necessary to
+recognise the existence of these defects, and to make suitable
+allowances for them. Nevertheless when this has been done, it is beyond
+question that the rates of mortality furnish reliable measures of the
+healthfulness of different occupations, especially of those in which
+the number of workers is sufficient to furnish trustworthy rates, and
+the period of investigation is adequate for the purpose.
+
+Dr Farr has indicated the period of life between the twenty-fifth and
+the sixty-fifth year as that in which “the influence of profession is
+most felt.” Dr Ogle, in his Decennial Supplement to the 45th Report,
+adopted the same view, supporting it by the argument, that in the
+earlier periods the effect of occupation is not as yet fully developed:
+and that the last age period (sixty-five and upwards) is that which is
+more especially affected by the retirement from the industry of such
+men as have become too weakly to follow it. My own inquiries having
+tended to confirm these opinions, I have retained in my recent work the
+same interval, namely, that of the forty years between the twenty-sixth
+and sixty-sixth birthdays, as marking the period of life during which
+the effects of occupation are most conspicuous. In the majority of
+industries this is generally held to be the term of years which most
+accurately corresponds with the period of man’s greatest capacity for
+effective labour. There are, however, several occupations in which this
+is not so. Instances may readily be adduced of occupations in which the
+actual task of bread-winning both begins and ends at an earlier age
+than it does in most other industries; so that it would be impossible
+to specify any limit of age which should apply equally well to all
+occupations in this respect. Inasmuch, however, as it is necessary for
+our present purpose to select some one interval for general adoption,
+the age twenty-five to sixty-five is that which has been adopted as the
+“main working period of life” in the following pages.
+
+The mortality of any given occupation is influenced very decidedly by
+“the age and sex distribution” of the workers. The examples following
+will show how great is this influence: the figures indicate the rates
+of mortality in each thousand males living in groups of ages: (1) among
+men in general, (2) among farmers as a class (see table on next page).
+
+From this table it will be seen that the mortality of farmers is below
+that of males in general at every age-group, and that from the first
+stage of life to the last it averages from 50 to 60 per cent. of the
+mortality of males generally. If, however, the total deaths of farmers
+above fifteen years be calculated on the total number of farmers
+living above fifteen years, and without further distinction of age, the
+mortality of farmers would be represented
+
+ ---------------+---------------+----------+---------------------------+
+ Ages | General Male | | Mortality of Farmers to |
+ (Years). | Population. | Farmers. | that of Males generally, |
+ | | | the latter taken as 100. |
+ ---------------+---------------+----------+---------------------------+
+ 15–20 | 4.14 | 1.30 | 31 |
+ 20–25 | 5.55 | 2.40 | 43 |
+ 25–35 | 7.67 | 4.29 | 56 |
+ 35–45 | 13.01 | 7.03 | 54 |
+ 45–55 | 21.37 | 11.20 | 52 |
+ 55–65 | 39.01 | 23.97 | 61 |
+ 65 and upwards | 103.53 | 87.81 | 88 |
+ ---------------+---------------+----------+---------------------------+
+
+by a rate of 19.58 per 1000, or 0.84 per 1000 above that of males
+in the aggregate. It therefore appears that although farmers do not
+die so fast as other men at each of the age-groups here specified,
+nevertheless farmers in the aggregate, _i.e._, without distinction
+of age, die faster than other men. This apparent contradiction will,
+however, be explained when the differences in age constitution are
+taken into account between farmers on the one hand and males in the
+aggregate on the other. Reference to the census report will show that
+there are nearly three-fourths as many farmers above sixty-five years
+old, when the mortality is 88 per 1000, as there are at ages between
+twenty-five and fifty-five, when it is only 4½ per 1000: whilst
+among the male population generally the number living at ages above
+sixty-five years, when the mortality exceeds 103 per 1000, is less than
+one-third of the number between twenty-five and thirty-five, when it
+does not exceed 8 per 1000. From the foregoing example, then, which is
+by no means a solitary one, it is clear that crude rates of mortality,
+_i.e._, rates computed without reference to age differences of
+population, are untrustworthy as a means of comparing one occupation
+with another on the score either of health or of longevity.
+
+In dealing with the occupational mortality of 1880–2, Dr Ogle adopted
+the plan of “deaths in standard population,” which fairly represents
+the mortality of a given occupation as compared with the general
+mortality. The same plan has been followed (_mutatis mutandis_)
+in the present work. It may be thus explained. The standard population
+here used is the number of men between the ages of twenty-five and
+sixty-five years in the population of England and Wales, amongst whom
+1000 deaths would occur in a single year; the population in 1891
+and the deaths in 1890–2 being taken as the basis. The comparative
+mortality figure, therefore, is the number of deaths that would occur
+in a year, according to the death-rates ascertained for a given
+occupation among 61,215 men of standard age constitution: it represents
+very fairly the mortality in the given occupation as compared with that
+among males generally.
+
+Out of 61,215 men aged from twenty-five to sixty-five at the census of
+1891 there were enumerated:--
+
+ 22,586 at the age-group 25–35 years
+ 17,418 „ „ 35–45 „
+ 12,885 „ „ 45–55 „
+ and 8,326 „ „ 55–65 „
+
+In order to ascertain the number of deaths that would occur among
+61,215 men engaged in a particular industry, all that is necessary is
+to apply to these four totals the corresponding rates of mortality
+occurring in that industry: the resulting sum of deaths will be the
+comparative mortality figure for that industry; and if the calculated
+deaths in each of the four age-groups be distributed proportionally
+according to the causes of death in such age-group, the parts of the
+comparative mortality figure that are due to the several causes will
+be obtained. By means of the tables which follow in the letterpress,
+and which have been prepared according to this principle, the mortality
+of men engaged in the stated occupations may be studied. I now proceed
+to illustrate, by means of a particular example, the manner in which
+dissimilar rates may be used for the purpose of comparing the mortality
+of men engaged in different occupations. In my larger work it was
+shown that in the three years 1890–2 there occurred among gardeners
+and nurserymen, between the ages before mentioned, 3462 deaths out
+of 339,225 years of life. If the age constitution among gardeners
+had been the same as that among the general English male population,
+the mortality of 61,215 males taken (1) from among the general male
+population, and (2) from among gardeners, would stand as follows:--
+
+ --------------+-------------------------------+---------------------+
+ | General Male Population. | Gardeners and |
+ | | Nurserymen. |
+ Age in years. +---------+---------+-----------+-----------+---------+
+ | Numbers | | Mortality | Mortality | |
+ | Living. | Deaths. | per 1000. | per 1000. | Deaths. |
+ --------------+---------+---------+-----------+-----------+---------+
+ 25–35 | 22,586 | 173 | 7.67 | 4.14 | 94 |
+ 35–45 | 17,418 | 227 | 13.01 | 6.59 | 115 |
+ 45–55 | 12,885 | 275 | 21.37 | 11.63 | 150 |
+ 55–65 | 8,326 | 325 | 39.01 | 23.29 | 194 |
+ --------------+---------+---------+-----------+-----------+---------+
+ 25–65 | 61,215 | 1000 | | | 553 |
+ --------------+---------+---------+-----------+-----------+---------+
+
+The true ratio of mortality among gardeners to that among the general
+male population is thus seen to be 553 to 1000, and this may be
+expressed by designating 553 the “comparative mortality figure” for
+gardeners.
+
+_Unhealthy Trades._--A simple and rational classification was
+that of the late Dr Guy, the accomplished physician of King’s College
+Hospital, by which occupations were divided into (1) indoor, and (2)
+outdoor. It is matter of common knowledge, at least among medical men,
+that outdoor occupations are, for the most part, more healthful than
+indoor; which is tantamount to the statement that a life of labour in
+the open air, in spite of the danger of exposure to inclement weather,
+is more conducive to health and longevity than is indoor labour, with
+its ordinary (though by no means necessary) concomitants of foul air,
+sedentary habits, and want of exercise.
+
+Having ventured to estimate, with the sole assistance of mortality
+statistics, the amount of damage to health, as well as of waste of
+life, which is encountered by workmen of different grades, as a result
+of their employment, it is of course necessary, _in limine_, to
+determine the maladies whose inordinate fatality is to be regarded as
+evidence that mischief has resulted from any particular trade process.
+The organs which are affected, not only earliest, but also most
+seriously, by dusty air and by air which is organically impure, are the
+lungs: and we naturally look to these organs as being those which will
+probably exhibit the chief indications of injury. Here, however, we
+are met by an initial difficulty. Unfortunately, the returns of death,
+as registered, do not in all cases furnish the means of discriminating
+between the various kinds of ailment. For example, medical experience
+shows that under circumstances frequently existing, especially amongst
+the poor, it is difficult to distinguish accurately between one form
+of lung disease and another, and there is reason to believe that a
+considerable number of deaths actually caused by simple inflammatory
+diseases of the lungs and air passages are erroneously returned in
+the registers, and consequently in the classified tables, as due
+to tubercular phthisis. In remote parts of the country, where the
+populations are for the most part ill-provided with medical attendance,
+it is the fashion to attribute to what is locally termed “consumption”
+or “decline,” all cases of illness that are accompanied by cough,
+expectoration, or shortness of breath. It must, however, be remembered
+that deaths are not in all cases certified as to cause by medical men:
+many of them are attested by coroners, and a certain proportion are
+registered without certificate of any kind. This is exceptionally the
+case in certain parts of Wales, where the mortality _ascribed_
+to phthisis is very high, and where the proportion of persons who die
+without medical attendance is likewise excessive.
+
+Having regard to the tendency which not infrequently exists to confuse
+tubercular with non-tubercular affections of the lungs, it is probable
+that the most reliable evidence derivable from the registers as to
+the evil effects, on the one hand of irritating atmospheric dust, and
+on the other of organically contaminated air, will be attained by the
+adoption of the late Dr Headlam Greenhow’s plan, which was to include
+the deaths from phthisis under the same heading with those of the
+respiratory system. This plan has accordingly been adopted here, and in
+the following tables the order of occupations has been determined by
+their combined mortality from these diseases. The mortality figures,
+however, from phthisis as well as those from other lung diseases are
+separately shown in the tables.
+
+In my larger work on occupational mortality the varying incidence of
+phthisis and of respiratory diseases among certain classes of workers,
+in different localities, was treated of in considerable detail. I must
+here revert somewhat briefly to this subject, in order to explain what
+follows at a later stage. In the work referred to I showed that among
+_occupied males_ as a class between the ages of twenty-five and
+sixty-five the mortality figure from respiratory diseases exceeds that
+from phthisis by about one-fifth part: among _unoccupied males_,
+on the contrary, the mortality from phthisis greatly exceeds that from
+respiratory diseases. The main causes of this difference are probably:
+(1) that occupied males who are attacked by phthisis are especially
+prone to drift into the unoccupied class; and (2) that certain portions
+of the unoccupied class--the insane, for example--suffer a very high
+mortality from phthisis. The normally prevailing excess of mortality
+from respiratory diseases over that from phthisis does not obtain among
+occupied males in all parts of the country. In the industrial districts
+that excess is very clearly marked, but London and the agricultural
+districts are exceptions to the rule, their mortality from phthisis
+being greater than that from respiratory diseases. In London the
+mortality from respiratory diseases is high, but that attributed to
+phthisis is higher still; in the agricultural districts, on the other
+hand, the mortality ascribed to phthisis is low, but that ascribed to
+respiratory diseases is still lower. Turning to the separate groups
+of occupations, it appears that about one-third part of these groups,
+containing about the same proportion of the occupied male population
+at ages above fifteen years, differ from occupied males generally, in
+this respect, that they encounter higher mortality from phthisis than
+they do from respiratory diseases. This third part of the occupational
+groups may be arranged in two sections: the first section comprising
+those occupations which deviate from the general rule because of a
+special tendency among the workers to succumb to phthisis; the second
+section comprising those occupations which deviate from the rule for
+the reason that the workers enjoy unusual immunity from death by
+respiratory diseases.
+
+ The first section may be subdivided thus:--
+
+ (_a_) Occupations which are carried on in close and confined
+ air--commercial clerks, bookbinders, tailors, and tin-miners
+ afford examples of this kind.
+
+ (_b_) Occupations in which excessive mortality from phthisis
+ appears to be associated with alcoholic intemperance--as in the
+ case of law-clerks, inn-servants, and costermongers.
+
+ The second section may be subdivided as follows:--
+
+ (_c_) Occupations in which relative immunity from respiratory
+ mortality appears to depend on the circumstance that the workers
+ are protected from inclemency of the weather--instances of this
+ kind are furnished by barristers, school-masters, and domestic
+ servants.
+
+ (_d_) Healthy outdoor occupations characterised by low mortality
+ from both descriptions of lung disease--this sub-section
+ consists of farmers and labourers in agricultural districts,
+ and of gardeners; it is probable, however, that the excess of
+ mortality from phthisis above that from respiratory diseases
+ among these workers is, wholly or in part, only apparent.
+
+The above remarks must be understood to apply only to such occupations
+as _depart_ from the rule, which is that the mortality from respiratory
+diseases exceeds that from phthisis. Among the occupations which
+_conform_ to this rule, there are some in which either impure or
+dust-laden air is one of the conditions of working; and there are
+others in which either alcoholic excess or exposure to weather is
+accompanied by enormous mortality from respiratory diseases. On the
+other hand, there are also included some occupations in which the
+workers experience low mortality from respiratory diseases, and still
+lower mortality from phthisis.
+
+With respect to the standard by which the healthfulness of the several
+industries is to be determined, only a few words are necessary. The
+standard should be a high, but for obvious reasons it should be
+an attainable one, and the men composing it should be of a class
+not widely different from that of those with whom they are placed
+in comparison. The men engaged in agricultural pursuits form a
+group numbering more than a million, and consisting of farmers,
+graziers, gardeners, and farm labourers. They are for the most part
+a hard-working and healthy body of men, who spend the greater part
+of their time in the open air of the country: they may therefore be
+considered typical of that section of the population which suffers
+injury in the least degree from the inhalation either of dust-laden
+air or of air contaminated by organic effluvia. For these reasons
+agriculturists have been chosen as the class with which the occupations
+now to be specified shall be compared, so as to render appreciable the
+serious waste of life which is still experienced by the workers in
+certain selected occupations.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER X
+
+ DUST-PRODUCING OCCUPATIONS
+
+
+That the constant inhalation of dust as a necessary condition of
+daily labour results sooner or later in the appearance of grave and
+characteristic lesions which lead to premature breakdown and death
+among the workers, is matter of common medical experience. Through the
+instrumentality of the Factory Department the conditions of labour in
+these industries have recently been greatly improved: this has been
+achieved by the general introduction of ventilating fans and of other
+expedients for preventing the inhalation of irritating particles by
+the operatives. Nevertheless the returns of mortality still show that
+several of these occupations produce a terrible amount of suffering and
+disablement, whilst they unquestionably shorten the lives of those who
+follow them.
+
+In the subjoined table will be found a list of those industries in
+which the labourers suffer exceptionally from the presence of dusty
+particles or other irritating matters in the air of the apartments
+in which their work is carried on. In this table the mortality of
+the several dust-producing occupations is contrasted with that of
+agriculturists, who have been shown to suffer from the effects of dust
+to a less degree than any other workers. It is not asserted or believed
+that the whole of the difference between the respiratory mortality of
+certain unhealthy trades and that of this more favoured class is to
+be accounted for by dust irritation alone. There are almost certainly
+present other contributory factors also, the effects of which it would
+be difficult to show separately: nevertheless, there is no doubt that
+an atmosphere constantly charged with mechanical impurities of this
+kind is the main cause of the excessive mortality indicated in the
+table.
+
+The aggregate death-rate from tubercular phthisis and diseases of the
+respiratory system is shown in this table, as also are the figures
+relating to each affection separately. Columns 3 and 4 give the
+combined mortality from these diseases among the several classes of
+workers in comparison with that of agriculturists. In the fourth column
+the mortality of the latter is taken as 100 and that of the other
+workers is shown proportionally to that figure.
+
+Comparative Mortality from Specified Causes in certain Dusty
+Occupations.
+
+ -------------------+-------------+----------------------+
+ | |Phthisis and Diseases |
+ | |of Respiratory System.|
+ -------------------+-------------+----------+-----------+
+ Occupation. | Comparative | | |
+ | Mortality |Mortality | Ratio. |
+ | Figure |Figure. | |
+ |(all Causes).| | |
+ -------------------+-------------+----------+-----------+
+ Agriculturist | 602 | 221 | 100 |
+ Potter, | | | |
+ Earthenware | | | |
+ manufacturer | 1702 | 1001 | 453 |
+ Cutler | 1516 | 900 | 407 |
+ File-maker | 1810 | 825 | 373 |
+ Glass-maker | 1487 | 740 | 335 |
+ Copper-worker | 1381 | 700 | 317 |
+ Gunsmith | 1228 | 649 | 294 |
+ Iron and Steel | | | |
+ manufacturer | 1301 | 645 | 292 |
+ Zinc-worker | 1198 | 587 | 266 |
+ Stone-quarrier | 1176 | 576 | 261 |
+ Brass-worker | 1088 | 552 | 250 |
+ Chimney sweep | 1311 | 551 | 249 |
+ Lead-worker | 1783 | 545 | 247 |
+ Cotton manufacturer| 1141 | 540 | 244 |
+ Cooper and wood | | | |
+ turner | 1088 | 526 | 238 |
+ Rope-maker | 928 | 486 | 220 |
+ Bricklayer, mason | 1001 | 476 | 215 |
+ Carpet manufacturer| 873 | 471 | 213 |
+ Tin-worker | 994 | 451 | 204 |
+ Wool manufacturer | 991 | 447 | 202 |
+ Locksmith | 925 | 428 | 194 |
+ Blacksmith | 914 | 392 | 177 |
+ Baker, confectioner| 920 | 392 | 177 |
+ -------------------+-------------+----------+-----------+
+
+ Part 2 of Table.
+
+ -------------------+-----------------------------------------
+ |
+ | Mortality Figure.
+ -------------------+-------------+-------------+-------------
+ Occupation. | | Diseases of | Diseases of
+ | Phthisis. | Respiratory | Circulatory
+ | | System. | System.
+ | | |
+ -------------------+-------------+-------------+-------------
+ Agriculturist | 106 | 115 | 88
+ Potter, | | |
+ Earthenware | | |
+ manufacturer | 333 | 668 | 227
+ Cutler | 382 | 518 | 167
+ File-maker | 402 | 423 | 204
+ Glass-maker | 295 | 445 | 157
+ Copper-worker | 294 | 406 | 186
+ Gunsmith | 324 | 325 | 153
+ Iron and Steel | | |
+ manufacturer | 195 | 450 | 162
+ Zinc-worker | 240 | 347 | 126
+ Stone-quarrier | 269 | 307 | 137
+ Brass-worker | 279 | 273 | 126
+ Chimney sweep | 260 | 291 | 142
+ Lead-worker | 148 | 397 | 272
+ Cotton manufacturer| 202 | 338 | 152
+ Cooper and wood | | |
+ turner | 250 | 276 | 137
+ Rope-maker | 219 | 267 | 118
+ Bricklayer, mason | 225 | 251 | 130
+ Carpet manufacturer| 226 | 245 | 87
+ Tin-worker | 217 | 234 | 124
+ Wool manufacturer | 191 | 256 | 131
+ Locksmith | 223 | 205 | 104
+ Blacksmith | 159 | 233 | 136
+ Baker, confectioner| 185 | 207 | 130
+ -------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------
+
+It thus appears that there are 22 industries in each of which the
+mortality from tubercular phthisis and respiratory diseases together
+is more than double that of agriculturists; and further, that these 22
+occupations include 8 (giving employment to more than 100,000 men) in
+which the total mortality from these diseases ranges from three times
+to as much as four and a half times that of the agricultural class.
+
+_Potter, Earthenware, China Manufacture._--“The earthenware
+manufacture is one of the unhealthiest trades in the country. At
+the age of joining it is low: but the mortality after the age of
+thirty-five approaches double the average: it is excessively high;
+it exceeds the mortality of publicans. What can be done to save the
+men dying so fast in the potteries and engaged in one of our most
+useful manufactures?” Thus wrote Dr Farr in 1871, with regard to the
+pottery manufacture of that day. And Dr Ogle, writing ten years later,
+confirmed this statement, adding that the mortality of these workers at
+all ages from twenty-five to sixty-five had increased since 1871. He
+further stated that at that time (namely, in 1881) their comparative
+mortality figure was no less than 1742, which was only exceeded by
+the figures for costermongers, Cornish miners, and inn and hotel
+servants. In the three-year period 1890–92 things had only slightly
+improved: the mortality in this occupation from all causes remaining
+almost unchanged; and although phthisis claimed fewer victims than in
+1881, lead poisoning had become more than twice as fatal since the
+previous record, and diseases of the circulatory and urinary systems
+had seriously increased in fatality. The excessive mortality of these
+workers is mainly due to phthisis and diseases of the lungs and heart.
+Of their entire mortality figure (1706) from all causes, not less than
+1001 is contributed by phthisis and other diseases of the lungs. The
+mortality of potters from bronchitis is more than four times as high,
+and that from other respiratory diseases is three times as high as the
+mortality of occupied males in the aggregate.
+
+Potters succumb to non-tubercular disease of the lungs much more
+rapidly than they do to tubercular phthisis; and it is certain that
+much of the so-called potters’ phthisis ought properly to be termed
+cirrhosis of the lung. Deaths from this affection should never be
+included under the head of phthisis, which term is now restricted, by
+universal consent, to the tubercular malady of that name.
+
+The mortality figure of potters from lead poisoning is 17, and comes
+next to that of plumbers, as fourth highest in the list of industries
+liable to plumbism. The mortality figures, due to diseases of the
+nervous and urinary systems, in these two occupations, exceed the
+standard for occupied males by 54 and 50 per cent. respectively.
+
+The term “potter” is a very comprehensive one, and is ordinarily
+understood to mean any workman employed in a pottery. But Dr Arlidge,
+the author of the best essay of modern times on the ailments of this
+class of workers, has shown how widely the operations in pottery
+manufacture differ from one another in their effect upon health.
+Speaking of the manufacture of earthenware generally he says: “This
+manufacture stands foremost among those wherein the employment is
+distinctly chargeable with the production of disease; and the principal
+materials to which its unenviable character is due are the clays and
+the flint used in it. However, these minerals are not the only agents
+that render the fictile trade one so highly injurious to health,
+for lead also is largely used for glazing and colour-making, and
+is a frequent cause of plumbism among the artisans. Again, it is a
+manufacture having many departments, between several of which no common
+characters can be said to exist. This holds good of the two principal
+departments, viz., (1) the making of the articles from potter’s clay;
+and (2) their ornamentation by painting and gilding. They are often
+spoken of as the “clay” and the “finishing” departments. It is with the
+former that we are in the first instance concerned, because in it the
+production of dust ... is pre-eminently the cause of disease.”[43]
+
+_Cutlers, Scissors-makers._--The mortality among cutlers is
+enormous; at all ages it is very high, but at ages beyond thirty-five
+years it exceeds the standard among occupied males generally by from 64
+to 72 per cent. The comparative mortality figure for cutlers at ages
+from twenty-five to sixty-five years is 1516, which is higher than the
+average of other occupations by 59 per cent. Cutlers, although in this
+respect they have an advantage over potters, are nevertheless among the
+occupations which suffer excessively from “pulmonary” disease. Their
+mortality figure for phthisis is 382, and for respiratory diseases is
+518, against 106 and 115 respectively, the figures for agriculturists.
+Taking these diseases together, cutlers sustain a mortality in excess
+of that of other occupations by 122 per cent. It has been shown by Dr
+Headlam Greenhow and others that the great mortality among cutlers and
+grinders arises from the irritation caused by the mechanical particles
+produced during the process of manufacture, and received into the lungs
+with the air of respiration.
+
+Cutlers suffer slightly from lead poisoning; their mortality from this
+cause being represented by 3. The occurrence of lead poisoning among
+cutlers is a novel feature in the mortality returns for 1890–92, Dr
+Ogle having found no deaths from that cause in the sample of these
+workers examined by him in preparing his supplement for 1881. In the
+mortality figures for diseases of the urinary system there is, among
+cutlers, an excess of 37 per cent. as compared with the standard
+among occupied males. From diseases of the nervous system the excess
+of mortality among these workers is 11 per cent. Taking together the
+mortality ascribed to alcoholism and to liver disease as a rough
+measure of the mischief caused by intemperance, there is a slight
+excess among these workers as compared with the standard.
+
+Since the previous record the mortality among cutlers has increased;
+and this not only at the higher ages, as appears to have been the rule
+in most other occupations, but also among men under forty-five years of
+age. Their mortality attributed directly to alcoholism, which had been
+much below the average in 1881, has risen above the average in 1891,
+but there has been no corresponding increase under the head of liver
+diseases. Since the former period the mortality of cutlers from heart
+disease has increased by 58 per cent., from lung diseases other than
+phthisis by 38 per cent., and from tubercular phthisis by 9 per cent.
+
+_File-cutters._--Judged by their general death-rate, file-cutters
+are the least healthy men included in our list of occupations,
+with the exception of publicans (in certain districts) and of dock
+labourers--their comparative figure being 1810, or three times as high
+as that of agriculturists. As compared with the standard mortality of
+occupied males, that of file-cutters is in excess by not less than 90
+per cent. At each of the age-groups of the working period of life the
+mortality among file-cutters is appalling, and this is especially the
+case at ages above thirty-five years, when the death-rate exceeds the
+average by from 93 to 110 per cent.
+
+As with cutlers, so with file-cutters--their great mortality appears
+to depend on the irritation caused by particles of stone or of metal
+which find their way into the air passages with the respired air. Dr
+Headlam Greenhow, writing so long ago as 1858, stated that file-cutters
+owe their enormous mortality from lead poisoning to the circumstance
+that the files are cut on blocks of lead: their mortality figure for
+plumbism, in 1890–2, was no less than 75!
+
+Diseases of the urinary system cause a mortality among file-cutters
+which is above the average by 154 per cent., and diseases of the
+nervous system a mortality in excess by 159 per cent.
+
+Intemperance does not seem to be especially rife among file-cutters,
+but they are addicted to suicide in about double the normal proportion.
+
+The comparative mortality figure of file-cutters has increased
+considerably since 1871: the increase being relatively greatest since
+1881. At the age-group 45–65 the increase in the death-rate has been
+steady throughout the entire period of twenty years, but at ages under
+forty-five, although between 1871 and 1881 there had been a fall in the
+death-rate, this has been followed since the latter year by a rise of
+considerably greater amount.
+
+The mortality from tubercular phthisis, which had been 407 in 1881, has
+still further increased to 414 in 1891. According to recent experience,
+file-cutters die from diseases of the circulatory and respiratory
+systems even more rapidly than they did in 1881.
+
+_Glassmakers._--The making, blowing, and engraving of glass
+occupies a prominent place among unhealthy trades, for several reasons.
+In the first place, the workers are exposed to extreme variations of
+temperature--in some processes, that of glassblowing especially, the
+operatives are constantly exposed to the intense heat of the furnace,
+as well as to that which radiates from the pots of molten glass which
+they are engaged in blowing. The intense heat and profuse sweating
+naturally induce painful thirst, which the workmen evidently allay by
+excessive drinking: this is shown by the fact that their mortality from
+alcoholism and from nervous disorders is nearly double that experienced
+by operatives in other trades. In the next place, glass-makers are
+subject to plumbism, their mortality figure attributed to this cause
+being no less than 12, or sixth highest in the list of industries
+subject to this complaint. According to Dr Arlidge, who has contributed
+much valuable information on this subject, it is in the cutting and
+engraving of glass that the operatives are exposed to contact with
+lead. In these processes “putty powder,” which is a compound of
+lead and tin, is constantly used, and as the men are careless as to
+ventilation and cleanliness, often taking their food with unwashed
+hands, it is easy to understand how lead finds its way into the system.
+
+The comparative mortality figure for glass-makers is 1487, and is,
+therefore, in excess of the average by 56 per cent. Phthisis and
+diseases of the respiratory system are especially fatal to workmen in
+this industry, and they suffer more severely than other occupied males
+from diseases of the circulatory, digestive, and urinary systems, as
+well as from cancer. Since 1881 the mortality of glass-workers has
+increased considerably, and this is true of the younger as well as the
+older workers in this industry.
+
+_Copper-workers._--As the number of operatives engaged in the
+working of copper is small (scarcely exceeding 8000), only general
+remarks can be made concerning their health.
+
+At all ages the mortality of copper-workers exceeds that of other
+occupations; their comparative mortality figure is 1381; it is
+therefore considerably above that of metal-workers generally, and is
+also above the standard for occupied males in the aggregate by 45
+per cent. That copper-smelting is an injurious occupation is proved
+by the pallid, sickly appearance of the workers. It has been noticed
+by Dr Arlidge, as a result of personal experience, that the hair of
+copper-smelters (especially where this was originally fair or white)
+becomes much discoloured; but this discoloration is caused, not by
+absorption of the metal, but simply by adhesion of copper particles to
+the hair. Nevertheless, he thinks that cupreous salts do eventually
+find their way into the circulation, and when this is the case the
+characteristic symptoms of colic, vomiting, and purging with extreme
+prostration are produced. A greenish or purplish red line is also
+noticed in the gums, in the same position as that which is occupied by
+the blue line in cases of lead poisoning. The operations of filing,
+turning, and polishing of copper are especially injurious to the
+workmen, and like other dust-inhaling processes, lead to fatal results
+by interference with the respiratory functions--lung diseases being
+much more common among these operatives than the average, whilst
+their mortality from pulmonary phthisis is in excess by 59 per cent.
+Copper-workers die much more rapidly than other operatives from
+diseases of the circulatory, digestive, and urinary systems, their
+mortality from all these forms of disease being greatly in excess of
+the average among workers in metals generally.
+
+_Iron and Steel Workers._--At the census of 1891, more than
+200,000 workers in iron and steel, above the age of fifteen years, were
+enumerated, but the number had _decreased_ since the preceding
+census by 2 per cent. The labour of iron and steel working is heavy
+and exhausting. The operatives, whether at the blast furnaces or
+at the rolling mills, whether puddlers or moulders, are exposed to
+intense heat, as well as to great vicissitudes of weather, for most of
+their work is done in the open air, or at any rate in outdoor sheds
+unprotected from cold and draughts. The men are for the most part
+sturdy and of powerful build: the arduous nature of their occupation
+making it impossible for any but the most vigorous to follow it. In
+spite of these natural advantages, however, statistics show that iron
+and steel workers are by no means so healthy and long-lived as they
+ought to be.
+
+The death-rates of these operatives are higher than the corresponding
+rates among occupied males generally, and also higher than the rates
+of other metal workers, at all stages of life up to sixty-five years.
+They have a comparative mortality figure of 1301, which is higher than
+that of occupied males, as a standard, by 37 per cent. Iron-workers
+suffer more severely than do other occupied males from influenza and
+from diseases of the nervous, circulatory, respiratory, digestive, and
+urinary systems; their mortality figure from diseases of the lungs
+being more than double the standard figure, and that from phthisis also
+greatly exceeding the average.
+
+Since 1881 there has been a considerable increase in the mortality of
+iron and steel workers: the increase has affected both divisions of the
+working period of life, but has been far the greatest among men over
+the age of forty-five years.
+
+_Zinc-workers._--The number of men engaged in this industry is
+small, although it has increased by 50 per cent. within the last
+decennium. Nevertheless, the vital statistics of zinc-workers are
+important, as showing excessive mortality from all the diseases
+enumerated in the table on page 135. The evidence is conflicting as to
+the evolution of noxious matter during the process of extracting zinc
+from the ore; but the workmen are exposed to great heat, and to the
+inhalation of irritating particles, in consequence of which they are
+said to suffer exceptionally from digestive and respiratory troubles.
+Zinc is coming more and more into use in the process of galvanising
+sheet-iron, so as to protect it from rust; and in this operation
+the workmen are exposed to the fumes of sal-ammoniac and to other
+substances which are said to produce a form of nervous derangement that
+is apparently peculiar to this process.
+
+Zinc-workers are subject to a mortality considerably above the average.
+Their comparative mortality figure is 1198, and at ages beyond middle
+life they die more rapidly than occupied males generally. Their
+mortality from respiratory diseases and pulmonary consumption together
+is more than double the standard figure, and they die faster than the
+average from diseases of the circulatory system.
+
+_Lead-workers._--The occupation of lead-working is pursued by but
+very few in this country; only about 2000 men above the age of fifteen
+years having been thus returned at the census of 1891, and even this
+number is rapidly decreasing. But the injurious effects of lead-working
+are by no means limited to the operatives designated lead-workers in
+the census returns. In the list of one hundred occupations prepared
+for my larger work on occupational mortality, not fewer than thirteen
+were selected as showing unmistakable evidence of plumbism. These
+occupations are as follows (the figures represent the comparative
+mortality figures from lead poisoning in the several trades)--
+
+ Lead-worker 211
+ File-maker 75
+ Plumber 21
+ Painter and Glazier 18
+ Potter 17
+ Glass-maker 12
+ Copper-worker 8
+ Coach-maker 7
+ Gasfitter, Locksmith 6
+ Lead-maker 5
+ Printer 3
+ Cutter 3
+ Wool manufacturer 3
+ Occupied males 1
+
+The above occupations are arranged in order according to their
+mortality from lead poisoning, as shown in the tables. A little
+consideration, however, will show that these figures represent but
+very imperfectly the _relative damage_ sustained by the several
+operatives as a result of their occupations. If, for the sake of
+example, we compare the mortality figure of lead-workers with that
+of potters, it would appear, by the table, that the former workers
+die from plumbism more than twelve times as rapidly as do the latter.
+But, on closer examination, we find that whilst the whole body of
+lead-workers are constantly in contact with lead as a necessary
+condition of labour, not more than a twelfth part of the potters
+are so circumstanced. It is the dippers and the glost-placers among
+potters who are the chief, if not the only, serious sufferers from lead
+poisoning; but as these workers are not distinguished in the census
+returns from other potters, their deaths are distributed over the whole
+class of potters, and thus a false impression is conveyed as to the
+amount of mischief done by absorption of lead, in those branches of the
+industry where the workers are actually exposed to contact with this
+metal. Again, when the figures for painters and glaziers are compared
+with the figure for file-cutters, a great disparity becomes evident;
+the file-cutters suffering apparently more than four times as severely
+from plumbism as do the painters and glaziers. But on inquiry, we find
+that whilst, on the one hand, file-cutters handle lead continuously
+in the course of their work, on the other hand, painters and glaziers
+are by no means so constantly exposed to this danger--much of their
+time being spent on labour which does not involve contact with lead,
+or inhalation of particles or fumes of that metal. If the death-rates
+attending those processes in the occupation of potters and of painters
+which are continuously subject to lead poisoning could be separately
+ascertained, there is no reason to doubt that they would show results
+quite as unsatisfactory as those experienced by lead-workers.
+
+Although lead-working is known to be a very unhealthy trade, it is
+evidently impossible to deduce from the vital statistics of only
+2000 workers more than very general conclusions. Speaking generally,
+however, the mortality returns warrant the statement that, in the main
+working period of life, these operatives sustain a mortality which
+is about 90 per cent. above that of other workers, on the average.
+Their comparative mortality figure from all causes is no less than
+1783, and is therefore nearly three times that of agriculturists. Of
+the total deaths occurring among lead-workers, one-third are from
+“pulmonary disease,” _i.e._, from tubercular phthisis and diseases
+of the respiratory system taken together, and one-eighth are from
+lead poisoning. As compared with the standard for occupied males, the
+mortality among lead-workers is excessive from diseases of the urinary,
+nervous, circulatory, and digestive systems, in addition to the causes
+above specified.
+
+_Stone-Quarriers._--The aggregate of men above the age of fifteen
+years returned under this heading, at the last census, amounted to
+nearly 50,000, but the numbers had decreased by about 3 per cent. since
+the previous enumeration. The comparative mortality figure of quarrymen
+is 1176, which, as compared with the figure for occupied males, is in
+excess by 25 per cent. At all stages in the working period of life
+the death-rate of these labourers exceeds that of other occupations
+in the aggregate. As stone-quarrying is an outdoor industry, and
+consequently the workers are not exposed to the unhealthy conditions
+of sedentary work, the vital statistics of this class should obviously
+be compared with those of agriculturists, rather than with those of
+males of all occupations. So compared, we find that stone-quarriers
+experience a mortality from all causes which is little short of double
+the standard figure. From respiratory diseases and also from tubercular
+phthisis, their mortality is at least two and a half times as high as
+the standard, and from diseases of the circulatory system they die
+faster than agriculturists by 50 per cent. At ages between twenty-five
+and forty-five years the mortality of stone-quarriers has fluctuated
+considerably during the last twenty years; but at ages from forty-five
+to sixty-five it has steadily increased throughout that period. Since
+1881 the increase has been principally under the head of pulmonary
+and circulatory diseases. During the same interval the mortality of
+quarriers from phthisis and also from digestive diseases, as well as
+that from alcoholism and from diseases of the liver, has decreased
+considerably, and so likewise has their liability to fatal accident.
+
+_Brass-workers._--At the 1891 census there were enumerated 33,000
+persons over fifteen years of age under the head of brass-workers,
+braziers, etc., the number having increased since the previous
+enumeration by little short of one-third.
+
+If death returns alone be relied on, there is little in the mortality
+of brass-workers that does not apply equally to other allied
+industries; but from the investigations of Dr Headlam Greenhow in 1858,
+and more recently those of Dr Simon and Dr Hogben of Birmingham, we
+learn that brass-workers suffer very seriously from ailments which
+are not experienced by the workers in copper or in zinc, the chief
+metals of which brass is an alloy. The disease to which these workers
+are exceptionally subject is known locally as “brassfounders’ ague,”
+which, according to Greenhow and some other authorities, is caused
+by the inhalation of oxide of zinc, whilst others of equal repute
+attribute it to copper poisoning. That brass-workers are exposed to
+conditions inimical to health is fully recognised by employers and
+employed alike, who agree in describing the trade as a most unhealthy
+one. Dr R. Simon (in a thesis for his degree at Cambridge) says that
+brass-workers rarely attain old age, and that formerly provident sick
+societies either altogether refused to enrol them in their lists, or
+accepted them as members at greatly increased rates. The workers who
+deal with molten metal--the founders, the mixers, and the casters--are
+those who are exceptionally liable to “ague.” The “mixers,” who bring
+together the two metals, suffer most severely. The copper is first
+molten, and the zinc is then added to it. When the metals come into
+contact the zinc deflagrates, and some of it, combining with oxygen,
+flies off in dense white clouds of oxide of zinc. This, of course, is
+of necessity inhaled by the operatives who, experiencing discomfort
+from the process, tightness of the chest, and other respiratory
+troubles, attempt to avoid it by covering the mouth and nostrils with a
+handkerchief.
+
+Although, as has been previously stated, the deaths registered afford
+little evidence of the exceptional unhealthiness of brass-workers
+as compared with the workers in other metals, nevertheless we find
+that they sustain a mortality from “phthisis” which is in excess
+of that of “occupied males” by 50 per cent., whilst they die more
+rapidly than the average from diseases of the nervous, urinary, and
+respiratory systems. Brass-workers as a class are, like copper-makers,
+pallid, ill-nourished, and unhealthy-looking: they suffer from anæmia,
+dyspepsia, constipation, colic, and other digestive troubles. Happily,
+however, these symptoms do not permanently injure their health, for on
+changing their occupation, as they commonly do, for a less unhealthy
+one, the above symptoms rapidly subside, and their usual health is soon
+restored.
+
+_Gunsmiths._--The only remaining metal-workers in the list whose
+mortality exceeds the average for the class are the gunsmiths. Their
+comparative mortality figure is 1228, and is exactly 100 in excess of
+that of metal workers in the aggregate. Gunsmiths die faster than the
+average of metal-workers at ages from twenty-five to forty-five, but
+less rapidly both before and after that period of life.
+
+On reference to the extended tables in my larger work, it will be
+found that gunsmiths die from alcoholism about two and a half times
+as fast as do other workers in metal. Most of the processes in which
+gunsmiths engage are of an unhealthy nature, and the workers are
+exposed to the harmful effects of metallic and flinty dusts which
+set up in the lungs very similar disorders to those which have been
+noticed in connection with the Sheffield “grinding” trades. This
+industry demands expert workmanship and high finish, especially in the
+later processes, and involves a great deal of filing and polishing of
+metal, and these operations are frequently carried on in workshops
+which are ill-ventilated and otherwise unsuited for the purpose. As
+a consequence, the mortality of gunsmiths from phthisis (much of
+which is probably fibroid) stands at 324 against 206, the figure for
+metal-workers generally, and 185, the standard figure for all occupied
+males. From other diseases of the respiratory system and from diseases
+of the heart, gunsmiths sustain a mortality which exceeds the standard
+for occupied males by 47, and by 21 per cent., respectively. During
+the last twenty years, and especially during the more recent half of
+that period, the mortality of gunsmiths has increased considerably, and
+this is true whether we consider their mortality during the earlier or
+during the later half of the main working period of life.
+
+_Chimney Sweeps, Soot Merchants._--Recent statistics agree
+with those of earlier records in attributing to this industry a very
+unsatisfactory position in the scale of health. Compared with those of
+other occupations, the death-rates of chimney sweeps are excessive at
+all ages below the sixty-fifth year. Their comparative mortality figure
+amounts to 1311, and is therefore higher than the standard by more than
+one-third part.
+
+Chimney sweeps are, by the nature of their calling, much exposed to the
+inhalation of particles of soot and of other irritating matters which
+seriously affect the respiratory functions. They die more rapidly than
+the average from pulmonary tuberculosis, and from other diseases of
+the lungs, as well as from diseases of the heart and urinary organs.
+Their mortality from suicide is also more than double the average,
+and their figure for intemperance is more than four and a half times
+that of occupied males generally. But it is in regard to their extreme
+liability to malignant disease that chimney sweeps are deserving of
+special consideration. Their mortality from different forms of cancer
+amounts to 156 as compared with 44, the figure for occupied males in
+the aggregate. In the list on p. 135 there is no other occupation in
+which the ravages of cancer at all approach those to which chimney
+sweeps are subject. Of the 512 deaths from all causes among chimney
+sweeps, as many as 61, or about 1 in 8, were from cancer, and 18 of the
+61 were returned as from chimney sweeps’ cancer. Of these 61 deaths 3
+were ascribed to sarcoma, and the rest to carcinoma or other forms of
+malignant disease. In the course of the last twenty years the mortality
+of these workers has decreased considerably. Between 1871 and 1881
+their mortality figure, modified for purposes of comparison, had fallen
+by 11 per cent., the fall in the death-rate having been common to both
+divisions of the main working period of life, but much greater at ages
+under than at ages over forty-five years. In the interval between the
+two last censuses, on the contrary, the fall has been greater at ages
+above forty-five years. Although chimney sweeps still die from cancer
+in enormous over-proportion, there has happily been a great abatement
+in their fatality from this disease since the previous record. In
+1880–82 the mortality figure had been 290, whilst in 1890–92 the
+figure, modified to allow of comparison, was 157, showing a reduction
+of nearly half within that interval.
+
+_Textile workers._--In the accompanying list there still remain
+several dust-producing occupations in which the mortality from
+pulmonary diseases is in excess of the average, notwithstanding that
+the workers are not exposed to the action of metallic irritants. Of
+these there are four which may be taken to represent the textile
+trades--viz., the manufacture of cotton, wool, rope, and carpets--in
+all of which the mortality figure from respiratory diseases is not
+only vastly in excess of the figure for agriculturists, but is also
+considerably above that of other occupied males. Among textile workers,
+cotton operatives (especially those of Lancashire) are the most
+unhealthy. Their mortality figure from all causes is higher than that
+of occupied males generally, by from 20 to 23[A] per cent., whilst
+from diseases of the respiratory system exclusive of phthisis, their
+mortality is in excess by proportions varying from 53 to 65[44] per
+cent. The workers in cotton mills suffer severely from the presence,
+in the air, of “fluff” and “flue” that escapes from the cotton,
+especially in the preparation of the yarn. The amount of this and the
+degree of irritation to which it gives rise when inspired, varies with
+the quality of the material used; inferior and brittle cotton, being
+more liable to breakage in the course of manufacture, gives off more
+dust than do the finer kinds, and requires for its successful working
+a warmer and moister air. The workers in the lower-class cottons
+therefore suffer more seriously in health, and require more perfect
+arrangements for ventilation than do those who deal with materials of
+higher quality. Cotton spinners have to work all the year round in a
+very warm and humid atmosphere, and accordingly suffer from debility
+and exhaustion caused by profuse sweating. The temperature and moisture
+of the sheds are maintained at a high standard both night and day, in
+order to prevent brittleness in the cotton fibres, and as a consequence
+the operatives become peculiarly sensitive to chills, brought about,
+perhaps, by injudicious exposure to draughts. From personal experience
+in Manchester, for a period of twenty-five years, I can testify that
+these workers are exceptionally liable to acute rheumatism, and this
+statement may be confirmed by reference to the mortality tables in my
+larger work, which show that the mortality of cotton spinners from
+this disease exceeds the average by not less than 70 per cent. The
+operation of “sizing,” preparatory to the weaving of cotton, introduces
+a new element of danger. The size contains, in addition to flour or
+farina, a very large proportion of china clay, which finds its way
+into the air passages, and there produces its well-known mischief. It
+is pleasant to record that cotton operatives do not add to the evils
+of their occupation by undue recourse to alcohol: their mortality from
+intemperance being below the average by 23 per cent.
+
+_Wool, Worsted Manufacturers._--Wool-workers suffer much less
+severely from their occupation than do cotton operatives. In the
+weaving of woollen materials, a lower and drier temperature is required
+than in the case of cotton-weaving, and the mischief caused by
+“sizing” with china clay and other irritants has no place in woollen
+manufacture. Nevertheless, in certain of the processes, especially
+where inferior foreign wools are manufactured, a good deal of dust
+is disengaged, and this produces its ill-effect on the lungs of the
+workers. It is also in connection with dirty or blood-stained foreign
+wools that the majority of cases of anthrax or wool-sorters’ disease
+have been observed from time to time, which have been the subject of
+inquiry in past years by the Medical Department of the Local Government
+Board.
+
+It is worthy of notice that wool-sorters are even more careless as
+regards exposure to cold and draughts than are even cotton workers,
+and their mortality from rheumatic fever is much higher, being double
+that experienced by agriculturists as a class. Wool-workers have a
+comparative mortality figure from all causes, which is somewhat above
+the average for occupied males generally, but is below that of other
+textile trades. Workers in wool appear to be remarkably free from
+intemperance, their mortality figure being less than one-fourth of the
+average. From diseases of the digestive system other than the liver,
+wool-workers die half as fast again as do occupied males generally,
+whilst from diseases of the nervous, respiratory, and urinary systems,
+as well as from cancer, the mortality of these workers is from 10 to 22
+per cent. in excess of that standard.
+
+_Other Workers in Dusty Trades._--The accompanying list includes
+a few industries, the workers in which have not yet been alluded to as
+regards their health: such as the rope-makers, carpet-makers, coopers,
+bricklayers, bakers, etc. These industries, although not remarkable for
+the production of other serious forms of illness, have this feature
+in common, that being essentially dust-producing processes, they one
+and all induce among the workers excessive suffering from pulmonary
+affections. Although the mortality of these workers from phthisis and
+other lung diseases is considerably below that of metal-workers,
+nevertheless it is in every case inordinately high, exceeding the
+mortality of agriculturists by proportions varying from 77 to 120 per
+cent.
+
+
+EFFECTS OF BREATHING FOUL AIR.
+
+In my larger work on occupational mortality, detailed vital statistics
+are given respecting those workers whose occupation is not in itself
+necessarily unhealthy, but who are the victims of unwholesome
+conditions of labour, either self-inflicted, or else caused by the
+ignorance or the parsimony of persons in authority. The evils here
+alluded to are the result partly of the accumulation of respiratory
+and other impurities in the air breathed, from neglect of suitable
+methods of ventilation, and partly of the cramped posture adopted in
+certain cases (notably by tailors and shoemakers) in their sedentary
+indoor labour. Considerations of space preclude the insertion here of
+a complete list of these occupations; but in the following table a
+selection has been made of those industries in which the workers are
+liable, in the greatest degree, to damage from the inhalation of foul
+air in the course of their employment. For each of these occupations
+the figures indicating the mortality from phthisis and from diseases
+of the respiratory and circulatory systems are separately shown, and
+in another column the combined mortality of the several occupations
+from the first two of these forms of disease is compared with that
+of agriculturists, the latter being taken as 100. The occupations
+have been arranged in the descending order of their mortality from
+tubercular phthisis and respiratory diseases together.
+
+Comparative Mortality from several causes in certain unhealthy
+occupations.
+
+ +----------------+---------------+-----------------------+
+ | | | Phthisis and Diseases |
+ | | Comparative | of |
+ | | Mortality | Respiratory Organs. |
+ | Occupation. | Figure +------------+----------+
+ | | (all Causes). | Mortality | Ratio. |
+ | | | Figure. | |
+ +----------------+---------------+------------+----------+
+ |Agriculturists | 602 | 221 | 100 |
+ | | | | |
+ |Bookbinder | 1060 | 543 | 246 |
+ |Printer | 1096 | 540 | 244 |
+ |Musician | 1214 | 522 | 236 |
+ |Hatter | 1109 | 511 | 231 |
+ |Hairdresser | 1099 | 489 | 221 |
+ |Tailor | 989 | 466 | 211 |
+ |Draper | 1014 | 441 | 200 |
+ |Shoemaker | 920 | 437 | 198 |
+ +----------------+---------------+------------+----------+
+
+ Part 2 of Table.
+
+ +----------------+---------------------------------------+
+ | | |
+ | | Mortality Figure. |
+ | | |
+ | Occupation. |-----------+-------------+-------------+
+ | | Phthisis. | Respiratory | Circulatory |
+ | | | Diseases. | Diseases. |
+ +----------------+-----------+-------------+-------------+
+ |Agriculturists | 106 | 115 | 88 |
+ | | | | |
+ |Bookbinder | 325 | 218 | 115 |
+ |Printer | 326 | 214 | 133 |
+ |Musician | 322 | 200 | 191 |
+ |Hatter | 301 | 210 | 141 |
+ |Hairdresser | 276 | 213 | 179 |
+ |Tailor | 271 | 195 | 121 |
+ |Draper | 260 | 181 | 135 |
+ |Shoemaker | 256 | 181 | 121 |
+ +----------------+-----------+-------------+-------------+
+
+From this table it will be seen that, roughly speaking, the combined
+mortality from phthisis and respiratory diseases varies from twice to
+two and a half times that of agriculturists. It may further be stated
+(although the figures are not given in the table) that the workers in
+four of the above-mentioned occupations die from these diseases alone
+more rapidly than farmers in the agricultural districts die from all
+causes put together. Contrary to the experience of two-thirds of the
+occupied male population of England and Wales, tubercular phthisis
+is more fatal than are diseases of the respiratory organs other than
+phthisis, to all the workers in the table, except agriculturists.
+
+_Bookbinders, Printers._--Writing in 1881 of the sanitary
+condition of these workers, Dr Ogle speaks of both of them in common as
+“carrying on their industries under notoriously unhealthy conditions,
+in ill-ventilated rooms, and in an atmosphere unduly heated by engines,
+stoves, and flaring gas-lights.” The decline in the death-rates, as
+compared with the earlier records, he attributes to the improvements
+effected by the Factory Inspectors since these trades came under their
+supervision. Further on he writes, with respect to their mortality:
+“Excepting costermongers ... and those industries in which the workman
+is exposed to the inhalation of dusts, such as file-makers, potters,
+and Cornish miners, there is no industry in the table in which the
+mortality from phthisis approaches to that of printers.” “As for
+bookbinders,” he writes, “so far as can be judged from the 77 deaths of
+which the causes are recorded, in this industry also the high mortality
+is due to phthisis, for of the 77 deaths no less than 30 were caused by
+this disease.”[45]
+
+In both of these trades the conditions of work have still further
+improved under the supervision of H.M. Factory Inspectors since the
+above was written. Taking _bookbinders_ first--The returns
+show that their death-rates are still considerably above those of
+agriculturists, and, indeed, above those of other occupied males at
+most of the ages in the working period of life, their comparative
+mortality figure being above the firstnamed standard by 76 per cent.
+Bookbinders still die very rapidly from pulmonary consumption, their
+mortality figure from that disease being no less than 325, or more than
+three times as high as that of agriculturists. Their mortality from
+cancer and from diseases of the respiratory, circulatory, and urinary
+systems also shows excess. Bookbinders are more addicted to suicide
+than are agriculturists, in the proportion of 26 to 10. Ever since
+1871 the mortality of bookbinders has steadily decreased, and there
+has been a fall in the death-rates at ages under as well as above the
+forty-fifth year.
+
+_Printers_ experience a death-rate at the various age-groups which
+is above the standard at all the age-groups dealt with in the table.
+Their mortality figure is 1096, as against 953 for all occupied males,
+and 602 for agriculturists. Like bookbinders, printers die very rapidly
+from phthisis, and probably for a similar reason--namely, because of
+the excessively unhealthy conditions under which their work is carried
+on--their mortality from diseases of the respiratory organs other
+than phthisis is, however, below the average, but from diseases of
+the nervous, circulatory, digestive, and urinary systems it is above
+the average. Printers suffer only about one-third as much from fatal
+accident as do other workers, but they are somewhat more addicted to
+suicide. Their mortality figure from lead poisoning is represented by
+3. In the course of the last twenty years the mortality of printers
+from all causes together has decreased considerably. Both the age
+divisions in the main work time of life have shared in the fall, but in
+unequal proportions. As compared with that of 1881, the mortality of
+these workers from alcoholism in 1891 has fully trebled, and that from
+suicide has more than doubled. The most important decrease occurs in
+the case of phthisis, the mortality from which has fallen, since 1891,
+by one-sixth part of the former rate.
+
+_Musicians._--The mortality of the class of men who, by a
+euphemism, are styled “musicians,” is very high. At all ages in the
+working period of life it greatly exceeds that of agriculturists, and
+also exceeds that of the working population in the aggregate. Their
+comparative mortality figure amounts to 1214, or more than double the
+figure for agriculturists, and is about one-third part in excess of
+that of occupied males generally. Compared with both these standards,
+musicians die more rapidly from alcoholism and from diseases of the
+liver. Their mortality figure from phthisis is enormous, amounting to
+not less than 322, or fully three times that of agriculturists, and
+almost double that of male workers in the aggregate.
+
+In addition to the above, musicians sustain very heavy mortality from
+diseases of the nervous, circulatory, digestive, and urinary systems,
+and their mortality figure from suicide is 23, as compared with
+10 for agriculturists and 14 for other occupied males. From these
+statistics it is certain that many of those who are included in this
+class are sadly addicted to intemperance, whilst others suffer from
+want of the bare necessaries of life. “It must be remembered,” writes
+Dr Ogle in 1881, with reference to the mortality of this class, “that
+under this heading are comprised all sorts and conditions of men, and
+that a large portion of them are organ-grinders, ballad-singers, and
+street musicians generally, many of whom are of intemperate habits,
+and exposed by their mode of life to cold and want, while no few have
+merely taken to the occupation as a refuge, after their health has
+broken down in more regular occupations.”
+
+Within the last twenty years the mortality of musicians has declined
+very considerably, both at the earlier and at the later ages. Their
+comparative mortality figure in 1891 was lower than it had been in 1871
+by more than one-fifth part: nevertheless, their vital statistics still
+continue to be very unsatisfactory, and their nomadic habits are a
+serious hindrance to improvement.
+
+_Hatters._--As compared with agriculturists, the mortality of
+hatters is enormously greater at all stages of the working period of
+life, and their comparative mortality figure from all causes is in
+excess of that standard by 84 per cent. At ages under thirty-five
+years, hatters experience a death-rate which barely exceeds the
+average among occupied males, but at each subsequent age-group their
+mortality is greatly in excess. As far as we know there is little in
+the employment of hat-makers which of necessity acts prejudicially to
+their health. Their work, however, like that of too many other trades,
+is frequently carried on in overcrowded and ill-ventilated apartments,
+and the men suffer accordingly. Thus we find from the tables that
+hatters die from tubercular phthisis about three times as rapidly
+as do agriculturists, and that their mortality from this complaint
+considerably exceeds the average in other occupations. Hatters appear
+to be much addicted to intemperance, their mortality figure from
+alcoholism, and also from liver disease, showing serious excess.
+Their mortality from suicide stands at 28, as compared with 10 for
+agriculturists and 14 for other occupied males. Among hatters under the
+age of forty-five years there has been a decline in mortality within
+the last twenty years, but at ages from forty-five to sixty-five there
+has been but little change.
+
+_Hairdressers._--The mortality of hairdressers is higher
+than that of other occupied males at each of the age-groups of
+the working period; it is, consequently, greatly in excess of that
+of agriculturists. Their mortality figure from all causes at ages
+twenty-five to sixty-five is 1099, and, therefore, exceeds that of the
+standard last mentioned by 82 per cent. The life of a hair-dresser is
+for the most part a town, or at least a village, life; the work being
+carried on indoors for long hours together, in an atmosphere heated
+and polluted by gas. In addition to this, the occupation is a dusty
+one, and the men are exposed to the effects of particles of hair and
+other irritants which find their way into the lungs. Their mortality
+figure from alcoholism, liver diseases, and gout, as well as from
+pulmonary tuberculosis, shows serious excess; it therefore appears
+that hairdressers, as was the case in 1881 also, are still excessively
+addicted to intemperance. They fall victims to suicide almost as
+rapidly as do even the least fortunate workers included in the list of
+occupations. Hairdressers experienced almost the same rate of general
+mortality at the census periods of 1871 and 1881, but since the latter
+year there has been a fall in their mortality to the extent of about
+one-seventh part.
+
+_Tailors._--The occupation of tailors is a typically sedentary
+one. The men work for the most part in overcrowded, ill-ventilated,
+and overheated rooms, and consequently suffer in general physique and
+appearance, as well as in health. In recent years the introduction
+of machinery, whilst in some respects an advantage, has produced
+its counterbalancing ill-effects by rendering it possible for any
+man or woman who can work a sewing machine to take the place of the
+regularly skilled tailor, and thus to depreciate the market value of
+his labour. In consequence of this the tailor and his family are only
+too frequently reduced to great poverty, if not to a state approaching
+starvation. The mortality of tailors at the several age-groups does
+not greatly differ from that of other occupied males. Tailors die more
+rapidly than agriculturists at ages between twenty-five and sixty-five,
+but at ages below and above these limits their mortality does not
+greatly exceed this standard.
+
+Although in past times tailors have been considered an intemperate
+class, the figures for 1890–92 lend little support to that opinion.
+Their mortality figure from alcoholism as well as from liver disease
+scarcely differs from that of occupied males generally, although, of
+course, it considerably exceeds the low figure of agriculturists.
+
+The mortality of tailors from tubercular phthisis is greatly in excess
+of that of other occupied males, and is more than two and a half times
+as high as the mortality of agriculturists; it is also worth mention
+that they die more rapidly than other workers from diseases of the
+nervous system. On the other hand their mortality from influenza and
+from diseases of the respiratory organs, and of the heart, is in each
+case below the average. During the last twenty years there has been a
+notable increase in the mortality of tailors at ages from forty-five
+to sixty-five years, and an equally notable decrease at ages from
+twenty-five to forty-five. Although the mortality directly ascribed to
+alcoholism is now slightly higher than it was in 1881, nevertheless the
+mortality from diseases of the liver and other digestive organs has
+undergone a more than equivalent reduction, so that the total mischief
+caused by intemperance has probably decreased since 1881. The mortality
+of tailors from gout as well as from phthisis, and from diseases of the
+nervous system, has fallen since the same year.
+
+_Drapers, Manchester Warehousemen._--The large body of men
+included under this heading appear to enjoy but poor health, when
+allowance is made for the fact that the greater part of them are under
+twenty-five years of age. Drapers and Manchester warehousemen, who are
+here grouped together because of the similarity of their occupation
+and mode of life, are credited with a mortality which is higher than
+that of any other occupation save one in the category of shopkeepers.
+Their comparative mortality figure from all causes is 1014, which, as
+compared with that of agriculturists, is in excess by 68 per cent.
+Even when compared with the low standard of “occupied males,” drapers
+are subject to a mortality which is considerably above the average.
+Confinement in close, ill-ventilated shops for very long hours
+together, and an almost exclusively indoor life, is the unlucky fate of
+these workers. They are exposed to the heat and fumes of gas and cotton
+“fluff” and dust which escapes from the bales of goods in process of
+sale, and their health suffers accordingly. Their death-rate from
+tubercular phthisis exceeds that of other occupations by not less than
+41 per cent., and is more than two and a half times as high as that
+of agriculturists; but the fact previously mentioned, that drapers’
+assistants are for the most part youths or young men, may account to
+some extent for their exceptional liability to this scourge. Drapers
+die faster than the average from influenza, rheumatic fever, and
+diabetes, as well as from alcoholism, diseases of the liver and nervous
+system, and from suicide. During the main working period of life, the
+mortality of drapers has decreased somewhat since the earliest record.
+In the first twenty years of this period, _i.e._, from twenty-five
+to forty-five years of age, their death-rate has fallen considerably
+since 1871; whilst at ages from forty-five to sixty-five years,
+although it had fallen between 1871 and 1881, it has since returned to
+its former level. Since 1881 the mortality of drapers from all causes
+has increased by 18 per cent. Between 1881 and 1891 their mortality
+from phthisis remained stationary, whilst that from other lung disease
+and heart disease showed a considerable increase. Their mortality from
+suicide has increased threefold since 1881, and that from alcoholism
+has increased by nearly two-thirds.
+
+_Shoemakers._--Although the contrary is generally held to be the
+fact, shoemakers are shown by the figures now at our disposal to enjoy
+a degree of health which is at least equal to that of the average
+working man.
+
+As the occupation of shoemaking is an indoor one, involving sedentary
+labour for many hours together, in closely confined and ill-ventilated
+apartments, the workers suffer inordinately from those ailments which
+are commonly associated with such environment. Up to the thirty-fifth
+year of age shoemakers die faster than other occupied males, but more
+slowly at later ages. Compared with agriculturists the mortality of
+shoemakers at all ages is in excess by 53 per cent.
+
+Shoemakers die much less rapidly than the average from lung diseases
+(except phthisis) as well as from accident, and their mortality from
+intemperance is remarkably low. Cancer and pulmonary consumption,
+however, play sad havoc among shoemakers, their mortality from the
+first-mentioned disease being in excess of the average by 14 per cent.,
+and from the last-mentioned, by 38 per cent. Throughout the three
+decennia, commencing with 1861, the mortality of shoemakers above the
+age of forty-five years has steadily increased, whilst below that age
+it has steadily decreased; the balance showing a slight increase in the
+total mortality figure. Under the head of alcoholism their mortality
+has increased since the earlier record, although that from liver
+disease has decreased. Shoemakers die as rapidly as ever from pulmonary
+consumption, and more rapidly than ever from diseases of the lungs
+and heart. Their mortality from diseases of the nervous system has,
+however, shown a decided improvement, and they are at the present time
+less addicted to suicide than was formerly the case.
+
+
+THE MINING INDUSTRY.
+
+At the census of 1891 more than half a million men above the age of
+fifteen years were returned as miners, their number having increased
+since the previous census by more than a fourth part. As the proportion
+is still probably increasing, we may safely calculate that at the
+present time one in every 17 males between the ages of twenty-five and
+sixty-five years is a miner. In round numbers it may be stated that of
+the 524,000 miners in England and Wales, 482,000 work in coal, 18,000
+in ironstone, 9000 in tin, 6000 in lead, 2000 in other minerals, and
+1000 in copper; whilst the remaining 6000 are classed under the head
+of “mine service.” With a few noteworthy exceptions, miners are not,
+as a whole, an unhealthy body of men, but from the nature of their
+employment they are necessarily more exposed than are other workers to
+certain forms of violent death. The various groups of miners, however,
+have, of course, this feature in common, that most of their time, for
+a great part of their life, is spent underground. Accordingly their
+work is carried on under conditions of heat, moisture, etc., which are
+exceptionally artificial, and for this reason it is desirable that
+their mortality should be studied with especial care. The following
+table shows the death-rates of miners at several ages, compared with
+the corresponding rates of occupied males. The figures in each column
+represent proportions of the standard figure, the latter taken in each
+case at 100.
+
+ +-------------------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+-------+
+ | | 15 | 20 | 25 | 35 | 45 |55 | 65 and|
+ | | | | | | | |upwards|
+ +-------------------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+-------+
+ | Occupied Males. |100 |100 |100 |100 |100 |100 | 100 |
+ | | | | | | | | |
+ |Mining Industry |148 |112 | 87 | 78 | 95 |121 | 147 |
+ | | | | | | | | |
+ |Coal miner |150 |111 | 86 | 77 | 94 |119 | 143 |
+ |C M {Durham and Northumberland |154 |111 | 75 | 66 | 79 | 97 | 152 |
+ |o i {Lancashire |163 |107 | 88 | 94 |110 |140 | 150 |
+ |a n {West Riding |115 | 92 | 76 | 77 | 89 |126 | 138 |
+ |l e {Derby and Notts | 93 | 68 | 69 | 59 | 73 | 96 | 118 |
+ | r {Staffordshire | 95 |109 | 82 | 70 | 95 |135 | 180 |
+ | s {Monmouth and Wales |227 |141 |118 | 97 |117 |140 | 129 |
+ |Ironstone miner |134 | 90 | 82 | 66 | 83 | 91 | 144 |
+ |Copper miner |... |158 |129 |146 |118 |127 | 170 |
+ |Tin miner |116 |139 |111 |115 |161 |180 | 178 |
+ |Lead miner |118 |127 |130 |109 |116 |182 | 240 |
+ |Mine service |127 |264 |129 | 98 | 95 |113 | 155 |
+ +-------------------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+-------+
+
+The table shows that at ages from fifteen to twenty, and from twenty to
+twenty-five, as well as at both the age-groups above fifty-five years,
+miners in the aggregate die more rapidly than do other occupied males,
+whilst at intervening ages they die less rapidly. Miners, however, are
+a picked class of men in a more especial sense than are the toilers in
+most other industries. Their labour is so arduous that those only who
+possess exceptional physical endurance are able to continue it, and
+this may account for the fact that when they are barely past the prime
+of life many of them become enfeebled, and subject to a mortality which
+is considerably in excess of that incidental to other occupations.
+
+On attempting to trace the causes of mortality in the various groups
+of miners, and to compare those industries, in this respect, with
+one another and with other occupations, it readily appears that a
+large, though very inconstant, proportion of the total mortality is
+contributed by “accident.” It is accordingly desirable to isolate
+this factor, so that we may arrive at a fair judgment as to the loss
+of life by disease alone occurring amongst these workers in their
+several fields of labour. This has been done in the following table,
+where the comparative mortality of the various groups of miners is
+given (_a_) from all causes except accident, (_b_) from
+certain prevalent diseases, (_c_) from accident or violence, and
+(_d_) from disease and accident together.
+
+ +---------------------------+-------------------+-------------+
+ | | All Causes | Alcoholism. |
+ | | except Accidents. | |
+ +---------------------------+-------------------+-------------+
+ | =Mining Industry= | =800= | =4= |
+ | Coal miners | 784 | 4 |
+ | Durham & Northumberland | 678 | 5 |
+ | Lancashire | 914 | 5 |
+ | West Riding | 798 | 4 |
+ | Derby and Notts | 638 | 2 |
+ | Staffordshire | 817 | 2 |
+ | Monmouth and Wales | 902 | 7 |
+ | Ironstone miners | 688 | 4 |
+ | Copper miners | 1195 | |
+ | Tin miners | 1361 | 4 |
+ | Lead miners | 1267 | 5 |
+ | Mine service | 946 | 6 |
+ | Farm labourer | 590 | 4 |
+ | Occupied males | 897 | 13 |
+ +---------------------------+-------------------+-------------+
+
+ Part 2 of Table.
+
+ +---------------------------+-----------+-----------+-------------+
+ | | Liver | Phthisis. | Respiratory |
+ | | Diseases. | | Diseases. |
+ +---------------------------+-----------+-----------+-------------+
+ | =Mining Industry= | =18= | =109= | =267= |
+ | Coal miners | 17 | 97 | 269 |
+ | Durham & Northumberland | 23 | 94 | 156 |
+ | Lancashire | 17 | 102 | 389 |
+ | West Riding | 16 | 123 | 288 |
+ | Derby and Notts | 18 | 69 | 159 |
+ | Staffordshire | 8 | 83 | 319 |
+ | Monmouth and Wales | 16 | 107 | 345 |
+ | Ironstone miners | 20 | 90 | 204 |
+ | Copper miners | 28 | 331 | 347 |
+ | Tin miners | 28 | 508 | 377 |
+ | Lead miners | 34 | 380 | 325 |
+ | Mine service | 42 | 114 | 216 |
+ | Farm labourer | 13 | 115 | 129 |
+ | Occupied males | 27 | 185 | 221 |
+ +---------------------------+-----------+-----------+-------------+
+
+ Part 3 of Table.
+
+ +---------------------------+-----------+-----------+-------------------+
+ | | Bright’s | Accident. | Disease and |
+ | | Diseases. | | Accident together.|
+ +---------------------------+-----------+-----------+-------------------+
+ | =Mining Industry= | =19= | =135= | =935= |
+ | Coal miners | 18 | 141 | 925 |
+ | Durham & Northumberland | 15 | 96 | 774 |
+ | Lancashire | 17 | 155 | 1069 |
+ | West Riding | 16 | 114 | 912 |
+ | Derby and Notts | 8 | 89 | 727 |
+ | Staffordshire | 22 | 135 | 952 |
+ | Monmouth and Wales | 27 | 243 | 1145 |
+ | Ironstone miners | 15 | 86 | 774 |
+ | Copper miners | 68 | 35 | 1230 |
+ | Tin miners | 29 | 48 | 1409 |
+ | Lead miners | 33 | 43 | 1310 |
+ | Mine service | 20 | 75 | 1021 |
+ | Farm labourer | 12 | 42 | 632 |
+ | Occupied males | 27 | 56 | 953 |
+ +---------------------------+-----------+-----------+-------------------+
+
+This table shows that miners, as a class, are a temperate body of men;
+their mortality directly attributed to alcoholism being less than
+one-third, and that from liver disease being only two-thirds, of that
+of occupied males generally. In this respect they scarcely differ from
+farm labourers; their mortality from alcoholism is the same, and that
+from liver disease is only slightly higher.
+
+Miners, as a class, suffer less than other occupied males from
+phthisis, as well as from cancer and diabetes, their mortality from the
+first-mentioned disease being below the average by 41 per cent., from
+the second by 16 per cent., and from the last by 29 per cent. Among
+miners, diseases of the nervous, circulatory, and urinary systems are
+less fatal than the average, but, with few exceptions, respiratory
+diseases are more fatal.
+
+_Coal Miners._--As a class, colliers compare favourably with men
+in most other occupations on the score of health. During the first
+thirty years of the main working period of life their mortality is
+substantially lower than is the mortality in other industries, although
+at ages under twenty and over fifty-five they die faster than the
+average.
+
+The excessive mortality of colliers under twenty years of age may be
+accounted for by the fact that from 40 to 50 per cent. of the total
+deaths are due to violence, caused by the waggons and “tubs” in which
+coals are conveyed from the underground workings to the shafts. This
+form of accident falls mainly to the lot of the younger and less
+experienced colliers who are employed in “tramming” and “hurrying” the
+coals. When their mortality from accident is deducted, the residual
+death-rate of colliers under twenty years of age does not greatly
+differ from the average.
+
+The comparative mortality figure of colliers, without distinction of
+age, from all causes including accidents, averages 925; but whilst on
+the one hand it does not exceed 727 among the colliers of Derbyshire
+and Nottingham, and 774 among those of Durham and Northumberland, on
+the other hand it ranges upwards to 1069 among colliers in Lancashire
+and 1145 in Monmouthshire and South Wales.
+
+It is not easy to explain why it is that colliers in the several
+coalfields, working as they do in the same material, and spending an
+equal portion of the day underground, should differ so widely from
+one another in their mortality. For example, on reference to the
+accompanying table we see, with regard to miners under twenty years
+of age, that whilst on the one hand, among colliers in the counties
+of Derby and Nottingham, and also in Stafford, the mortality is lower
+than among “occupied males” by 7 and 5 per cent. respectively; on the
+other hand, among colliers in Durham and Northumberland, the mortality
+exceeds that standard by 54 per cent., in Lancashire by 63 per cent.,
+and in Monmouthshire and South Wales by not less than 127 per cent.
+Again, in the counties of Derby and Nottingham colliers between their
+fifty-fifth and sixty-fifth years die less rapidly than the average
+by 4 per cent., but colliers of the same age in Staffordshire die
+more rapidly than the average by 35 per cent., and in Lancashire and
+Monmouthshire more rapidly by 40 per cent.
+
+Various theories have been advanced to account for the great disparity
+just alluded to in the local death-rates among colliers. In the first
+place, we know that coal-pits differ greatly in geological character,
+in depth, in the grittiness or dustiness of the rock which has to be
+worked in order to get at the coal, in the amount and composition
+of gas present, in the quantity of water permeating the strata, in
+the thickness of the coal seams, in the temperature of the workings;
+and last, but most important, in the perfection or otherwise of the
+ventilation of the coal-pit. Again, it is known that the habits and
+consequently the health and comfort of coal miners vary extremely
+according as the colliery is situate in a country district, or, as is
+frequently the case especially in the Lancashire coalfields, in what is
+practically an urban district, perhaps bordering on a large town. These
+variations in the circumstances of life are certainly sufficient to
+account for wide differences in the health and longevity of coal miners.
+
+Aged colliers, wherever they are employed, sustain a mortality which
+is considerably in excess of the standard; yet even among them the
+mortality varies greatly with locality. For whereas in the counties of
+Derby and Nottingham the mortality of colliers aged sixty-five years
+and upwards exceeds that of occupied males by 18 per cent., the excess
+amounts to 50 per cent. in Lancashire, 52 per cent. in Durham and
+Northumberland, and 80 per cent. in Staffordshire.
+
+In the list of principal causes of death amongst colliers there are two
+diseases which have been the subject of exceptional comment, both in
+this country and abroad--namely, pulmonary phthisis on the one hand,
+and ordinary inflammatory diseases of the lung on the other. Almost all
+writers on the subject, whether in recent or in earlier years, agree
+in attributing to colliers an unusually low mortality from tubercular,
+and a correspondingly high mortality from non-tubercular, disease of
+the lungs. The accompanying table, which gives statistics for the years
+1890–92, confirms the general opinion. Thus, taking coal miners in the
+aggregate we find that their mortality ascribed to phthisis is only
+about half of that to which other occupied males are subject, whilst
+their mortality from respiratory diseases exceeds the same standard
+by 21 per cent. If we take farm labourers as a standard by which the
+mortality of colliers should be judged, we find that whilst colliers
+suffer from fatal phthisis in the proportion of 97 as against 115 for
+farm labourers, colliers die rather more than twice as rapidly from
+diseases of the respiratory system other than phthisis. Although, as
+has already been stated, colliers as a class enjoy special immunity
+from pulmonary phthisis, nevertheless the disease prevails amongst
+them very unequally. The highest mortality figures from phthisis
+among colliers are 123 in the West Riding of Yorkshire and 107 in
+Monmouthshire, whilst the figures do not exceed 83 in Staffordshire and
+69 in Derbyshire. In no English county does the mortality of colliers
+from phthisis even approach 185, which is the figure for occupied males
+in the aggregate.
+
+In the West Riding of Yorkshire the mortality of colliers from phthisis
+has increased since 1881 by one-fifth part; but in other counties it
+has decreased by proportions in some cases as high as one-third of its
+former amount. Non-tubercular diseases of the lungs are excessively
+fatal to the colliers of Monmouthshire and South Wales, and still more
+so to those of Lancashire, where the mortality from these diseases is
+76 per cent. above that of occupied males generally, and is more than
+double of what it is among the colliers of Northumberland, Durham,
+Derby, and Nottingham. These diseases have very considerably increased
+in fatality since 1881 in all the coalfields of England: the increase
+being equal to two-thirds of the former amount among the colliers of
+Lancashire, and to more than one-half among those of the West Riding
+of Yorkshire. Colliers nowhere appear to readily fall victims to
+intemperance. In Derby and Nottingham, as well as in Staffordshire,
+the colliers are especially free from that vice, their mortality from
+alcoholism being only half the low figure for colliers generally. Even
+in Monmouthshire and South Wales, where the figure for alcoholism is
+the highest, only 7 of the colliers die of this disease for every
+13 that die from it in other occupations. Since 1881 the mortality
+due to intemperance has slightly increased among the coal miners of
+Lancashire, but has decreased in all other counties respecting which
+comparison is possible.
+
+_Ironstone mining._--This is one of the industries that are
+declining in this country. Miners of ironstone numbered barely 18,000
+at the last census, and were fewer by nearly one-third part than at
+the census of 1881. More than half of these workers are to be found
+in the counties of Cumberland and York, and about an eighth part more
+are scattered over the counties of Stafford and Northampton. Speaking
+generally, iron-workers are a healthy body of men. They experience
+rates of mortality which are lower than those of “occupied males” at
+all periods of life between twenty years and sixty-five, and also
+lower than the rates for coal miners at the same ages. Both ironstone
+miners and colliers, however, suffer a much higher mortality than other
+workers at ages under twenty and over fifty-five years; the reason for
+this has not as yet been satisfactorily explained. It has been shown
+by Dr Ogle and other writers that the vital statistics of ironstone
+miners bear a general resemblance to those of coal miners. Recent
+investigations confirm this statement thus far, that in both cases
+the mortality from tubercular phthisis and from all other diseases
+except those of the respiratory system are below the average, and even
+this reservation does not apply to the statistics of 1890–2. Their
+comparative mortality figure from all causes is 774, and therefore
+considerably below that of coal miners in the aggregate. From disease
+alone (excluding accident) their mortality is slightly higher than that
+of colliers in Northumberland and Durham, but they suffer somewhat less
+severely from accident. Ironstone miners are a temperate body of men,
+their mortality figure from alcoholism being practically the same as
+that of colliers.
+
+The extended tables of causes of death in my larger work show that
+ironstone miners suffer more severely than the average from influenza
+and from accident, but that under all other headings their mortality is
+below that of other occupations.
+
+As compared with miners generally, the only diseases which show an
+excess among these workers are influenza, cancer, diseases of the
+liver, and suicide. Since 1881, the mortality of ironstone miners
+has decreased; but, as in the case of many other occupations, the
+improvement is limited to the lower ages, the rate having slightly
+increased at ages above forty-five years. Since 1881 the mortality of
+ironstone miners from alcoholism has decreased by more than half. There
+has also been a substantial decrease in their mortality from pulmonary
+consumption, and a slight decrease in that from other diseases of
+the lungs and air passages. Diseases of the nervous, circulatory,
+digestive, and urinary systems are, however, more fatal than formerly
+amongst these workers, and they are now more addicted than they were to
+suicide.
+
+_Copper Miners._--The number of men engaged in this industry is
+so small that it is scarcely safe to express an opinion as to their
+healthiness or otherwise, especially when, as in the present case, the
+period covered by the statistics does not exceed three years. At the
+last census scarcely more than 1000 copper miners above fifteen years
+were enumerated, their number having dwindled to less than a third part
+of what it had been at the preceding census.
+
+If one may hazard an opinion from so small a number of deaths, it
+would appear that copper miners are an unhealthy body of men: their
+comparative mortality figure is 1230, or 295 above that of miners in
+the aggregate. Pulmonary consumption and other lung diseases appear to
+be very destructive to these workers, and the survivors certainly do
+wisely in endeavouring to find a healthier field for their labour by
+emigrating to other and more prosperous regions. At the next census
+it is probable that the copper-mining industry in England will have
+practically ceased to exist.
+
+_Tin Miners._--This is another unhealthy occupation; it is limited
+almost exclusively to the counties of Devon and Cornwall. The miners
+of tin at the last census numbered rather fewer than 10,000, and as
+the deaths in the course of three years did not exceed 336 in all, no
+very detailed observations on their mortality would be profitable. In
+consequence of the very general emigration of tin miners in recent
+years to South Africa and elsewhere, the age constitution of tin miners
+as a class has become exceedingly abnormal. Adults in the prime of
+life having left their homes in search of more profitable work abroad,
+the tin miners who are left at home are the least robust and healthy
+of their tribe, and this fact has a considerable effect on their
+mortality. Reference to the table on page 156 shows that tin miners
+sustain rates of mortality which are excessive at all ages. Their
+comparative mortality figure is 1409, or nearly half as high again as
+the average. Tin miners die two and three-quarter times as fast from
+phthisis, and one and three-quarter times as fast from other lung
+diseases as do occupied males generally; their mortality from cancer
+and from diseases of the nervous and urinary systems is also in excess
+of the average.
+
+
+ MORTALITY OF UNOCCUPIED AND OCCUPIED MEN.
+
+In my previous work on occupational mortality, the death-rates of
+unoccupied men were compared, in considerable detail, with those of
+men following various occupations, in different parts of the country.
+A brief summary of what was then advanced at much greater length may
+fitly close the present section.
+
+At the census of 1891 the number of unoccupied males living between
+the ages of twenty-five and sixty-five years was returned as 208,857.
+Of these, 35 per cent. were classed as “retired from business,” 6 per
+cent. as pensioners, and 23 per cent. as “living on their own means,”
+whilst 21 per cent. were referred to the class of “unoccupied persons,”
+including an unknown proportion of paupers and prisoners. Careful
+investigation of the facts leads to the surmise that somewhere between
+one-third and one-half of the unoccupied males, as above defined,
+experience a mortality which probably does not exceed that of occupied
+males at the same ages. If this be so, it follows that the mortality of
+the remaining two-thirds, or one-half, as the case may be, must greatly
+exceed even the high rates of unoccupied males in the aggregate. In the
+following table the rates of unoccupied males are contrasted with those
+of occupied males at the several stages of life.
+
+ +--------------+----------+------------+-------------------+
+ | | Occupied | Unoccupied | “Unoccupied” Rates|
+ | Age-Groups. | Males. | Males. | per cent. of |
+ | | | | “Occupied” Rates. |
+ +--------------+----------+------------+-------------------+
+ | 15–20 | 2.55 | 35.86 | 1406 |
+ | 20–25 | 5.07 | 29.58 | 583 |
+ | 25–35 | 7.29 | 27.05 | 371 |
+ | 35–45 | 12.43 | 35.71 | 287 |
+ | 45–55 | 20.66 | 37.77 | 183 |
+ | 55–65 | 36.66 | 59.44 | 162 |
+ |Over 65 years | 102.32 | 105.86 | 103 |
+ +--------------+----------+------------+-------------------+
+
+The comparative mortality figures of occupied and of unoccupied males
+between twenty-five and sixty-five years of age are 953 and 2215
+respectively. In other words, the number of males of definite age
+constitution, within these limits, that would give 1000 deaths among
+the general population, and 679 deaths in the healthy districts, would
+give 953 deaths among occupied, and 2215 among unoccupied, males. The
+comparative mortality figure of unoccupied males, therefore, exceeds
+that of occupied males by 132 per cent. The following table shows the
+chief causes of death that go to make up the comparative mortality
+figures for occupied males and unoccupied males respectively.
+
+ +------------------------------+--------+----------+-------------------+
+ | | | |Excess of Mortality|
+ | Cause of Death. |Occupied|Unoccupied| of Unoccupied over|
+ | | Males. | Males. | Occupied Males. |
+ +------------------------------+--------+----------+-------------------+
+ |All Causes | 953 | 2215 | 1262 |
+ |Diseases of Nervous System | 82 | 630 | 548 |
+ |Phthisis | 185 | 448 | 263 |
+ |Diseases of Heart | 126 | 240 | 114 |
+ |Influenza and Respiratory | | | |
+ | Diseases | 254 | 350 | 96 |
+ |Cancer | 44 | 96 | 52 |
+ |Diseases of Urinary Organs | 41 | 82 | 41 |
+ |Alcoholism and Liver Diseases | 40 | 76 | 36 |
+ |Accidents, including Lead | | | |
+ | Poisoning | 57 | 81 | 24 |
+ |Suicide | 14 | 28 | 14 |
+ +------------------------------+--------+----------+-------------------+
+
+It thus appears that nearly two-thirds of the enormous excess in
+the mortality of unoccupied as compared with occupied men is due
+either to diseases of the nervous system, or to phthisis. The heavy
+mortality from both these diseases would appear to partly depend on
+the circumstance that the unoccupied class includes a large proportion
+of insane persons who are exceptionally prone to phthisis. Among other
+causes of death, diseases of the heart account for 114, and influenza
+(with respiratory diseases) accounts for 96 of the excess in the
+mortality figure of unoccupied men.
+
+The mortality attributed to cancer is double, and that attributed to
+intemperance and liver disease, to diseases of the urinary system, and
+to suicide, is about double as heavy among the unoccupied as it is
+among the occupied class. The excess of mortality from accident among
+unoccupied males possibly results from the addition to their ranks of
+men who, having been permanently disabled whilst at work, drift into
+the unoccupied class, and finally die from their injuries.
+
+At the census of 1891 London contained 1,230,010 occupied males aged
+fifteen years and upwards, while the industrial districts contained
+1,833,295, and the agricultural districts contained 1,246,156 at the
+same ages. More than half of the occupied males in England and Wales
+are therefore included in these three sections of the population.
+
+The mortality of _occupied males_ exhibits very wide variations
+in different parts of the country. These variations are exemplified
+severally by London, by the group of districts representing Industrial
+England, and by the areas representing Agricultural England.
+
+At each of the seven age-groups, between fifteen and sixty-five years,
+the highest death-rates occur in the industrial, and the lowest in the
+agricultural, districts, London occupying an intermediate position.
+
+The comparative mortality figure among occupied males, at ages from
+twenty-five to sixty-five years, is 1147 in London, 1248 in the
+industrial districts, and 687 in the agricultural districts; these
+figures being respectively 20 per cent. above, 31 per cent. above, and
+28 per cent. below, the figure for all occupied males.
+
+Phthisis and respiratory diseases are more fatal than any other causes
+of death to occupied males, both in London and in the industrial
+districts. In London these two headings contributed almost equally to
+the mortality figure. The industrial districts, on the other hand, show
+less mortality than does London from phthisis, but the difference is
+more than made up by the heavy death-roll from respiratory diseases.
+In the agricultural districts the mortality figure for phthisis is
+less than half of that of London, and the figure for respiratory
+diseases is still lower. After due correction for age constitution,
+these two classes of disease in the aggregate cause 48 per cent. of the
+total mortality among occupied males in London, 47 per cent. in the
+industrial districts, and 36 per cent. in the agricultural districts,
+against 43 per cent. for all occupied males within the same age limits.
+
+ JOHN TATHAM.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XI
+
+ THE DISEASES OF SOLDIERS AT HOME AND ABROAD
+
+
+The soldier is liable, like other members of the community, to various
+diseases due to his occupation and surroundings, although at the
+present day the hygienic conditions of barracks and military duties are
+so carefully supervised that he is, when on home service, placed under
+much more favourable circumstances than men of his own class in civil
+life. It is, therefore, somewhat disappointing to find that under these
+circumstances, knowing soldiers to be more or less picked men, they are
+not, judging from tables of mortality, more healthy than their civilian
+brethren of the same age. It is a matter of common observation that the
+army ages a man quickly; the old soldier of a regiment, who is looked
+upon more or less as a privileged individual, and generally given some
+sort of employment which relieves him from “sentry go” and the more
+arduous duties of his profession, is seldom over forty years of age,
+and ought to be therefore at his best; but partly from the monotony of
+his existence, and partly from excessive smoking, drinking, and night
+duty, the private of twenty years’ service is, as a rule, a worn-out
+machine, his mental faculties blunted, and his body, if not the seat of
+actual disease, aged and almost useless. These effects are still more
+marked when a man, as is generally the case, has spent a great part of
+his service abroad, for to the effects of hot climates and the diseases
+incidental thereto must be added, in a greatly enhanced degree, the
+enforced ennui and idleness which are the bane of the soldier’s
+existence in all stations in times of peace, and especially in the
+tropics. We all know how much more likely we are to rust out than wear
+out, and the enforced idleness which the soldier, especially in the
+infantry, has to encounter, leads to sluggishness of the functions of
+the body, while in many, drunkenness, increased smoking and debauchery,
+exercise an injurious influence upon health, apart altogether from
+the actual diseases to which they may give rise. An old soldier, for
+these reasons, can seldom eat his rations, and his system seems to be
+in that receptive condition that he readily falls a victim to epidemic
+disease prevalent in the neighbourhood, and this the more owing to his
+tendency to haunt the lowest and most insanitary parts of the town near
+which he may be quartered. This is seen more particularly abroad, where
+the native quarters are in marked contrast to the clean and sanitary
+military cantonments, so that medical officers have come to regard it
+as almost certain that the soldiers will soon suffer when an epidemic
+breaks out among the civil population. Statistics prove that the longer
+soldiers serve, the greater is the proportional mortality among them.
+
+After these preliminary remarks we will proceed to discuss the peculiar
+health conditions under which soldiers exist, and their effects as
+regards their duties, habits, surroundings, and dress: firstly, at
+home; secondly, abroad, with special reference to hot climates, both
+dry and damp, and the diseases from which they suffer in such climates;
+thirdly, the special dangers to health incidental to active service.
+
+The peculiar conditions of military as contrasted with civil life are
+that the soldier must perforce (in most cases) remain unmarried, that
+his daily wants are all provided for by the State, so that his pay,
+though small, is practically all pocket money, which may, if he is
+so inclined, be all spent on drink and debauchery; that his personal
+liberty is a good deal restricted, tending to irritability and low
+spirits in many temperaments; that he has no privacy, living as he does
+in rooms common to him and many others; that he has to dress in clothes
+in which hygienic principles are sometimes overruled by the necessity
+for ornamentation and smartness; and that his duties frequently entail
+great exposure to varieties of temperature and loss of sleep.
+
+As regards the first of these points, it is known from statistics
+that married men, as a rule, live longer than the unmarried, apart
+altogether from the dangers of venereal diseases. This is not difficult
+to understand, seeing that the married man has more solid comforts,
+and is not tempted to spend his evenings abroad, also that he has
+that incentive to steady work and moderation in all things which
+the celibate has not. Again, the average soldier has undoubtedly
+more pocket money than the average civilian of his class; he has no
+incentive to save; he is tempted by numerous companions of both
+sexes to excess of all kinds, and spends most of his evenings abroad,
+consuming more drink and tobacco than is good for him. Vanity and
+desire to be smart frequently cause him to dress in garments much too
+thin for the state of the weather. Discipline has, no doubt, a very
+depressing effect upon the health of some men. Restraint and the petty
+tyranny of superiors exercise a bad effect upon their spirits, causing
+loss of sleep, and often leading to drinking. In spite of the great
+improvement in the treatment of the men which has been effected in our
+army in recent years, suicides are still too common, though not nearly
+so frequent as formerly, or as they are in other armies.
+
+As regards the herding together of men in barrack rooms, this is an
+evil which is almost unavoidable without great increase of expense, but
+if it could be altered it would certainly make the army more attractive
+to the better class of men. Formerly there was great overcrowding and
+consequent sickness, but at the present day, in almost all barracks,
+each man has at least 600 cubic feet of space, a larger amount than men
+of that class usually enjoy in civil life. Before the need for fresh
+air was so fully recognised as it is now, there was great mortality in
+the army from chest complaints, especially from consumption, as also
+in the navy; but now the regulations are very strict, the number of
+men to be accommodated in each room, so as to give each his 600 cubic
+feet, is painted on the barrack-room doors, and any overcrowding,
+beyond the regulated numbers, must be reported upon and explained by
+the officers, regimental and medical. The public are now, generally
+speaking, fully alive to the need for fresh air and ventilation, but
+disregard of the necessity is still a very fertile cause of disease
+in civil life, especially when to lack of fresh air is added the fact
+that such air as there is is laden with dust or other solid matter,
+as in mines or workshops. In former years the large amount of lung
+disease in the army and navy was in exact proportion to the amount of
+overcrowding, but now the soldier and the sailor do not suffer more
+from these diseases than do the civil population. In the first ten
+years of the late Queen’s reign, the deaths from lung diseases in the
+army per 1000 of strength were at the rate of 7.82, but in 1898 there
+were only 2.5 cases per 1000 admitted to hospital, of whom a very small
+proportion died, the majority being invalided or cured. Apropos of this
+I need only remark that the latest plan of treating consumptives is to
+keep them day and night in the open air. Cold fresh air is no longer so
+much dreaded as formerly. That it is not the cause of consumption can
+be abundantly proved from army statistics. From these statistics one
+may learn how, in the old days of overcrowding, pulmonary consumption
+was much more prevalent among the troops serving in the delightful
+climate of the West Indies than in England, or in Canada, owing to
+the scandalous manner in which the barracks in those islands used to
+be kept overfilled. Now, except when yellow fever appears and carries
+off the men, the West Indian station is the healthiest quarter of the
+British army, not excepting even the home stations.
+
+As regards the dress of the soldier, there was formerly in the
+army a good deal of disease of the heart and great blood-vessels.
+This was undoubtedly caused by restriction to the circulation from
+tight clothing, and from the pressure on the chest of the straps
+which supported the knapsack and accoutrements. At the present day
+the tendency is to do away with everything tight: the stock has
+disappeared, the tunic is made to fit more loosely, and the weight to
+be carried is so arranged that there is no pressure on the chest. The
+dress for hard work is made of light material, serge or drill, allowing
+free transpiration from the skin, and even the stick-up collar of the
+tunic is being done away with, at all events for the campaigning dress,
+and is being replaced by a turned-down collar, as may be noticed in
+pictures of officers on active service in South Africa. One wonders
+that any men survived the active service in India in the old days of
+the tightly-fitting, thick cloth clothes, insufficient head-dress, and
+straps supporting the knapsack and ammunition pouches crossing over the
+chest. The fighting at the Alma was in full-dress uniform, and there
+is no doubt that there was a great deal of unnecessary suffering and
+mortality from this cause. Instinct and common sense alike urge against
+doing hard work and long marches in tight clothes, which overstrain
+the heart. We still hear every now and then of serious consequences,
+both in England and on the Continent, from holding fatiguing field
+days in hot weather. Doubtless we must attribute part of the trouble
+to excessive smoking and drinking. “Soldier’s irritable heart” is
+attributed to the uniform and to men having to stand for long periods
+in a constrained attitude; but I am disposed to blame beer and tobacco
+for part of the mischief: tobacco especially, I believe to be a cause
+of heart trouble among soldiers, though many authorities doubt it,
+seeing that Continental soldiers smoke more than ours do and suffer
+less. Our men, however, as a rule, smoke and chew much stronger tobacco
+than other people; they indulge in it in the early morning on an
+empty stomach, and at all other times, and I have known a man who was
+anxious to be invalided out of the army produce the most marked cardiac
+symptoms by the surreptitious use of strong cake tobacco. The men of
+the navy, who have always had a looser and more workmanlike dress than
+the army men, do not suffer to the same extent from heart troubles.
+Such complaints are more prevalent in that corps of the army which
+has the hardest work and the tightest clothes, viz., the Artillery.
+With more rational ideas prevailing at the present time, the amount
+of heart complaint has diminished, and there is now proportionally
+only one-third the amount which existed about the time of the Indian
+Mutiny. In making this statement we must, however, bear in mind that
+our soldiers are younger than the men of those days, and in such the
+effects of these diseases are less likely to manifest themselves.
+However, there is no doubt that not only in respect of cardiac, but
+of all other maladies, the army is much healthier than it used to be
+since reforms in dress and the general treatment of the soldier have
+been instituted. Old medical officers say that they never see the same
+class of diseases they used to. Walks round military burial-grounds,
+especially abroad, tell terrible tales of mortality among troops in
+former years. In the “Happy Valley” in Hong Kong may be seen a monument
+erected to over 500 men of one regiment who perished there from disease.
+
+Of the duties of the soldier that have a prejudicial effect upon his
+health, the most injurious is night guard. The medical authorities are
+charged to make representations to the authorities whenever in their
+opinion the turn of men for this duty is becoming so frequent as to be
+liable to cause illness. To the civilian mind it may seem a trifle that
+each man should come on guard not oftener than say once in five days,
+but when we consider the long hours of monotonous standing or walking
+about in the cold and darkness, perhaps too in rain, which this duty
+entails, one can understand how this prematurely ages the soldier, and
+can sympathise with the latter’s ambition to get a billet which gives
+him all his nights “in bed.” This is altogether apart from the great
+risks of inflammation of the lungs or rheumatic fever caught in this
+way, especially as the intervals of “sentry go” are, in the winter,
+usually spent in a superheated guardroom, from which the soldier passes
+to his cold and solitary vigil. I have known among cavalry in cold
+weather an immense amount of sickness caused by the men, after getting
+very hot while grooming their horses in the hot stables, leading them
+out to water in their shirt sleeves. Either from lack of time, desire
+to save their clothes, carelessness or reluctance to appear “molly
+coddles,” the neglect to put on their jackets frequently resulted in
+attacks of pneumonia, quinsy, etc., etc., which the distribution of
+woollen jerseys subsequently did much to prevent. Those who imagine
+that soldiers lead a lazy life little realise how hard a young cavalry
+or horse artillery soldier has to work before he becomes master of his
+craft. What with learning to use his weapons, his drill, riding and the
+care of his horse, clothes, and accoutrements, the recruit, if not well
+fed and cared for, is very prone to break down under hardships.
+
+To turn now to causes of sickness among soldiers abroad. This is so
+largely a consideration of the whole question of the effect of hot
+climates on the European constitution, that I can only briefly treat of
+it here. The first points to note are that, owing to the impossibility
+of the troops working in the sun, and to the provision of native
+servants to do many of the things which the soldier does himself at
+home, the men have much more spare time; the climate causes a great
+craving for drink, and the great activity of the skin renders the
+system more liable to sudden chills. It is a curious and remarkable
+fact that whereas most severe illnesses at home are due to chest
+troubles, the abdomen is that part of the body which suffers most
+severely in the tropics; hence it has been well said that tropical
+disease generally “hits below the belt.”
+
+Let us consider first the conditions of life in a hot, dry climate,
+such as Egypt and India in the warm weather, and next, in a moist
+climate like Ceylon or the West Coast of Africa. The great difference
+between Egypt and India is in that in the former the nights are
+comparatively cool owing to the rapid radiation of heat from the sand
+as soon as the sun goes down in the cloudless sky, while in Northern
+India in hot weather, the nights are almost as hot as the days. Only
+those who have had experience can realise the power of the sun in
+those climates; to go out into the sunlight without a hat, even for a
+few minutes, is to be struck down, or to get a splitting headache for
+the remainder of the day; the skin is burned, and the lips cracked by
+the hot wind, so that even when driving at midnight one turns away
+his face as from the open door of a furnace; while to sleep, except
+under a constantly waving punkah, is almost an impossibility for most
+Europeans. Bungalows are kept closed up to exclude the hot wind except
+at one or two windows, where it is allowed to enter through grass
+mats kept constantly saturated with water. The air is only changed by
+throwing the house open for an hour or so at dead of night, after which
+all openings are again closed so as to bottle up, as it were, a supply
+of comparatively cool air before sunrise. Hence exercise in the open
+air is an impossibility except before sunrise and after sunset. In the
+military stations in India soldiers can be seen sitting all night about
+the cantonments, unable to sleep in their beds on account of the heat
+of the barrack bungalows, which, like all buildings, retain the heat of
+the sun far into the night. When we think of the effect of such a life
+on the private soldiers, without a taste for reading or other resources
+within themselves, can we wonder that their health suffers, and their
+spirits become depressed, or that the raging thirst such heat engenders
+should lead to drinking? If the temptation to indulge in alcohol be
+yielded to, the liver, already in an irritable condition from the
+heat, and from the digestion of a diet of meat much too heating for
+the climate, soon becomes congested, or even suppurates; or the nerve
+centres which control the temperature of the body, already over-worked,
+break down completely, and heat apoplexy supervenes. It is a remarkable
+fact that a temperate man rarely suffers from heat apoplexy, for the
+body in health can adapt itself to enormously high temperatures. On the
+other hand, I have been much struck by the distress caused by the heat
+among beer-drinking soldiers, compared with the immunity experienced
+by the more temperate officer, doing the same work on a march. The
+measures to mitigate the effects of such a climate are to get as much
+exercise as possible during the comparatively cool hours of the morning
+and evening, and to be as much in the open air as possible at night; to
+have a diet as cooling as possible--fruit, vegetables, fish, etc. (all
+of which are unfortunately very difficult to procure at that season),
+and to try to interest the men with books, lectures, and indoor
+occupations, such as woodcarving, bootmaking, etc. Also to let them
+have plenty of temperance drinks--tea, lemon juice, etc., etc. Sleeping
+in the open air is the pleasantest at these times, but unfortunately
+sudden storms are apt to arise in the night which cause annoying
+breaks in one’s rest, and again one has to retire indoors at break
+of day, just when the air is coolest and sleep most refreshing. The
+alternative is to sleep under a punkah indoors, but the punkah-pulling
+in soldiers’ barracks is frequently most unsatisfactory, and the broken
+rest from the heat and mosquitoes is a serious cause of deterioration
+of health in the soldier. To the educated officer with books, and
+perhaps music and painting to while away the long, hot hours, the
+life in the hot weather is not unpleasant, dinner is not taken till
+perhaps 9 P.M., and social intercourse passes the time till
+long past midnight, then a few hours of sleep in the coolest time of
+the twenty-four hours, supplemented by a siesta in the daytime. All
+open-air work is over by 9 A.M. The more closely the life of
+the soldier is made to resemble that of his officers, the better will
+be his health. A word of warning is necessary about the swimming-bath,
+which, though it gives the most delightful form of exercise, is
+somewhat dangerous, for the bath being generally under cover, the water
+is much colder than the outer air, and lengthened immersion is very
+apt to cause liver and other internal congestions, the commencement of
+grave tropical disease.
+
+Contrast with the above description that of a moist, hot climate.
+The air, instead of being hot and dry, is ladened with moisture, the
+slightest exertion causes profuse perspiration, which renders all the
+garments damp and clinging; the moisture of the atmosphere renders
+evaporation from the body and consequent lowering of the temperature
+much slower; there is experienced a total lack of energy, but as there
+is no hot wind, the houses can be kept open all day long; there are
+frequent showers, and vegetation is abundant, and affords plenty of
+shade for those who care to remain out-of-doors all day. There is
+not, therefore, in a climate like this the same amount of confinement
+indoors, but the constant heat and perspiration are very enervating,
+and soon lead to marked pallor in Europeans. The great danger in such a
+climate is from the damp clothing; the skin being so active is full of
+blood, and a sudden cooling from sitting in a draught in damp clothes
+drives the blood to the internal organs, causing congestion of the
+liver and spleen, dysentery, etc. To avoid this it is most important
+always to wear flannel next the skin and to change after exercise.
+By doing this the risks of such a climate are much mitigated. In two
+years in Ceylon I never had a day’s illness, and the good health of
+the army in the Ashanti expedition of 1895–96 must in a great measure
+be attributed to making the men carry a dry shirt on the march, into
+which they changed at once on arriving at the halting place. The
+most important disease of those climates is malaria, due to a minute
+organism in the blood, now proved to be generally communicated by the
+bites of mosquitoes. The obvious preventatives are to avoid being
+bitten by mosquitoes, to destroy the breeding places of these insects
+by draining the pools in which their larvæ develop, to avoid going out
+at night, when these insects are most active, and to keep them off by
+mosquito curtains. Smearing the exposed parts of the body with carbolic
+oil will repel these pests. There is no reason why soldiers in tropical
+barracks should not be supplied with mosquito curtains, when it is
+not hot enough to demand the use of punkahs, which also keep off the
+insects; and I have no doubt this will be done in all feverish stations
+as the result of recent teaching.
+
+In sleeping under a punkah, and in fact at all times in the tropics,
+where the individual retires to bed bathed in perspiration, one of the
+best means of avoiding chill of the abdominal organs is to wear a long
+silk scarf (kummerbund) or a flannel “cholera belt” round the body.
+
+One of the older theories about malaria was that it was due to some
+miasma arising from the ground, and especially from ground which
+had been recently disturbed. However erroneous this idea may be in
+theory, in practice many instances are on record of its apparent
+truth. I can never forget the results of sending men to a so-called
+sanitorium which had been made in the far East by levelling the top of
+a mountain and building barracks thereon. Almost every man who went
+got an attack of malarial fever, and this is in accordance with the
+experience and superstition of the Chinese. They say that the “Fung
+Shui,” or genius loci, of a place is a dragon who lives in the ground,
+and if you disturb the soil you irritate him, with the result that he
+avenges himself by spreading fever among his aggressors. Therefore the
+soil about barracks and encampments should be disturbed as little as
+possible, and all shallow pools of water should be drained or treated
+with a small quantity of paraffin oil to kill the larvæ of mosquitoes.
+
+Other scourges of the tropics which cause sickness and mortality among
+our soldiers are liver disease and dysentery (generally due to chill
+as above described); and those diseases due to contaminated water,
+_e.g._, enteric or typhoid fever, cholera, and some forms of
+dysentery. This is so large a subject that I cannot say more on it than
+to indicate that the germs of the disease may, while almost invariably
+matured in water, be taken into the system with milk, water, or food,
+and the best precautions are rigid prevention of adulteration of the
+milk (to be secured, if necessary, by having the cows milked before a
+responsible European), boiling suspected drinking water, and the most
+perfect cleanliness in the preparation of all food. Notwithstanding
+the greatest care and expenditure in obtaining the best water for our
+large Indian stations, enteric fever seems rather to increase than
+diminish, but that is due, I fear, to the carelessness of the soldiers
+in drinking from contaminated sources in the bazaars, or in their walks
+abroad. The well-water of India and the native made aerated waters are
+almost invariably open to suspicion, and ordinary filters are, I fear,
+only a delusion and a snare. I am acquainted with at least one terrible
+outbreak of cholera distinctly traced to the use of filters. The
+bacterial filters of Berkfeld and Pasteur-Chamberland are reliable, but
+are so difficult to work and keep in order that it is much better to
+trust to boiling the water. In a tropical climate, when soldiers on the
+march acquire an intense thirst, it is practically impossible to make
+them wait till water can be boiled and cooled before quenching their
+thirst, and we have had recently a terrible example of the effects of
+foul drinking water in the outbreak of enteric fever among our troops
+in South Africa. My own practice in India when out shooting was to
+carry boiled water or cold tea, but to slake my thirst as much as
+possible by sucking a lemon or lime, a practice which most travellers
+and (generally) soldiers also could follow with advantage. Another use
+of these fruits is to squeeze a little of the juice into water which
+is not above suspicion, as it is known that acids kill the germs of
+cholera, and also possibly of enteric fever. I may add that limes are
+very abundant and cheap in most tropical climates, and could generally
+be served out to the troops.
+
+I have already stated that heat apoplexy is most likely to attack those
+addicted to alcoholic excess, and is not likely to be prevalent among
+temperate men in the airy dwellings of Europeans in the tropics; but
+any great overcrowding, such as occurred in the Black Hole of Calcutta,
+would be likely to cause fearful mortality. Great and sustained
+exertion in the hot sun of Egypt or India might cause heat apoplexy
+or sunstroke in the most temperate. It is marvellous, however, what
+an amount of exercise temperate men can take when “pig-sticking,” for
+instance, in the hottest weather in India, with impunity.
+
+The Europeans in India, who live in roomy and clean dwellings, suffer
+remarkably little from the plague, which is now threatening our
+shores, but has so far not obtained a foothold owing to rigid sanitary
+precautions.
+
+A very troublesome complaint among soldiers in the tropics is “Dhobie
+itch,” a form of ringworm locating itself under the arms and between
+the legs, where the skin is always moist from perspiration. In one
+regiment I had charge of, about 75 per cent. of the men had it, causing
+a considerable amount of suffering and inefficiency. The disease is
+spread by inoculation from dirty clothes, or such as have been washed
+in impure water, and the best preventative is the use of clean and
+frequently changed underwear.
+
+By the adoption of the measures above indicated it is possible for
+Europeans to enjoy good health in the tropics, but in war it is
+impossible to observe many of these precautions. It is well known
+that in all climates the ravages of disease are infinitely more fatal
+than the weapons of the enemy. The existence of hostilities, with the
+hard work and privations thereby entailed, usually puts all health
+considerations into the background. In the Crimean war three times
+as many of our men died of sickness as at the hands of the Russians,
+and the proportion will be found even greater in the present war in
+South Africa, in spite of the deadly accuracy of modern weapons and of
+the fact that the theatre of operations is one of the most salubrious
+regions in the world. And it is not difficult to understand why this
+should be so when we reflect upon what active service means--the
+prolonged and intense exertion, the loss of rest, deficiency of food,
+which at the best is coarse, unpalatable, and badly cooked--in a word,
+starvation; the bad water, the fouling of the camping grounds by the
+excreta of thousands of men and animals, the heat by day and the cold
+by night, the clothes alternately saturated by perspiration and frozen
+by the bitter night wind, also the clothes becoming dirty and infested
+by vermin owing to their wearers being unable to change them for weeks.
+In the stress of campaigning men have become ill from want of time and
+opportunity to secure the daily evacuation of the bowels, which is so
+necessary to health. These are a few of the conditions incidental to
+active service, and when we reflect it is not difficult to understand
+that not only are there many diseases induced by campaigning proper,
+but that if a man have one weak point about him, such hardships are
+bound to find it out. We have only to glance at the casualty lists
+published in the newspapers every morning, to see how various are
+the causes of death among our men at the front. So well is this
+recognised that every man is medically examined before going on active
+service, and all with any defect of constitution are rejected. Here
+I may incidentally remark that the prevention of venereal diseases
+in the army is a matter of national importance, for the men who are
+thereby unfitted to endure the privation of a campaign are many, and
+all reasonable measures for the prevention of such diseases should
+therefore have the support of patriotic people.
+
+It is well known that excessive fatigue alone will cause a feverish
+condition of the body, leading to weakness and loss of appetite,
+and when that is induced the body is in a favourable condition for
+the reception of the germs of specific diseases. Service conditions
+obviously predispose to such diseases as pneumonia, rheumatism, quinsy,
+frost-bite, etc., etc., and in hot countries to heat apoplexy and
+sunstroke.
+
+The commonest specific diseases of campaigns are dysentery, enteric
+fever, cholera, and malarial fevers. Dysentery has always been the
+great scourge of armies in the field in almost all climates, and the
+causes may be briefly summed up as bad food, bad air, bad water, and
+chills. The unwholesome food may cause disease in two ways: owing to
+its coarseness and being badly cooked, it may give rise to inflammation
+and irritation of the bowels, or it may be deficient in those still
+imperfectly understood constituents which are necessary to prevent
+scurvy. It is unnecessary to dilate further on the food question, the
+points of which are obvious, but as regards scorbutic dysentery I may
+say that it is very liable to appear among soldiers in the field, and
+our authorities endeavour to ward it off by giving, whenever possible,
+rations of fruit, vegetables, jam, and lime juice. As regards bad air,
+the condition of camping-grounds whereon large numbers of men and
+animals have lived even for a few days must be seen to be realised, and
+when to that is added the stench of dead bodies of men, horses, and
+cattle, as on a battlefield, it can be easily understood how frequently
+the air which men have to breathe on active service must be such as
+to give rise to bowel complaints. Again, in some countries where our
+troops have to operate, such as in the West African jungles, the air
+reeks with the smell of decaying vegetation in the stagnant depths of
+the primeval forest, and such air is most unwholesome.
+
+Bad water is the principal cause of dysentery, but whether a man can
+acquire true dysentery thus, unless the water has been fouled by the
+discharges of a previous case of the disease, is not quite certain.
+Generally, such fouling is not difficult to establish. The drinking
+of water in which are immersed the rotting carcases of men and
+animals, and other nameless abominations--such water as our soldiers
+drunk at Paardeberg--is, as might naturally be expected, likely to
+cause diarrhœa running into dysentery, especially when all the other
+causes of that disease exist also. Chill I hold to be an exceedingly
+common cause of dysentery, having contracted the disease myself from
+that cause alone after leaving the tropics. It is most important to
+avoid sudden cooling of the surface of the abdomen by changing into
+dry flannels immediately on halting, and keeping that region warm,
+especially at night, by a thick woollen or silk covering. Unfortunately
+such precautions are generally impracticable on active service.
+
+Enteric or typhoid fever has only been recognised as a distinct disease
+apart from typhus fever since the researches of Sir Wm. Jenner in the
+late Queen’s reign, and therefore, whether it used formerly to be as
+great a scourge in the past as it is now, it is impossible to say. At
+the present day it is without doubt by far the most fatal disease to
+which our soldiers are liable either in peace or war, and experience in
+Egypt, India, and South Africa, where it seems to become more and more
+fatal in spite of all that science can do to check it, almost causes us
+to despair.
+
+Protective inoculation on the same principle as vaccination is the
+latest plan, tried extensively in South Africa, but the reports to
+hand so far do not show that it has had any marked success as a
+preventative, though it is hoped that it will prove to mitigate the
+severity of the attack. The disease is most prevalent and fatal among
+young men, which is a strong argument against the employment of very
+young soldiers; but on the other hand many middle-aged men, whose
+deaths the country is even now deploring, have lately succumbed. There
+is little doubt that in England and other temperate climates this
+disease is almost invariably due to bad water, but in India and other
+very dry climates, where it has continued to spread in spite of the
+most rigid precautions, the opinion is gaining ground that the germs
+may often be spread by the wind carrying them about into food and drink
+from the dry excreta of previous sufferers, deposited on the ground.
+Flies also are suspected of bringing about the same effect. Even in
+India and South Africa, however, it is remarkable how often epidemics
+are associated with contaminated water--for instance, Paardeberg and
+Bloemfontein (where the enemy cut off the regular water supply),
+and when one has had experience of the way in which the ground is
+fouled by the natives of Africa and India, there is little wonder
+that the water supply suffers. It seems certain that people can drink
+sewage contaminated water with comparative impunity, but the germs of
+enteric once admitted into the water, an epidemic is almost certain.
+The Hindoos always wash their buttocks after defecation, and hence
+generally perform that act near water, and in the hills in India often
+when I have been tempted to drink from an apparently pure mountain
+stream, I have noticed, just in time, the evidence of this disgusting
+practice. Again natives generally build their huts near a water supply,
+and hence nearly every rivulet is contaminated. In a hot country it is
+therefore most difficult to prevent men quenching their raging thirst
+with obviously polluted water. The Boers are reported to be very filthy
+in their habits, and as enteric fever is rife among them, it is not
+difficult for us to understand how so many of our men have contracted
+the disease in such a thirsty land, where I am informed even doctors,
+well aware of the risks, could not resist the temptation of drinking
+the dirty water by the roadside. The only safeguard with suspicious
+water is to boil it; filters only give a false sense of security, but
+wells can be purified with Condy’s fluid and acids, and of course rain
+water, if carefully collected and stored, or a stream, if guarded from
+its source, may be trusted, as also wells sunk at the time by the Royal
+Engineers. Many observers think that enteric fever may be caused by
+excessive fatigue and exposure to the sun, with absorption of poisons
+from the bowels, especially if they are overloaded with decomposing
+excreta due to constipation from heat, hard work, unwholesome food,
+and want of time and opportunity to secure a regular evacuation. In
+the navy, where condensed water is largely used for drinking purposes,
+enteric fever is rare, except when contracted ashore; but as soldiers
+cannot, as a rule, be supplied with condensed water, we must rely on
+the above precautions as regards water, cleanliness in the preparation
+of food, care in the disposal of excreta (and it is important to
+remember that enteric urine is as dangerous as stools), and constant
+supervision of natives and camp followers.
+
+Cholera is like enteric fever, generally a water-borne disease, and
+much the same remarks apply to both. On active service, tea, coffee,
+and cocoa should be drunk in preference to water, as far as time and
+the supply of fuel will allow, and all drinking water should, if
+possible, be boiled. When green cocoanuts can be procured each will
+furnish nearly a pint of deliciously cool and perfectly wholesome
+“milk.”
+
+I have said enough to show what a vital point the water question is
+on active service, how the health of an army in the field is largely
+dependent upon obtaining pure drinking water; and while all officers,
+regimental and medical, must never weary in their endeavours to secure
+such a supply, the men themselves ought to be instructed and exhorted
+to exercise the necessary vigilance and self-restraint, and, if
+necessary, punished when they fail to do so.
+
+Malaria is always a great danger to soldiers on active service, not
+only in tropical regions, but also at times in our own latitudes, as
+was seen in the Walcheren Expedition. Though our theories as to the
+cause of the disease have lately been altered by the discovery as to
+the agency of mosquitoes in disseminating it, the old rules of not
+disturbing the ground, sleeping on raised platforms (as was done in the
+Ashanti Expedition of 1895–96), avoiding the neighbourhood of marshes
+and jungly ravines, preventing chill by changing into dry flannels on
+halting, never starting off in the morning without a cup of cocoa or
+something of that kind, and taking a daily dose of quinine, should
+on account of their proved utility still be followed. To keep off
+mosquitoes in the absence of curtains and punkahs, the face and other
+exposed parts of the body should be smeared with carbolic oil.
+
+Sunstroke and heat apoplexy are causes of mortality on active service,
+and even at home in hot weather we have had lamentable results from
+overworking our soldiers in improper clothing and head-dresses. The
+obvious precautions are, the avoidance of overcrowding and overloading
+the men, the wearing of a suitable head-dress, loose porous clothing,
+the provision of plenty of non-alcoholic drinks, and marching in as
+open order as possible, so as to give every man enough fresh air. The
+greatest precaution of all, viz., avoidance of work in the sun, cannot,
+of course, be generally adopted on active service.
+
+Sore and tender feet cause a great deal of inefficiency on active
+service, though our army boots are generally very good, with plenty of
+room and low heels, but a less rigid sole would be an improvement. The
+socks should be woollen and not too thin or loose, the feet should be
+kept clean and well soaped immediately before putting on the sock, and
+blisters should be carefully treated.
+
+Many of the above suggestions may appear incapable of being carried
+out in the stress and hurry of active service, but, of course, anything
+which will prevent disease contrives “a double debt to pay”; it keeps
+the men in the fighting ranks, and prevents their becoming not only
+useless but a burden and trouble to their healthy comrades. Every
+soldier is said to cost the country about £150 before he can be placed
+in the field as efficient, therefore sickness entails very heavy
+pecuniary loss to the country, and all reasonable precautions will
+ever receive the earnest attention and support of capable leaders. In
+fact, without due regard to many of them it would be impossible in some
+countries for white men to remain in the field at all, and the Ashanti
+Expeditions of 1873 and 1895 have well been called “doctors’ wars.”
+
+In conclusion, if my remarks have given rise to the impression that
+the soldier is a drunken or unreliable creature, such is far from
+my intention. He only presents, and that in a degree mitigated by
+discipline and respect for authority, the faults of his class. My
+experience of the average working man, which is large, is that the
+majority cannot refrain from drinking so long as they have money
+in their pockets, regardless of the consequences to themselves and
+their families, and that to offer a man drink is their ordinary way
+of showing kindness and good-fellowship; while their general want of
+self-restraint is very disappointing, considering the educational
+advantages they have enjoyed compared with their fathers.
+
+ J. R. DODD.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XII
+
+ HEALTH IN THE MARINE SERVICE
+
+
+Although from time to time there have been energetic workers in the
+cause of marine sanitation, there is probably no other department in
+which the great advances in hygiene have produced so little good result.
+
+It must be conceded at the outset that the seamen’s lot is by no means
+an enviable one, and that his sanitary environment falls considerably
+short of modern requirements. Legislation is slow, and the lack of
+knowledge by the public of the requirements of the Mercantile Marine
+is no doubt in great measure responsible for this. At a first glance
+it might naturally be supposed that a life at sea was a healthy one;
+living in fresh air, and removed from the unhealthy conditions of
+large towns, it might be expected that the general health of seamen
+would bear favourable comparison with the corresponding class of the
+community on shore. But there is another side to this picture. In the
+first place there is practically always _local_ overcrowding on board
+ship, and in dealing with this question the hands of port sanitary
+authorities and their officers are tied by the Shipping Acts. By the
+Merchant Shipping Act, the minimum space allowed per head is only 72
+cubic feet, and in this space a man has not only to sleep, but to feed
+and live when not engaged on duty. It has been contended that inasmuch
+as one-half of the crew is always at work, the forecastle provides
+double this amount of space. But this is entirely a fallacy, for while
+half the men are always off duty, there is practically continuous
+occupation, and therefore no opportunity of opening doors, skylights,
+and other ventilators, to admit of free perflation. Another serious
+difficulty to contend with is the presence of moisture. Nearly all
+forecastles are badly ventilated, and the greatly increased use of
+steel and iron in modern vessels leads to the condensation of moisture,
+or “sweating” due to change of temperature. It is no uncommon thing to
+find the bunks and bedding in the crew’s quarters saturated with water
+from this cause.
+
+While it can scarcely be stated that any special diseases are
+associated with the sailor’s calling, there are undoubtedly many which
+are caused by the conditions under which he performs his duty. His
+work is intermittent, consequently his intervals of rest, broken by
+sudden and severe exertion, throw undue and violent strain upon the
+circulatory and respiratory organs. In steam vessels the changes of
+climate are rapid, and their influence trying to the system. In spite
+of all the improved methods of storing and preserving food for long
+periods, there is still much to be desired both in the actual dietary
+of the sailor, and still more in the rough and inefficient manner in
+which it is cooked for him. The loss of life from drowning and other
+accidents connected with casualties to the vessel is large. Again,
+the habits of the seaman must be taken into account. From the mere
+fact of his being for long periods confined on shipboard, without
+any amusements except those provided by his fellows, it is perhaps
+not surprising that on arrival in port he should give way to full
+indulgence in pleasure. Unfortunately, moreover, the parts of sea towns
+frequented by sailors are generally the lowest, and the temptations of
+the worst kind. This explains the frequency of alcoholism and venereal
+disease among our Mercantile Marine, and in addition the tendency to
+contract the diseases to be met with in such localities.
+
+The principal diseases to which seamen are liable are:--
+
+ 1. Those due to the special character of their employment,
+ such as aneurism, emphysema, hernia, and heart disease, and in
+ steam-ships, heat apoplexy (stokers).
+
+ 2. Those due to their habits, viz., venereal disease and
+ alcoholism.
+
+ 3. Diseases of climate, liver disease, malaria, yellow fever,
+ dysentery, cholera, plague, etc.
+
+ 4. Diseases influenced mainly by immediate environment and
+ insanitary conditions, such as rheumatism, phthisis, bronchitis,
+ and various forms of lung disease, under which must also be
+ included scurvy and beriberi.
+
+There is unfortunately no reliable record of sickness in the Mercantile
+Marine.
+
+The returns of the Board of Trade show the mortality rate from all
+causes in 1898–99 to have been 9.60 per 1000 in the Merchant Service,
+while the corresponding rate in the Royal Navy was, for the year 1899,
+4.91 per 1000, or practically one-half.
+
+The returns of the Mercantile Marine show that of the 9.6 per 1000, 7.4
+were from injury, and 2.2 from disease; the 4.91 per 1000 of the Royal
+Navy being made up of 3.56 from disease, and 1.35 from injury.
+
+The following table shows the disease and accident mortality incidence
+in sailing-vessels as compared with steam-vessels.
+
+ +-----------------------------+--------+------+------+-----------+
+ | 1898. |Sailing.|Steam.|Total.|Percentage.|
+ +-----------------------------+--------+------+------+-----------+
+ | Wrecks and Casualties | 425 | 607 | 1032 | .58 |
+ | Accidents other than Wrecks | | | | |
+ | and Casualties | 129 | 157 | 286 | .16 |
+ | Disease | 149 | 249 | 398 | .22 |
+ +-----------------------------+--------+------+------+-----------+
+ | Total | 703 |1013 | 1716 | .96 |
+ +-----------------------------+--------+------+------+-----------+
+
+1. _Diseases due to Employment._--The violent exertions called
+for at times of emergency fully account for the frequency of heart
+disease, especially of cardiac hypertrophy, and also of hernia, while
+the occurrence of aneurism may be assigned to the same cause, though
+doubtless greatly aided by the influence of syphilis. With the large
+increase in size of sailing-vessels and the consequent introduction of
+labour-saving appliances, this class of disease is showing a decided
+tendency to decrease.
+
+Injuries are more common on sailing-vessels than on steam-ships, owing
+to the greater amount of work aloft, and the more laborious efforts
+involved in working the sails.
+
+The “heat stroke” of stokers requires special notice. It is far more
+common in vessels of the Merchant Service than in those of the Royal
+Navy. Stokeholds in the navy are better ventilated, and forced draught,
+if necessary, tends to a freer supply of air. The “fireman’s frenzy”
+appears to be caused by the continued high temperature, coupled with
+insufficient ventilation, and often associated with alcoholism. Much
+can be done to diminish heat stroke by due attention to the ventilation
+of stokeholds and confined spaces in connection with them. The utmost
+advantage should be taken of the up-draught caused by the heat of the
+furnaces to remove foul and vitiated air. Men engaged in this class of
+work should be freely supplied with oatmeal water, as this is the most
+wholesome method of replacing the large quantities of fluid lost by
+perspiration. The same class of men are, moreover, specially liable
+to diseases of the eye caused by the glare of the furnaces, and the
+constant irritation produced by particles of coal and dust.
+
+2. _Diseases caused by the Habits of Seamen._--Of these the two
+most common are alcoholism and the various forms of venereal disease.
+The irregularity of a sailor’s life, especially in these days of rapid
+transport, sufficiently explain without justifying his failings. A man
+whose home life is interrupted by voyages across the sea, who is thrown
+upon his own resources in foreign ports, and who is from the nature
+of his calling almost of necessity confined to the shipping quarters
+(invariably the lowest) of the towns he reaches, is not unlikely to
+seek for amusement where it is most easily obtained, and wine, women,
+and music occupy a considerable part of his spare time under such
+circumstances. Much has been done by the Board of Trade and voluntary
+associations to protect the sailor, by taking care of his money when
+first paid off (when the temptation to squander it is strongest), and
+enabling him to draw it at his own home, by arranging for his being
+sent by rail to his destination, by protecting him from “crimps” and
+unauthorised agents, and by providing Sailors’ Homes, where he can live
+at a reasonable cost, without being plundered by unscrupulous persons,
+but there is still much to be desired in this direction.
+
+3. _Diseases of Climate._--To a great extent these can scarcely
+be avoided. Seamen suffer much from tropical diseases. No doubt their
+careless habits and unwillingness to take reasonable precautions in
+unhealthy climates are in some measure responsible for this. Simple
+rules for the preservation of health, greater care in dieting, and,
+above all, limitation of indulgence in alcohol, would be of undoubted
+value, and a recent suggestion to afford information on such subjects
+to seamen through the medium of Sailors’ Institutes and Homes would
+doubtless lead to good results. Diarrhœa, so common a disease in hot
+climates, is mainly caused by the ingestion of improper articles of
+food and drink. Seamen do not realise the importance of the source
+and purity of drinking water. One common cause of this disease is the
+carriage of water in casks and tanks on deck, or in places where it is
+easily affected by the temperature of the sun. Any simple arrangement
+for reducing by evaporation or other method the temperature of the
+water supply has considerable effect in this direction. Dysentery, so
+far as prevention is concerned, can be guarded against in the same
+manner as diarrhœa--water, however, being the main agent in causation.
+Cholera, yellow fever, and plague call for no special comment. Where
+these diseases are known to exist, shipmasters should be careful to
+warn their crews as to the danger, and explain how best to avoid them.
+Men should be kept on board as much as possible during the stay of the
+vessel in an infected port, and especially should they be required to
+return at night. A careful watch should be kept for any suspicious
+sickness, and medical advice sought at an early stage of any illness.
+The sanitary condition of the vessel itself must be the special care
+of the master. Malaria, now known to be due to a specific organism,
+conveyed by means of the bite of a species of mosquito, is much under
+the control of the master of a vessel, who should prevent his crew from
+remaining on shore in a malarial country during the night, or in the
+evening, when special danger exists.
+
+4. _Diseases due to Insanitary Conditions and Environment_ form a
+long and important series. These are essentially the diseases which can
+be controlled, if not altogether prevented.
+
+Rheumatism and its allies are mainly due to cold and exposure, and
+still more to the difficulty of obtaining dry clothing on board ship,
+and the constantly wet condition of bedding, etc., from the sweating
+of iron vessels. These causes can be avoided. The condensation can be
+prevented by the universal use of sheathing over iron decks and of
+a non-conducting lining over and around bunks, the proper provision
+of heating stoves, and the free ventilation of forecastles. There is
+further no reason (especially in steam-vessels) for not providing
+facilities for dry clothing, and preventing it being taken into the
+sleeping bunks. These two precautions, together with the free use of
+woollen underclothing, would tend to greatly reduce the “sailors’
+curse,” rheumatism. Lung diseases are very common, and are caused
+chiefly by the close aggregation of men in confined and ill-ventilated
+quarters. The difficulty of the system of watches prevents the proper
+airing of a forecastle, and men coming off duty enter an atmosphere
+already fouled and polluted by those who have previously occupied
+it. The cubic space per head should be largely augmented. The Royal
+Commission on Labour has recommended that 120 cubic feet should be the
+minimum, and bearing in mind the special difficulties, this would seem
+to be a moderate figure. The present 72 cubic feet is ridiculously
+inadequate, and only remains the legal minimum by reason of the
+proverbial ignorant conservatism of the sailor.
+
+Scurvy happily, under ordinary circumstances, is almost unknown in
+its acute form. During the last twenty years our ideas as to its
+causation have undergone considerable change, and it is no longer
+possible to assert that the one essential for its production is the
+use of salt meat, and the absence of vegetable food. In one of the
+recent Arctic expeditions, owing to the loss of all the stores, the
+crew lived for more than twelve months exclusively on fresh meat, and
+no symptoms of scurvy made their appearance. There is little doubt that
+the condition of the blood producing the symptoms we call scurvy is
+caused by the ingestion of food in an incipient stage of decomposition,
+although a free supply of natural vegetable acids will tend to delay
+its appearance. Slight manifestations of scurvy are still common
+among sailors, and there is one point of great practical importance
+in connection with this. More care is required in the examination
+of tinned meats, the date of packing should in all cases be stamped
+or indelibly marked upon the tin, and those tins that are found on
+examination to be in any degree defective, should be destroyed under
+official supervision, and not be allowed to pass into the hands of
+unscrupulous dealers.
+
+Beriberi is a common disease among certain natives on board ship.
+The disease has the habit of remaining dormant in a vessel, also
+of recurring from time to time when conditions for its development
+are favourable. Though it has been ascribed at different times to
+malarial influences, to a deficiency of nitrogenous food, and to a
+definite microbe, these explanations have failed to satisfy all the
+requirements of the conditions under which it appears. Manson believes
+that it is due to a toxine, produced by a saprophyte living outside the
+body, and that as the soil or ship becomes infected, man is poisoned
+therefrom. It occurs invariably on board ship in connection with moist,
+overcrowded, and heated forecastles, where ventilation is deficient,
+and may therefore in this sense be said to be a disease caused by
+want of sanitation. Further, as favouring this view is the fact that
+patients removed to hygienic surroundings, and properly fed, rapidly
+recover. To prevent beriberi all that is necessary is to keep a vessel
+clean and dry; to see that there is no accumulation of bilge water or
+foul matter under the flooring of the crew’s quarters, and that these
+are properly ventilated and not overcrowded.[46]
+
+Enteric fever is undoubtedly the most common disease to which seamen
+are liable. Thus in the port of London, out of 791 cases of infectious
+disease occurring on board ship from 1895 to June 1900, no fewer than
+290 were enteric fever. The figures are as follows:--
+
+ ---------------------+----------------+---------------+---------------
+ | Cases of | No. of Cases | Percentage
+ Year. | Enteric Fever. | of Infectious | of
+ | | Diseases. | Enteric Fever.
+ ---------------------+----------------+---------------+---------------
+ 1895 | 31 | 129 | 24.0
+ 1896 | 53 | 145 | 35.1
+ 1897 | 54 | 179 | 30.1
+ 1898 | 55 | 121 | 45.4
+ 1899 | 66 | 160 | 41.2
+ 1900 (6 months only) | 114 | 187 | 60.31
+ ---------------------+----------------+---------------+---------------
+ Total | 373 | 921 | 40.49
+ ---------------------+----------------+---------------+---------------
+
+The large proportion during 1900 is due to the number of cases brought
+from South Africa.
+
+The causes of the large number of cases of enteric fever are three:--
+
+1. The congregation of seamen in the unhealthy quarters of foreign
+ports.
+
+2. Want of care in the selection of sources of water supply.
+
+3. Improper methods of carriage and storage of water.
+
+Most of the infected or dangerous sources of water supply are known,
+and great benefit would result if consuls and other representatives of
+this country abroad were instructed to warn shipmasters of the special
+danger. Water should always be stored on board ship in galvanised
+iron water tanks, which should be carried in such places that they
+can be easily reached for cleaning purposes. They should be provided
+with large manholes so situated that where possible natural light can
+penetrate to the bottom of the tanks when the covers are removed. They
+should be periodically emptied, cleaned, and coated with a cement wash.
+
+Lastly must be mentioned the digestive troubles so common in seamen.
+The insufficient and monotonous dietary is of itself sufficient to
+cause this, and when one further considers the unsatisfactory way
+in which such food is ofttimes cooked, it will be at once seen how
+serious a matter this may become. There is no compulsory diet scale,
+nor theoretically is it wise that there should be. It is felt that if
+such were laid down by law it would speedily become a minimum beyond
+which the owner or master would not care to go. The Merchant Shipping
+Act requires that a diet scale shall be produced when men are engaged,
+and shall form an essential part of the contract, any departure from
+which shall constitute a breach of the agreement on the part of the
+employer. Several improvements on the old scale (still usually in
+vogue) have been made, but in practice these are scarcely ever adopted.
+In the present day there are far better opportunities for giving men
+fresh meat and vegetables, while the use of preserved foods should
+obviate to a large extent the necessity for salt meat. It can be
+clearly shown that a reasonable dietary can be provided at a less cost
+than the antiquated one generally in use, while the advantages from the
+improved health of the crews and the consequent increased discipline
+and work are beyond dispute. But even if the dietary be good, the
+cooking is generally bad. Here legislation is needed. At the present
+time the master and certain other officers of a ship are required to
+hold certificates, granted after training and examination, and it is
+equally necessary that in the case of the cook, some definite standard
+of knowledge of the work he undertakes should be required before
+appointment. In the majority of cases a man is rated as “cook” because
+he so describes himself, or has acted in a similar capacity before.
+There is no difficulty in organising a system of instruction and
+examination for ships’ cooks in large centres, and the result of such
+would be to the advantage of shipowners as regards economy of food, as
+well as increased efficiency on the part of their crews. This work has
+already been initiated in several ports, notably London, Liverpool,
+North Shields, and Glasgow, but the question still demands the most
+careful attention.
+
+Much ill-health and disease would be avoided if more care were
+exercised in the selection of men for the Mercantile Marine. The
+Merchant Shipping Act (sect. 10) provides for the medical inspection
+of seamen if required, but as a matter of fact, this provision is
+practically a dead letter, and men are allowed to “sign on” without any
+inquiry as to their physical fitness for their occupation.
+
+ W. COLLINGRIDGE.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIII
+
+ RAILWAYS
+
+
+There is not much to be said respecting the nature of the injuries
+sustained by those at work on railways. The occupation cannot be
+described as unhealthy. A very large proportion of the work is done in
+the open air, and the normal lives of the men appear in every way up to
+the average.
+
+The accidents that occur are mainly what would be called surgical.
+A large proportion consists of crushed hands and fingers. Instead,
+therefore, of entering into details respecting the character of these
+injuries and the manner in which they are received, it will be more
+useful to give a short account of the progress of legislation in
+respect to accidents upon railways.
+
+The Mines and Factories Acts had their origin in the desire to preserve
+children from overwork and bodily injury. The protection thus accorded
+was gradually extended to women. The next stage was the inclusion of
+men in many of the factory provisions, and finally the Acts which had
+originally been intended only for the protection of health began to
+be timidly and cautiously extended to other and wider objects. But
+the movement for the prevention of accidents on railways commenced by
+aiming at the safety of passengers, and it was only in the last year
+of the nineteenth century that railway servants were included in the
+category of protected trades. Limits of space prevent my attempting
+to trace the movement in detail, nor indeed is it necessary. I shall
+therefore only mention certain epochs which have marked its progress.
+
+As most people are aware, the railway movement began about the year
+1830, the year Huskisson was killed, and proceeded until in 1840,
+there were nearly 1000 miles of railways in the United Kingdom. But
+about this time the importance of railways became so recognised that
+in 1840 they were placed under Government supervision. In 1841 a Bill
+was brought into Parliament to give the Board of Trade powers to issue
+regulations for the prevention of accidents upon railways, and referred
+to a Special Committee, presided over by Lord Seymour, and with Sir
+Robert Peel, Sir James Graham, and others as members.
+
+The arguments for and against the proposal were exactly the same as
+they have always been upon the subject of State interference in matters
+of trade. On the one hand, the Board of Trade Inspector-General, Sir
+Frederick Smith, contended that the power was necessary. The railway
+companies said that by interfering with the responsibility of railway
+officials more harm than good would be done. Those who are acquainted
+with the general trend of public opinion upon factory questions in
+those days will not be surprised to learn that the proposal was
+considered likely to “disturb the amicable spirit which then existed
+between the Board of Trade and the railway companies,” and “to engender
+on the part of the railway companies a desire of concealment and
+feelings of jealousy which would not otherwise arise.” The Committee
+therefore limited its recommendations to empowering the Board of Trade
+to suggest improvements. These recommendations were carried into
+effect by an Act known as Lord Seymour’s Act, which provided for the
+appointment of inspectors of railways, the reporting of accidents, and
+the punishment of engine-drivers, guards, porters, or other servants
+of the company who were guilty of negligence. It was urged against the
+railway companies that expense was no object where life was concerned;
+to which Mr Brunel, the celebrated engineer, retorted on behalf of
+the railway companies by asking why the Government did not have a
+large force of men on the Serpentine when it was frozen, to prevent
+accidents to skaters. He submitted that in considering the question
+of safety it might be considered as a question of cost also. On the
+other hand, it is interesting to note that George Stephenson considered
+it would be advantageous that the Board of Trade should have power
+to make regulations. Coming from such a man, himself a large railway
+proprietor, the opinion is of great weight.
+
+The next time the question came before Parliament was in 1857, during
+Lord Derby’s administration, when the matter was referred to a Select
+Committee. The Committee was against interference with railway
+companies, except as regards the times of trains, with respect to which
+they thought that the public should have some means of obtaining
+prompt and cheap redress in the recovery of penalties in every case of
+want of punctuality. They also made a few minor recommendations. The
+subject was again discussed by a Royal Commission appointed in 1865.
+But the times were not ripe for the adoption of State interference.
+The _laissez faire_ system was in full force, and the Committee
+recommended that the railway companies should not be interfered with.
+Meantime the management of the railway companies seems steadily to
+have deteriorated. The year 1872 was a year of considerable commercial
+activity, marked by a great rise in the price of coal, and by an
+increase in the number of railway accidents. In those days it was
+estimated that several railway accidents to trains took place every
+week, sometimes as many as four were reported on a single morning.
+In fact, as stated in the Annual Register for 11th September 1872,
+“Railway accidents are now becoming of such frequent occurrence that,
+unless a number of people are killed or seriously injured, no notice is
+taken of them.” The number of accidents to individuals was also very
+great. In that year no less than 1145 persons were reported killed, and
+3038 were injured. Some of the accidents, too, were of an appalling
+character. At Wigan in August 1873 a portion of a railway carriage,
+with a lady in it, was hurled over a wall and through the slated roof
+of a foundry. The rest of the carriage was smashed to pieces.
+
+In order to secure more precise returns of accidents by checking
+those made by the railway companies, it was provided in the Railways
+Regulation Act of 1873 that coroners should make returns to the
+Secretary of State of all deaths occurring on railways.
+
+The public feeling which these accidents excited led to the
+appointment of another Royal Commission in 1874, during Mr Disraeli’s
+administration. It was presided over by the Duke of Buckingham. The
+Committee sat for three years and heard evidence at great length. They
+ended by recommending that the Board of Trade should have power to
+make requirements as to siding and station accommodation, and as to
+defects in rolling stock, permanent way, and works. They declined to
+recommend that general powers should be given to the Board of Trade to
+make general changes calculated to secure the safety of the railway
+servants, but they thought that servants ought to receive compensation
+for injuries in all cases of negligence of the companies’ officials,
+but not for the negligence of their fellow-servants.
+
+In the evidence that was given it seems to have been admitted that
+overwork was not universal or even general on railway lines, but a good
+many remarkable instances of overwork were adduced. Thus Captain Tyler,
+a Board of Trade Inspecting Officer, gave evidence that at Wakefield in
+1864, a man had been regularly on duty as a signalman 25 hours a day
+every third week, and 37 hours every thirteenth week. The man had made
+this arrangement in order to get extra time off duty; and in another
+case, in 1874, a signalman had actually averaged 17 hours work a day
+regularly.
+
+Nearly all the witnesses complained of the couplings as a fruitful
+source of danger. Captain Tyler recommended automatic couplings as then
+used in America.
+
+The next Act of importance regarding accidents upon railways was that
+passed in 1889, when Sir Michael Hicks-Beach was President of the Board
+of Trade. The principal objects of the Act were to secure the adoption
+of the block system of running trains, to cause points and signals
+to be interlocked, and to enforce the use of an improved brake. The
+principal object of the Bill was to promote the safety of passengers;
+there was a clause dealing with automatic couplings, but the clause was
+ultimately withdrawn from the Act.
+
+During all these years, however, repeated recommendations were made by
+the Board of Trade officials to the railway companies to adopt various
+means of saving life. The companies were not obdurate or unreasonable;
+in particular instances and small points they repeatedly gave way
+and adopted suggestions. But in the main they declined to introduce
+automatic couplings, or other life-saving appliances on a large scale.
+Their refusal was based chiefly on the ground of expense; but they also
+defended their action on the ground that the proposed appliances were
+not suitable or practicable, and that if adopted they would not produce
+beneficial results.
+
+Before narrating the next steps which were made in the direction of
+securing safety when Mr Ritchie became President of the Board of Trade,
+it will be of use to examine in outline the condition of railway
+service as regards accidents, and the means by which the number of
+deaths and other injuries is ascertained. Reports of accidents on
+railways exist from the year 1848 onwards; but in forms which render
+them very difficult to compare with accidents in more recent times. It
+was not until the passing of the Regulation of Railways Act of 1871
+that the reporting of accidents was placed on its present footing. By
+section 6 of that Act it was provided that accidents should be reported
+to the Board of Trade, in such form and with such particulars as the
+Board of Trade should prescribe. In earlier years the reporting of
+accidents was not very systematically done, and in 1872 the inspector
+reported that “accidents to servants do not appear in many cases to
+have been reported by certain of the railway companies; and their
+numbers would, if the whole truth could be ascertained, be very
+considerably increased.” Moreover, no uniform standard of injury was
+prescribed, so that various companies adopted various standards of
+reporting. Some reported all accidents, even trivial ones; others
+reported only the serious ones. But in the year 1895 an order of the
+Board of Trade was made during the permanent Secretaryship of Sir
+Courtenay Boyle, by which the standard of accident to be reported was
+assimilated to the standard already in force for the reporting of
+accidents in factories and workshops, namely, that all fatal accidents
+should be reported, and all non-fatal, whenever they incapacitated a
+man from work for five hours on any one of three days next after the
+accident. The advantage of this order was that it at once established
+a basis of comparison between the dangers of work in factories and in
+railways. But there is ground for thinking that the standard was a
+little low. A trifling finger cut may prevent a man from working in
+some trades for an afternoon. The reporting of every trivial accident
+tends also to obscure the graver ones, and in some cases to make
+dangerous trades appear less dangerous than they really relatively
+are. In any case, however, it is desirable to have one standard of
+reporting, and it is a matter for regret that there is no standard of
+reporting non-fatal accidents in mines, so that it is still impossible
+to compare mines with factories or railways as to the non-fatal
+accidents that occur in them.
+
+The numbers of persons employed on railways largely increases from year
+to year. Returns of these numbers are now furnished every three years.
+We have therefore not at hand the means of working out the percentage
+of accidents in every year exactly; but without the danger of grave
+inaccuracy we may assume that the increase in the numbers employed is
+uniform during each period of three years, and thus we may by a process
+of proportion arrive very nearly at the numbers of men employed at any
+particular period. On looking at the figures for any year, say for
+the year 1898, we find them set out in two tables, one showing those
+due to the movement of trains and vehicles, the other to those which
+occurred otherwise than by moving trains. They are divided up so as
+to show 41 different occupations of the persons killed and injured.
+From these tables we find that, in 1898, 522 railway servants were
+killed and 12,826 injured, out of a total of 534,000. This would give
+1 in 1000 killed, and 24 in 1000 injured each year. When we reflect
+that this figure is about the same as the numbers killed and injured
+in mines, it might perhaps be argued that the figures are not very
+large, for it must be admitted that service on railways must always be
+considered rather a dangerous occupation. But an analysis of the risks
+to various branches of railway labour dispels this illusion.[47] For
+in these figures are reckoned numbers of men whose duties are not of
+a manual character, such as 53,000 clerks, who hardly ever meet with
+death or accident except from causes common to the whole community.
+Besides, about 70,000 mechanics are employed in building engines
+and locomotives, and work in factories, which are under the Home
+Department, and, strictly speaking, are not railway servants at all.
+
+In railway service there are three occupations which from the number
+of accidents reported appear to present special dangers, namely,
+plate-laying and repairing of lines, shunting and managing goods
+trains. When plate-layers (of whom there are 63,000) sustain an
+accident, it is generally by being run over, and in more than one case
+out of every three they are killed outright. Out of every thousand
+2 yearly meet their death, and 3 are injured. Of goods guards and
+brakesmen, nearly 15,000 in number, 3 out of 1000 are yearly killed,
+and 48 of 1000 are injured. But the business of a shunter presents the
+gravest dangers. The number of shunters is 9244, and with the exception
+of the calling of a seaman it is the most perilous trade known. For
+no less than 5 men are yearly killed and 66 are injured out of every
+1000 employed. And from this it follows that if the average duration
+of a man’s service be from the age of twenty to forty, the balance of
+probability is against his leaving the trade without a violent death
+or injury. This is not satisfactory. It has been pointed out that this
+yearly death risk of 5 in 1000 per annum is greater on the average
+than that to which soldiers are exposed, taking one year with another,
+and war with peace. This is probably true, but the risk is far less
+than that of soldiers in a campaign. It has been estimated that the
+year’s loss from October 1899 to October 1900, of the troops serving in
+South Africa, has been 19 per thousand privates, and 72 per thousand
+officers killed, in addition to 30 per cent. of officers and privates
+who have died of disease. Thus of the officers engaged about 1 in 10
+has died, and of the men 1 in 20.
+
+But any figures of deaths due to accidents in industry are too large if
+they are preventable, and it is too much that in ten years a railway
+servant should run the same risk as a private in a year of a campaign.
+
+The work of shunting is necessary to rearrange, or, as it is called,
+to marshal the trains. At a large goods depôt a number of trains laden
+with trucks come in destined for various localities. The trains have
+to be dissected, and all the trucks resorted, and made up into fresh
+trains to be sent off in various directions. Hence, therefore, it is
+necessary for an engine to draw the waggons on to a line of rails, and
+then to shunt or direct them on to sidings in different directions in
+order to sort them into their right places. This involves the coupling
+and uncoupling of the waggons. Passenger waggons have a screw coupling
+by means of which they are screwed up together, so that the buffers
+press firmly together, and thus jolting is avoided. But goods waggons
+have no such luxurious appliances, nor have they in all cases spring
+buffers. The coupling is simply a ring hitched into a hook at the end
+of a three-link chain, and on the starting or stopping of a goods train
+any one may hear the succession of slams with which the waggons clash
+together. When it is necessary to shunt, an engine pulls the waggons
+along to the place where they are to be detached. While the tension
+is on, of course, it would be impossible to unhook, therefore the
+engine stops suddenly. For an instant the waggons by their momentum
+go forward, bumping up against the engine and one another. For that
+instant, and until the rebound takes place, the hooks are free, and a
+skilful man, generally with a pole, and but rarely running in between
+the waggons, neatly slips the ring off the hook. This is all done
+while the waggons are in motion, so that he has to run alongside the
+train, skipping over the signal wires and hopping over the cross rails,
+keeping his eye always on the coupling, and sometimes encumbered with
+a pole in one hand, and at night with a lamp in the other. If he does
+not look out he may fall between the wheels, or be run down by the
+engine. And while engaged in his work express and other trains come
+tearing down the main line, exposing every one to the risk of being run
+over. Therefore in all goods sidings it is desirable in the interests
+of safety that the through traffic should be as small as possible, that
+there should be plenty of room between the lines of rails, that wires
+and other obstacles should be boarded over where possible, and that
+there should be a good light at night. But many sidings are greatly
+crowded; the work has to be got through rapidly, and accidents are
+the result. On the other hand, in the private sidings of collieries
+operations are leisurely; no express trains come along the line, there
+is no night labour, and consequently the accidents are very few. In
+America until lately the means of coupling waggons were more imperfect
+than those in England; many accidents therefore occurred, and the
+trains frequently broke asunder.
+
+In order to expedite work and promote safety, experiments were made
+in 1868 with automatic couplings which should close like a snap-lock.
+American waggons differ from those in use in England, in that they
+are longer and larger, and have a central buffer. In 1874 the public
+attention was called to the great number of railway accidents, and in
+the more civilised states, such as Massachusetts, a movement arose for
+the compulsory employment of automatic couplings. Finally a coupling
+was devised, very like a hand with the fingers bent, and a hinge at
+the knuckles. When two waggons were brought together the hand caught
+automatically into a similar hand on another waggon, and could be
+released by withdrawing a pin. At first these couplings were badly
+made; gradually, however, they improved, and are now on the fair road
+to perfection. They were gradually introduced upon one railway after
+another. The rich eastern States took the lead, the wild west was more
+slow; but curiously in proportion as the couplings were adopted, so
+did railway accidents become less. It would be wrong to conclude that
+therefore the whole of the diminution of accidents was due to the
+adoption of couplings. But it is a fair inference from the state of
+railway management in the east and west of America to conclude that
+with careful management and State-imposed regulations, accidents can be
+very materially reduced.
+
+This was the state of the problem in 1898, in which year Mr Ritchie,
+then President of the Board of Trade, determined to make an effort
+in favour of safety. For this purpose he commissioned Mr Hopwood,
+the Assistant Secretary of the Railway Department, to visit America
+and examine the system of coupling there in use, and its effects
+in preventing accidents. In December 1898 Mr Hopwood presented his
+memorandum. He says (quoting the _Railway Times_), “Our Railway
+Companies’ Association still lacks the moral force, to say nothing
+of the initiation which characterises its sister body across the
+Atlantic.... This view fairly reflects the opinion I formed that the
+progress made in the United States is greatly due to the fact that the
+American Association has taken great trouble, and the railroads have
+not spared expense in order to give a trial to promising inventors,”
+and he concludes by recommending that Parliament should be asked
+for powers to be given to the Board of Trade to order the use of a
+suitable coupling. In accordance with the recommendations in this very
+able report, the President of the Board of Trade introduced a Bill
+providing for the compulsory use of steam brakes for engines, and
+automatic couplings for carriages and waggons, also brakes on both
+sides of waggons, and labels on both sides of waggons, but giving to
+the companies two years and five years respectively to introduce these
+improvements.
+
+The Bill was introduced by Mr Ritchie on 27th February 1899. He said,
+“I am afraid that whatever we do, a number of accidents amongst railway
+servants will continue to happen. They are engaged in extremely
+dangerous operations, and necessarily many accidents must and will
+continue to occur. But, sir, if it is possible by legislation or
+otherwise to take means to reduce the number of accidents, I think
+it is the bounden duty of Parliament to take those means.” Of course
+this announcement caused considerable agitation in the railway world,
+and on 16th March a deputation of the private waggon owners of the
+United Kingdom pressed upon the President of the Board of Trade the
+necessity for further inquiry. Mr Ritchie endeavoured to meet the
+current of opposition which his proposals had aroused, by offering
+to make it clear that the portion of the Bill dealing with automatic
+couplings should not come into operation until a satisfactory coupling
+was found, but he ultimately decided to withdraw the Bill and refer
+the whole question to a Royal Commission. He determined, however, that
+the inquiry should be an effective one, and therefore he enlarged
+its scope, and referred to the Commission not merely the question of
+coupling, but the whole question of accidents to railway servants
+and the means of preventing them. This action had very important
+consequences, as will presently be seen. He selected as Chairman
+Lord James of Hereford, who had already done excellent work as the
+mutually-accepted arbitrator in various disputes between capital and
+labour, and whose disinterestedness and fairness could be relied on.
+The Commission was composed of members of the House of Lords and
+Commons, representatives of the railway companies, private waggon
+owners, and railway servants, experts and Government officials. It
+was supposed in some quarters that the question had been comfortably
+shelved for at least three or four years. But the Chairman took a very
+different view of the position. With almost unexampled energy, he
+assembled the first meeting on 16th June 1899, a fortnight after the
+warrant appointing the Commission had been signed. The last witness was
+heard on 3rd August, and the report was presented to Her late Majesty
+the Queen on 20th January 1900.
+
+From the very mixed character of the Commission, it might have been
+expected that views would differ, and that it would have been difficult
+to draw a report that would be signed both by the railway companies’
+representatives and by the representatives of the men. But the report
+was unanimous, and what was more remarkable still, it went far beyond
+the proposals of Mr Ritchie for couplings, and dealt not only with
+these, but proposed a means of preventing all accidents whatever. The
+principle that lay at the whole root of the report was the assimilation
+of means to prevent railway accidents to those already adapted for the
+prevention of similar accidents in factories and mines.
+
+In the Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1860, a procedure had been adopted
+of special rules in mines. The rules were to be agreed upon by the
+Secretary of State and the mine owners. If they could not agree, then
+arbitrators were to be named who were finally to settle them. This
+procedure was adopted in all successive Acts relating to coal mines.
+Being found useful, it was adopted into the Factory Acts in 1891 in
+all cases of specially dangerous trades, among others the cases of
+industries where lead poisoning, phosphorus poisoning, and other
+dangers are experienced. But by the Factories Act, 1901, an order of
+the Secretary of State, after hearing the parties, is now substituted
+for arbitration.
+
+When the Royal Commission sat, the first question that arose was
+whether the accidents to railway servants were so numerous as to
+constitute it a dangerous trade. Figures soon settled this point, and
+appear from the following table:--
+
+ -----------------------------------------+---------------+----------------
+ |Killed from all|Injured from all
+ Description of Labour. | Causes per | Causes per
+ |1000 employed. | 1000 employed.
+ -----------------------------------------+---------------+----------------
+ Railway Servants in general, excluding | |
+ Contractors’ Men, Clerks, and Mechanics| 1.24 | 31.0
+ Goods Guards and Brakesmen | 2.92 | 61.0
+ Permanent-way Men or Platelayers | 1.9 | 16.0
+ Shunters | 5.08 | 78.0
+ Men Porters (railways) | 1.15 | 63.0
+ Seamen (merchant service) | 5.2 | Not known.
+ Coal Miners (underground) | 1.37 | No figures
+ | | available
+ | | for purpose
+ | | of comparison.
+ Coal Miners (surface) | 0.92 | Ditto
+ Metalliferous Mines (underground) | 1.34 | Ditto
+ Metalliferous Mines (surface) | 0.43 | Ditto
+ Factories--Textile (males) | 0.1 | 6.2
+ „ Textile (females) | ... | 2.7
+ „ Non-textile (males) | 0.2 | 13.8
+ „ Non-textile (females) | ... | 2.0
+ „ Extraction of Metals (males) | 1.1 | 16.4
+ „ Shipbuilding (males) | 0.5 | 39.3
+ „ Dock Labourers | 1.4 | 57.0
+ -----------------------------------------+---------------+----------------
+
+From this it will be seen that while on the average work on railways is
+almost as dangerous as mining, yet where particular branches of it are
+considered, such as shunting, it is far more dangerous, and those who
+advocated a policy of non-interference found it impossible to explain
+their position consistently with the admission of the expediency of
+the existing factory and mine laws. It is impossible to put the matter
+more clearly than in the following short interrogation of one of the
+principal witnesses on behalf of the railway companies by the Chairman.
+
+Q. 6374. Do you approve of a dangerous trade being inspected?--Yes.
+All dangerous trades?--Yes. For instance, merchant-shipping?--Yes.
+Mines?--Yes. Factories?--Yes. Textile and non-textile?--Yes. Machine
+shops on your railway?--Yes. The witness, however, contended that
+the case of railways was different from that of mines and factories,
+because railways were more amenable to public opinion.
+
+Another witness who held these views was compelled to admit that the
+force of public opinion had not on all lines secured punctuality of
+trains. On the other hand, an argument was brought forward by Mr Gibb,
+the General Manager of the North Eastern Railway Company, which
+deserves attention, because it exhibits a phenomenon that is frequently
+observed in industries. By a table he showed that the accidents on
+railways since 1872 had been decreasing in a ratio almost as fast as
+the decrease in mining and factory accidents. At first sight this would
+appear to show that accidents decrease as fast without legislation as
+with it. But it must be remembered that the Mines and Factories Acts
+had been some years in operation, and had already before this date
+effected their principal results, and that the accidents were far
+fewer than in the dangerous branches of railway service. Moreover, the
+reports of previous Royal Commissions on Railways had been followed by
+legislation, and by increased vigilance on the part of the companies.
+It was proved also that this decrease had not taken place in the
+dangerous branches, and that the number of deaths of men engaged in
+shunting had actually increased.
+
+The position taken up by the railway companies deserves attention.
+Their representatives were confronted with a vista of increased
+wages, increased cost of coal, and a fall in profits. It was asking
+much to expect them to apply the knife to their own throats and vote
+that restrictions should be imposed upon them. As a rule, although we
+all believe in the necessity of compelling others to do right, few
+people can be brought to believe that it is needful that the same
+principle should be applied to themselves. And yet, to the everlasting
+credit of the railway companies, it must be said that as soon as they
+were convinced that a case for intervention had been made out, they
+acquiesced in it. And the waggon owners, although the accidents on
+private lines were exceedingly few, withdrew their objections. In the
+result a report was unanimously signed, recommending that in the case
+of all dangerous trades of railway service the Board of Trade should
+have power to propose regulations which in case of dispute were to be
+settled by the Railway Commissioners.
+
+The question of the possibility of automatic couplings was discussed
+before the Commission. If it had been fully gone into, the question
+would have taken years to consider, and, without experiments, no
+conclusions could ever have been arrived at. But with great tact
+Lord James determined that unimportant issues should be eliminated.
+He referred the question to a strong subcommittee, and before the
+Commission had gone far it was seen that it was quite possible to deal
+practically with railway accidents, without first determining whether
+or no there was a practical automatic coupling. No definite opinion on
+this question was expressed by the Commission.
+
+To give effect to these recommendations Mr Ritchie introduced a Bill
+into the House of Commons. It was taken charge of by Lord James of
+Hereford in the House of Lords, and with some amendments it passed
+both Houses without opposition. The effect of this Bill is to bring
+dangerous processes on railways under regulations similar to those
+which can be made in the case of dangerous processes in factories and
+mines. No particular operations are specified; there are powers to meet
+all dangers as they arise. It is too much to say that this Bill will
+not need amendment, but it must be a source of satisfaction to the late
+President of the Board of Trade and his officials to have inaugurated,
+and successfully carried through with the unanimous consent of all
+interested parties, a scheme of legislation which brings railway labour
+within the circle of protected industries, and which establishes
+a fundamental principle so wide as probably to dispense with the
+necessity for further legislation upon the subject for many years.
+
+ HENRY CUNYNGHAME.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIV
+
+ SAFE-GUARDING OF MACHINERY
+
+
+Amidst the variety of dangers which attend those who are employed in
+factories none occupies so prominent a position as that arising from
+machinery moved by mechanical power; others, such, for instance, as
+periodical outbreaks of industrial poisoning or the occurrence of
+disastrous explosions, may from time to time attract public attention
+more vividly, but we have only to refer to the statistics issued
+annually by the Home Office to perceive how ever present and ever
+recurrent are the risks incurred by factory workers from machinery.
+From these statistics it appears that during the year 1899 there
+occurred in factories 301 fatal and 19,321 non-fatal accidents, all
+attributable to machinery moved by mechanical power. Beyond, however,
+stating that the numbers are the highest yet recorded in any one year,
+no useful purpose would be served by comparison with former years, or
+by inquiry as to the reasons of the increase in spite of legislative
+and executive requirements for safe-guarding. The Factory and Workshop
+Act of 1895 introduced such an entirely new element by the inclusion
+of every dock, wharf, warehouse, laundry, etc., in the definition of
+the term “factory,” that any comparison would be entirely misleading,
+whilst the facilities afforded in recent years by the introduction of,
+and improvements in, gas engines have added largely to the number of
+small factories using mechanical power, and therefore to the number
+of persons brought into direct contact with machinery. The statistics
+quoted are, however, in themselves sufficient to establish the
+importance of the subject of safeguards and the prevention of accidents.
+
+In searching for the causes of such a large number of annually
+occurring accidents they are found to be various, but after
+enumerating several, such as carelessness on the part of operatives,
+unsuitable clothing, insufficient lighting, etc., there remains a very
+considerable proportion directly attributable to the absence of proper
+safeguards. It is with this cause that this paper proposes chiefly to
+deal.
+
+With a view to prevention of such a distressing number of accidents,
+Parliament has, from time to time, passed enactments requiring certain
+steps to be taken for safe-guarding machinery, and the appointment
+of Inspectors has been made for the purpose of seeing that these
+provisions are duly carried out. Much, however, still remains to be
+done, not only through further legislation, but also by enforcing the
+requirements of the law as it at present stands. The latter course at
+first sight might appear to be feasible enough, but in reality it is
+a Herculean task, as difficult to accomplish as the destruction of
+the many-headed hydra of ancient fable, and is due to the fact that
+as fast as the requirements of the law are insisted upon and carried
+out in the case of machinery already existing in factories, so fast
+do makers of machinery send out new machines in a similarly defective
+condition. If the desired finality is to be arrived at, it must be by
+pressure brought to bear upon machine makers. At present machinery does
+not come within the provisions of the law as to safety till it is in
+actual use, when the attention of the user is perhaps first drawn to
+its defects by the occurrence of an accident. Much, no doubt, could be
+done were purchasers in all cases to insist on due regard being paid
+to this point by makers, but experience shows that this is done in
+very few instances. Whilst some parts of prime movers and mill-gearing
+must necessarily be fenced after being placed in position, there is
+no reason whatever why the effectual guarding of cog-wheels, the
+countersinking of set-screws, the provision of loose pulleys and strap
+forks, and the substitution of plate wheels for exposed arm wheels,
+which are all intrinsic parts of machines, absolutely necessary for
+ordinary safety, should not be dealt with in the first instance by
+makers who can provide more effective and neater guards at a much less
+cost than the user.
+
+The subject of safe-guarding machinery is such a wide one that it will
+be impossible, within the limits of this paper, to do more than briefly
+touch upon the more salient points which naturally present themselves
+to one accustomed to inquire into the causes of machinery accidents.
+For this purpose it will be most convenient to deal with machinery
+under the four following headings:--
+
+ 1. Prime movers.
+ 2. Mill-gearing and belts.
+ 3. Machines for manufacturing purposes.
+ 4. Hoists and other lifting tackle.
+
+Each of these divisions is separately dealt with by the provisions of
+the Factory Acts, but it should be pointed out that whereas belts have
+herein been coupled with mill-gearing, yet by Section 37 of the Factory
+Act of 1891, all “driving straps and bands” are expressly included
+in the term “machinery” and are therefore subject to the provisions
+laid down for the third division.[48] They are, however, so intimately
+connected with mill-gearing as more properly to belong to that class,
+and they will therefore be more conveniently dealt with in connection
+with mill-gearing, between which and the machine tools themselves they
+are the connecting link.
+
+_Prime Movers._--Prime movers are of various kinds, consisting
+of heat engines, such as steam, gas, and oil engines, electric and
+hydraulic motors, water-wheels, turbines, and wind-mills. Of these,
+those most commonly found in factories are steam and gas engines. The
+provisions of the Factory Acts as to safe-guarding prime movers are
+absolute. No matter what its position, every part of an engine moved by
+mechanical power is required to be securely fenced, and such fencing
+must be constantly maintained. Thus:--
+
+ Factory Act, 1901, Sec. 10.--“Every fly-wheel directly connected
+ with the steam, water, or other mechanical power, whether in the
+ engine-house or not, and every part of any water-wheel or engine
+ worked by any such power, shall be securely fenced.”
+
+ “Every wheel-race, not otherwise secured, shall be securely
+ fenced close to the edge of the wheel-race.”
+
+Such absolute provisions, if strictly carried out, should be amply
+sufficient to prevent almost all accidents arising from prime movers;
+but the danger lies in the fencing being in the first instance
+insufficient, or not properly and constantly maintained, in accordance
+with Sec. 10 (_d_) of the Factory Act of 1901. Accidents caused by
+prime movers are, of course, restricted in number, partly owing to the
+fact that they are usually in the sole charge of one man, and partly
+because, in the case of steam engines at least, they are generally
+placed in a house or compartment set apart for them, but it will be
+noted that the words “whether in the engine-house or not” are expressly
+used for the protection of the engine attendant himself.
+
+Occupiers of factories, owing to their absolute obligation to fence
+securely every part of a prime mover, and to their liabilities for
+any neglect to do so, should be specially careful to see that the law
+is fully carried out before an engine is put into use; whilst no
+exception should be tolerated for a moment by those whose duty it is to
+enforce the requirements of the law.
+
+The necessity of fencing being thus absolutely enjoined for every
+portion of a prime mover, the only point that remains is as to what
+constitutes secure fencing. Types of engines, however, are of so
+various a character, and the local surroundings so distinct, that it
+must suffice for the purposes of this paper to point out what parts of
+an engine are most liable to cause accidents, and, generally, the most
+approved steps which should be taken for their prevention.
+
+_Steam Engines._--As regards steam engines, all parts on the floor
+or platform level, such as fly-wheels and fly-wheel pits, crank and
+crank-pits, crank shafts, connecting rods, cross-heads, etc., should be
+securely fenced by means of rail fencing, whilst in the case of large
+vertical or beam engines, all stairs, platforms, and stagings should
+be efficiently guarded in similar manner. The fencing adopted should
+consist of double rails, the upper one being not less than 3 feet in
+height, whilst in many instances a skirting board 5 to 6 inches in
+depth should be added; single rails are either so high that persons may
+slip under them, or so low that they may fall over them. Care should
+also be taken that no railing be placed within a foot of the moving
+parts, the placing of such rails too close thereto being a source of
+great danger; whilst, on the other hand, the practice of leaving so
+much space between any moving part and the guard as to allow of a
+passage between them is equally to be condemned; moreover, the keeping
+of oil-cans, tools, etc., or the hanging up of clothes within the space
+fenced in accordance with statutory obligations should be absolutely
+forbidden. Other parts of steam engines requiring fencing which may
+be mentioned are piston rods prolonged through the end covers of
+cylinders, governor balls encroaching on a passage, and pinion wheels
+operating the governors.
+
+_Gas and Oil Engines._--The use of prime movers of the gas engine
+type has enormously increased of late years, adding greatly to the
+number of small factories as distinct from workshops. The safe-guarding
+of these, though they are relatively much smaller than the generality
+of steam engines, is none the less essential, for whereas the latter
+are usually placed in an engine-house specially built and separated
+from the factory itself, the former are in numerous instances placed
+within the factory, in some cases with a wooden compartment erected
+round them, and in others with nothing but the statutory fencing
+separating them from the rest of the works. Where these compartments
+are large enough, similar railing to that described above for steam
+engines will be found sufficient, but in many instances they are so
+confined as to necessitate more complete fencing in order to comply
+with the requirements of the Acts as to fencing securely any fly-wheel,
+whether in the engine-house or not.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 1.--Strong’s “Standard Guard”
+ for engine fly-wheels.]
+
+Wherever possible gas engines should be placed in a room set apart for
+them, so as to be isolated from the approach of unauthorised persons;
+those situated in the machine room of a factory are not only a source
+of danger to those employed therein, but so contaminate the atmosphere
+as to necessitate the provision of a fan to remove the fumes. In many
+cases, owing to the confined space of the engine compartment, or to
+the fact that the fly-wheel is in an exposed position facing into the
+machine room, a complete wire-work guard should be provided; these can
+be made either to slide, swing, or to be lifted so as to suit local
+surroundings; an illustration of such guards is shown in Fig. 1. Shaft
+ends projecting into passages should be fitted with metal caps so as
+to avoid the danger of clothing being caught. The common practice of
+starting a gas engine by hand, by pulling round the fly-wheel, is also
+attended with risk, but this can be avoided by the use of a starting
+handle, Fig. 2.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 2.--Safety starting-gear for gas
+ and oil engines. The gear can be attached to either end of
+ the shaft.]
+
+_Other Prime Movers._--Very similar rail-fencing to that described
+above for steam and gas engines may be applied in the case of other
+prime movers where electricity or water provide the moving power. As
+regards water-wheels, it should be noted that, although situated in a
+wheel-house, the same obligation to guard securely prevails as in the
+case of a steam engine, and in every instance the wheel-race must be
+fenced close to its edge.
+
+As for turbines and wind-mills, the most dangerous parts requiring to
+be fenced will be found to be toothed gearing and shafting.
+
+_Electrical Generators._--The special risks attendant on
+electrical generators from shocks scarcely perhaps come within the
+scope of this paper. Ordinary rail-fencing may be relied upon for
+protection of moving parts, though the railings should be made of some
+non-conducting material such as wood.
+
+_Mill-Gearing._--Mill-gearing is defined by Section 156 of the
+Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, as comprehending--
+
+ Factory Act, 1901, Sec. 156.--“Every shaft, whether upright,
+ oblique, or horizontal, and every wheel, drum, or pulley, by
+ which the motion of the first moving power is communicated to
+ any machine appertaining to a manufacturing process.”
+
+The provisions of the Factory Acts bearing on mill-gearing enact that:--
+
+ Factory Act, 1901, Sec. 10 (_c_).--“Every part of the
+ mill-gearing shall either be securely fenced, or be in such a
+ position, or of such construction, as to be equally safe to
+ every person employed or working in the factory, as it would be
+ if it were securely fenced.”
+
+ Factory Act, 1901, Sec. 13 (3).--“The cleaning of mill-gearing
+ whilst in motion is, moreover, prohibited for women, young
+ persons, and children.”
+
+Accidents caused by mill-gearing and belts are not only amongst the
+most numerous, but certainly amongst the most serious of all those to
+which persons employed in factories are subject, and yet nearly all
+such may be avoided by strict observance of the precautions proposed to
+be set forth herein.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 3.--Coupling with dangerous
+ projecting bolt-heads.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 4.--Safety Coupling with
+ countersunk bolt-heads.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 5.--Collar with dangerous
+ projecting set-screw.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 6.--Collar with countersunk
+ set-screw.]
+
+_Mill-Gearing._--First, as to construction and position, whilst
+the distance between the bearings which support a shaft must vary
+with the weight of the shaft and pulleys, and tension of the belts,
+it should never exceed 13 feet, and in order to comply with the
+requirement of the law quoted above, both shafting and pulleys should,
+wherever possible, be not less than 7 feet above the floor, otherwise
+the obligation to fence prevails. Shafting of considerable length is
+composed of separate parts connected by couplings. These couplings
+should always be near a pedestal and not in the middle of a span,
+and should invariably present a perfectly smooth surface, free from
+bolts or screws, which are liable to catch the clothes of workmen--the
+old-fashioned couplings with projecting heads of bolts and screws
+(Fig. 3) are the worst possible form; there are many kinds without any
+projections whatever (Fig. 4). Ends of keys fixing the pulleys or bevel
+wheels on to the shafting should either be cut off or protected by a
+key cover. All set-screws fastening collars to the shafting should be
+countersunk (Figs. 5 and 6). In fact it should be an absolute rule
+that projections of every kind should be removed from shafting. The
+dangers of shafting, however, do not cease with projections: it is an
+established fact that perfectly smooth shafting is highly dangerous;
+should the shaft be greasy or his clothing damp, a workman may be
+caught by a perfectly smooth shaft. That being so, no one should
+ever be allowed to come into direct contact with shafting in motion:
+cleaning or lubricating should only be done when it is at a standstill.
+
+_Access to Shafting._--Where shafting is of the requisite height
+named above, no further protection is required round the shafting
+itself, but seeing that it is necessary at times to reach it, proper
+and secure means of access should be provided. This can be done either
+by a service platform, when the shafting is very high, or by ladders
+adapted for the purpose. A service platform, whilst providing easy
+access to shafting, should keep the attendant at a safe distance from
+it, and at the same time guard against his falling. With a view to this
+it should be provided with a hand-rail not less than 3 feet in height,
+and a skirting board of 5 to 6 inches in depth to stop the foot in case
+of slipping. Ladders should invariably be supplied with hooks at the
+upper ends and spikes at the lower, the latter where the nature of the
+flooring permits. In no case, however, should an attendant be allowed
+to fix a ladder against a wall so as to place himself between the
+shafting and the wall.
+
+_Fencing of Low Shafting, etc._--Where, however, shafting and
+pulleys are not of the desired height above the floor, the obligation
+to fence both arises. When shafting is near the floor it should be
+completely covered by a sheet-iron or wooden casing, and the pulleys
+fenced so as to afford a safe passage for workmen by either stepping
+over the casing or crossing it by means of steps according to the
+height from the floor. Shafting from 3 to 6 feet above the floor
+should be protected by a secure rail preventing access to it except
+by passages so arranged and boarded as to prevent any contact with
+the shafting. Vertical shafts should in every case be surrounded by a
+sheet-iron or wooden sheath firmly fixed.
+
+_Pulleys._--Whenever driving pulleys are so situated that a
+workman has reason to pass near them, they should be securely fenced
+by means of boards or metallic netting, and it is desirable to fill up
+the pulleys with a disc of wood or sheet-iron fastened to the arms by
+means of screws. Loose pulleys should not be placed on the shafting
+itself; lest they grip the shaft and carry the belts round with them,
+but should be mounted independently.
+
+_Driving Belts._--Driving belts are a constant source of
+accidents. When a belt has been thrown off its pulley it should never
+be allowed to rest upon the shaft; when in that position it is liable
+to be wound rapidly round the shaft, carrying with it anything with
+which it comes into contact. This danger is easily avoided by means
+of a belt rest or hook fixed according to available surroundings.
+Another fruitful source of accidents through belting is the method in
+which they are joined; one should always be selected which presents
+no projections capable of catching clothing or dealing severe blows.
+Accidents have frequently occurred in both ways; hence the necessity of
+avoiding all projections on belting.
+
+_Shipping of Belts._--Accidents constantly occur during the
+shipping of belts. Workmen should be absolutely forbidden to put a
+belt on to a pulley by hand whilst the shaft is in motion at its full
+speed. It should be stopped altogether, or at least be greatly reduced
+in speed, in which latter case a man should be ready to complete the
+stoppage at once in case of danger occurring.
+
+_Belt Poles._--Where it is desired to avoid stoppage of the engine
+or shafting, belts should in all cases where possible be put on to
+the pulleys by means of a belt pole. It should be carefully borne in
+mind, however, that a short belt pole is in itself a source of danger,
+owing to its liability to deal a severe blow in case of the pin of the
+pole becoming in any way entangled; fatal accidents have occurred in
+this way, and therefore it is most important that the length of the
+pole should be nearly equal to the distance of the shafting from the
+floor, thus forcing the workman to hold it at his side instead of in
+front of him. In cases where, for some reason or other, a belt pole
+cannot be used, the necessity of stopping the shafting in order to put
+on the belt by hand may be avoided by means of an appliance termed a
+belt shipper, of which there are a number of types, and which enable
+a workman to ship a belt with the shafting in motion whilst he is
+standing on the floor.
+
+_Protection of Belts._--Owing to the danger arising from clothing
+being caught by belts, it is desirable in many cases to protect them;
+thus belts passing through floors should in all cases be surrounded
+with a casing of wood; oblique or horizontal belts should be protected
+by a railing preventing access to them, or by a trough below the belt
+securely fixed; the same remarks will apply to driving ropes, whilst
+the splicings of the latter should be frequently examined, owing to
+their liability to break and cause serious accidents in falling.
+
+_Bevel Wheels._--Bevel wheels on shafting should be encased with
+sheet-iron cover, with one of its faces opening for purposes of oiling.
+
+_Means of Stopping Machinery._--Many of the most serious accidents
+through mill-gearing and belts might be avoided if means existed for
+stopping the machinery quickly. When it is necessary to go to the
+engine-house to warn the engine driver to stop the engine, the mischief
+is done before this can be effected; some means, therefore, should be
+at hand to stop the machinery at once. In choice of the method by which
+disconnection is to be accomplished, preference should be given to one
+which brings it into play from many parts of the factory by mechanical
+or electrical means, whilst in some cases a brake acting upon a special
+pulley is provided and brought into play at the same time by the same
+means. The stoppage of the engine or the disconnection of the main
+shaft is attended by the disadvantage of stopping the whole of the
+machinery in the factory, and it is better, therefore, to disconnect
+each driving shaft individually, thus stopping the machinery in one
+room only. The disconnecting arrangements which are open to selection
+are numerous, but mainly consist of two classes, viz., toothed and
+friction clutches; of these preference may be given to friction
+clutches for various reasons.
+
+Lastly, with regard to mill-gearing, its care should be entrusted to
+special and experienced men, and no one else should be allowed to
+interfere with it. Attendants should, as far as possible, only approach
+it when it is at a standstill, and their clothing should invariably
+consist of tight-fitting jackets or jerseys, with nothing whatever
+loose about them.
+
+_Machine Tools._--Having thus disposed of the two first main
+branches of our subject, viz., prime movers which supply the motive
+power, and mill-gearing and belts which transmit it, it remains for us
+to deal with the vast number of machines to which the motive power is
+communicated and by which the manufacturing processes are carried out.
+These are so numerous that it would be useless to attempt to deal with
+them individually in this paper. It will, however, be possible to set
+forth certain rules which should invariably be observed in order to
+minimise the risks which at present unnecessarily present themselves to
+those whose duty it is to attend to machine tools. Whilst the danger
+of accidents from prime movers and mill-gearing is greatly restricted
+owing to the fact that they are, or ought invariably to be, in the
+sole charge of a limited number of experienced persons, the machines
+themselves are attended to by large numbers of men, women, young
+persons, and even children. There is, therefore, the greater necessity
+for taking every precaution possible to prevent the occurrence of
+accident thereby.
+
+The provisions of the Factory Acts with regard to machine tools are as
+follows:--
+
+ Factory Act, 1901, Sec. 10 (_c_).--“All dangerous parts of
+ the machinery shall either be securely fenced, or be in such a
+ position, or of such construction as to be equally safe to every
+ person employed or working in the factory, as it would be if it
+ were securely fenced.”
+
+ Factory Act, 1901, Sec. 10 (_d_).--“All fencing shall be
+ constantly maintained in an efficient state whilst the parts
+ required to be fenced are in motion or use.”
+
+By these provisions it will be observed that machine tools are placed
+on the same footing as mill-gearing, but with the additional precaution
+that--
+
+ Factory Act, 1901, Sec. 13.--“A child shall not be allowed to
+ clean any part of the machinery in a factory while the same is
+ in motion by the aid of steam, water, or other mechanical power.”
+
+In connection with this latter provision it is important to notice
+that in the case of Pearson _v._ Belgian Mills Co., (1896), 1 Q.
+B. 244, it was held that the words “the same” in the section, refer to
+the machinery as a whole, whether fixed or in motion, and not merely
+to such parts of it as are in motion; the employment, therefore, of a
+child to clean the fixed part of machinery in motion constitutes an
+infringement of the Act.
+
+Further enactments for safety in connection with machines are that--
+
+ Factory Act, 1901, Sec. 12 (3).--“A child, young person, or
+ woman shall not be allowed to work between the fixed and
+ traversing part of any self-acting machine while the machine is
+ in motion by the action of steam, water, or other mechanical
+ power.”
+
+ Factory Act, 1901, Sec. 12 (1).--“In a factory erected after the
+ commencement of 1896, the traversing carriage of any self-acting
+ machine shall not be allowed to run out within a distance of
+ eighteen inches from any fixed structure, not being part of the
+ machine, if the space over which it so runs out is a space over
+ which any person is liable to pass, whether in the course of his
+ employment or otherwise.”
+
+ Factory Act, 1901, Sec. 12 (2).--“A person employed in a factory
+ shall not be allowed to be in the space between the fixed
+ and traversing portions of a self-acting machine, unless the
+ machine is stopped with the traversing portion on the outward
+ run, but for the purpose of this provision the space in front
+ of a self-acting machine shall not be included in the space
+ aforesaid.”
+
+ Factory Act, 1901, Sec. 156.--“The expression ‘machinery’ shall
+ include any driving ‘strap or band,’ which are therefore subject
+ to the same provisions as to safety as mill-gearing and machine
+ tools.”
+
+The Acts also give powers to deal with dangerous machinery or parts
+thereof:--
+
+ Factory Act, 1901, Sec. 17 (1).--“By application to a Court
+ of Summary Jurisdiction for an order prohibiting the use of a
+ machine dangerous to life or limb until it is duly repaired or
+ altered.”
+
+ Factory Act, 1901, Sec. 13 (2).--“By notifying it as dangerous,
+ in which case it becomes illegal for young persons to clean such
+ parts in motion.”
+
+_Fencing of Dangerous Machinery._--With respect to the fencing
+of machinery in a factory, the importance of the words “all dangerous
+parts of the machinery,” which were superadded by Sect. 6 (2) of
+the Factory Act of 1891 to Sect. 5 (3) of the Act of 1878, should
+be carefully noted. Formerly there was absolute obligation to fence
+only in respect of prime movers and mill-gearing, whilst in the case
+of other machinery which an inspector considered dangerous, he was
+required by Sect. 6 of the 1878 Act to serve notice to fence on an
+occupier, who was empowered, if he thought fit, to have the matter
+determined by arbitration. Now the obligation to fence extends to
+all dangerous parts of the machinery, and the question whether it
+is dangerous or not has to be decided by the Court in each case. In
+connection with this it should be noticed that in the case of Hindle v.
+Birtwistle (1897) the Court of Queen’s Bench held that the enactment
+applies to all machinery from which, in the ordinary course of working,
+danger may arise by reason of carelessness on the part of the workmen,
+or of external causes. It should therefore be sufficient, in order to
+prove the dangerous character of any part of a machine, to show that
+accidents are frequently caused thereby.
+
+In propounding certain rules for safety, which should be carefully
+carried out in the construction of all machines, it may be pointed out
+that these are not based upon mere opinion, but on the experience and
+statistics of many years.
+
+_Set-screws._--It has been one of the most pernicious habits of
+almost all machine makers in this country to send out their machinery
+bristling with projecting set-screws, etc., which are not only
+unsightly, but also the frequent source of accidents through catching
+clothing. They are often situated either on or in close proximity
+to shafts, spindles, collars, or cog-wheels, whereby the dangers
+attendant on these are greatly enhanced. Hence our first rule, which
+should be absolute respecting all machinery, should be: (1) _No
+projections shall be allowed on anything that revolves._ There are
+various methods of avoiding such projections by countersinking or
+otherwise, of which illustrations are given above (Figs. 7 to 9).
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 7.--Shows a safe form of
+ set-screw (_s_), which is deeply recessed, and can only
+ be adjusted by a box key (_k_).]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 8.--For use with screwdriver.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 9.--Halstead’s Patent
+ Unbreakable Square-hole Solid-ended Grub Screw. For use with
+ square-ended key, similar to railway carriage key.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 10.--Incomplete guards for
+ spur wheels. (The points of danger are marked A, A and B, B
+ respectively.)]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 11.--Spur wheels with suitable
+ guards (G, G). (The arms of wheels may be covered with discs
+ if needed).]
+
+_Toothed Wheels._--Toothed wheels are probably the cause of more
+accidents than any other portion of a machine, and their protection
+has been and is still sadly neglected. They are frequently sent out
+by makers either with no guard whatever, or with such an inefficient
+guard as only to partially cover the wheels, thereby doubling the
+danger to be met by forming two points of junction between the wheels
+and the guard instead of one only presented by the wheels themselves
+(Figs. 10 to 12). Our second rule should therefore be: (2) _All
+toothed wheels shall be so effectually covered as to leave no danger
+between the guard and the wheels._
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 12.--Shows a good form of guard
+ (D, D) to cover bevel wheels (E, E).]
+
+_Shaft or Spindle Ends._--Machine makers frequently leave
+projecting shafts or spindles at each side of a machine so as to allow
+of choice in the arrangement of pulleys. These are frequently a source
+of serious accidents, and our third rule should be: (3) _All exposed
+shaft ends shall be securely covered._ This can easily and simply
+be done by means of a metal cap fitting sufficiently close to revolve
+with the shaft, but which will instantly stop on clothing, etc., being
+caught by it (Fig. 13).
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 13.--Shows a method of covering
+ shaft ends with a sheet-metal cap (G).]
+
+_Loose Pulleys and Strap Forks._--Most machines are now supplied
+by makers with loose pulleys and strap forks, but exceptions can be
+found, more especially in the manufacture of cotton, in the case of
+carding engines and drawing frames; on the former, though loose pulleys
+are invariably supplied, strap forks are in most instances absent,
+thus necessitating the moving of the belt from one pulley to the other
+by hand or by a stick, a very dangerous proceeding, causing frequent
+accidents. The most dangerous point is where the belt first touches the
+driving pulley, and this is guarded where a well-arranged strap fork
+is provided. In the case of drawing frames both loose pulley and strap
+fork have generally been omitted, with the result that the undershaft
+cannot be stopped for cleaning without throwing the belt off by hand,
+causing additional danger in replacing the belt on the pulley. Our
+fourth rule, therefore, should be: (4) _Loose pulleys and strap forks
+shall be provided for all machines._
+
+_Plate Wheels._--Arm wheels running at high speed are frequently
+the cause of accidents. Such are specially found in the balance wheels
+of power looms, the rim pulleys of self-acting mules, and the speed
+wheels of platen printing machines. These wheels can in almost all
+cases be made safe, and our last rule should be: (5) _Plate wheels
+or wheels filled in shall be substituted, wherever possible, for arm
+wheels running at high speed_ (Fig. 22).
+
+Each of these rules relate to intrinsic parts of the machines, and
+should therefore be dealt with by the makers themselves, who can
+carry them out with little or no extra cost at the time of making.
+Unfortunately, however, it has been in many instances the practice to
+have one type of machine for the home, and another for the foreign
+market, the latter with much more efficient guards, owing to the
+stricter laws which prevail in certain countries as to the occurrence
+of accidents.
+
+_Hoists._--We now come to the last head of our subject, viz., the
+safe-guarding of hoists and other lifting tackle. The requirements of
+the Factory Act as to these are absolute.
+
+ Factory Act, 1901, Sec. 10 (_a_).--“Every hoist or teagle
+ shall be securely fenced.”
+
+The importance of this enactment may be gathered from the fact that in
+1899 there occurred 27 fatal and 315 non-fatal accidents from hoists
+alone, whilst other lifting tackle was responsible for 66 fatal and
+1497 non-fatal. Parliament has fully recognised the dangers arising
+from this class of machinery by the omission, in the Factory Act of
+1891, of the limitation contained in the Act of 1878, “near to which
+any person is liable to pass or be employed,” thus placing hoists on
+precisely the same footing as prime movers, the fencing of which, as
+shown above, is absolutely compulsory.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 14.--Knowles’ Improved Safety
+ Hoist.]
+
+Cage hoists are most frequently found in factories, and in these the
+cage should invariably be roofed over, whilst each side of the cage
+should be cased in, except that used for exit, thus avoiding danger
+from anything falling down the hoist-way, and also from projecting
+obstacles therein. On each floor the hoist-way should be guarded by
+doors not less than 5½ to 6 feet in height. The single bar or chain
+which used so frequently to be found is a constant source of danger
+from persons looking down the well and being trapped between the bar
+and the bottom of the cage. Falls down the hoist-way through absence
+of any protecting gate, through the latter being carelessly left open,
+or owing to the cage being moved to another floor without warning,
+frequently occur. For perfect safety hoists should be in the sole
+charge of a special attendant, whose duty it should be to travel with
+the cage, opening or shutting the doors at each landing as required,
+the fastenings of which should be accessible only from the inside.
+Otherwise, automatic gates may be used, so adjusted as to open on the
+arrival at, and close on the departure of the cage from, each landing;
+it should not be practicable to open these from the outside, and where
+there is not sufficient headway for a gate six feet in height, it may
+be made to telescope.
+
+There are several patent hoists which answer to this description
+in greater or less degree, but we must content ourselves here with
+an illustration and description of one of the best methods of
+safe-guarding hoists, viz., by means of the Knowles safety locking gear
+for cage hoists (Fig. 14).
+
+Careful attention should be paid to the gear for suspending the cage,
+in order to prevent accidents from the breaking of the ropes and the
+precipitation of the cage to the bottom of the hoist-way. For greater
+safety two wire ropes should be used, which should be periodically
+and systematically examined. Some one of the various safety gears
+for arresting the fall of the cage should also be adopted; in this
+connection we give an illustration (Fig. 15) of “Morgan’s patent safety
+catches,” which sustain the cage in case of the hoisting ropes breaking
+through some mishap. In the matter of safe-guarding hoists, also, we
+are far behind other countries where the law compels employers to
+provide safety catches and doors for every cage hoist.
+
+_Teagles._--Hoisting of goods is often performed by means of a
+teagle either outside the buildings of the factory, or inside through
+openings in the floors. In the latter case these openings in each floor
+should be securely railed; whilst in the former the attendant should
+invariably be supplied with a safety belt, strong enough to suspend
+him in the air should he fall. In case, however, of an outside teagle,
+the dangerous and laborious work of swinging the goods into the room
+can be avoided by the use of a self-landing and delivering hoist (Fig.
+16), which will not only lift goods off the lorry and take them into
+the room, but will also pick them up inside the room, travel with them
+outside the doorway, and lower them on to the lorry.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 15.--Morgan’s Patent Safety
+ Catch.]
+
+_Cranes, Winches, etc._--Although the Factory Acts deal
+specifically only with “hoists” and “teagles,” yet the numerous
+accidents mentioned above as attributable to other lifting tackle,
+plainly point to the urgent need for safeguards, and care in its use.
+The provisions of the Acts as to hoists are of long standing, and were
+enacted when the term “factory” did not embrace every dock, wharf,
+quay, warehouse, and building in course of erection. Great care,
+however, should be taken to securely fence all bevel wheels of cranes,
+winches, etc., and periodical examination of all chains, ropes, etc.,
+should be strictly carried out. It should be remembered that steam
+cranes partake of the nature of the two first divisions of our subject,
+viz., engines and mill-gearing.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 16.--Wadsworth’s Self-Landing
+ and Delivering Hoist.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 17.--Self-acting Mules. Guards
+ for the drawing-out band, and pulley at the out end of frame.
+ Shows unsatisfactory guard (A).]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 18.--Shows a guard which
+ completely covers the band round pulley (C, D).]
+
+In the preceding pages some pains have been taken to set forth certain
+regulations which should equally apply to all machinery. It has been
+shown that the provisions of the law as to fencing prime movers and
+hoists are absolute, and equally so those applying to mill-gearing
+unless it be in such a position and of such construction as to be
+equally safe, as if it were fenced, whilst the machines by which the
+manufacturing processes are carried out are dealt with by means of the
+general instruction that “all dangerous parts of the machinery shall be
+securely fenced,” subject to the same reservation as to position and
+construction as in the case of mill-gearing. Except in the instances
+of grinding in tenement factories, chaff-cutting machines, and perhaps
+it may be added, of self-acting machines, the law has not yet entered
+into any details as to safe-guarding machine tools. Apart, however,
+from general rules applicable to all, there remain certain machine
+tools which, owing to the nature of their construction and use, are
+peculiarly liable to the occurrence of accidents. For these special
+guards are necessary, and their invention and use have been spurred on
+by the liabilities of employers under the Compensation Acts. It would
+not be possible here to illustrate a tithe of these machines and the
+most approved guards invented for them, but it is proposed to select
+a few machines which are shown by statistics to be the most frequent
+cause of accidents, and the means by which these accidents may, in part
+at any rate, be obviated.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 19.--Self-acting Mules.
+ Elevation--Foot-guard for carriage wheels. The guard (G) is
+ fixed to the bracket (B), and surrounds the wheel (W) at a
+ slight distance above the slip or rail (S).]
+
+_Self-acting Mules._--Dealing first with our great textile
+industries, and specially with that of cotton, it will be found that by
+far the greatest number of accidents occurs in the mule-rooms. Owing to
+the complicated nature of their construction no one illustration could
+exhibit all the necessary guards for self-acting mules, but an analysis
+of the accidents caused by them shows that the parts which are the most
+fruitful source of injuries to workers are:--
+
+ 1. Scroll or draw bands and pulleys.
+ 2. Carriage wheels and slips.
+
+For the first, incomplete and approved guards are shown in Figs. 17
+and 18; whilst for the second, two types of guards in common use are
+illustrated in Figs. 19 to 21.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 20.--Hargreave’s Mule Carriage
+ Wheel Guard.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 21.--Hargreave’s Mule Carriage
+ Wheel Guard.]
+
+_Looms._--Next to mules, power looms are the most frequent cause
+of accidents in a cotton mill. These present an excellent specimen of
+the dangerous character of exposed arm wheels running at high speed
+alluded to above. An illustration of safeguards for the ends of looms
+will be found in Fig. 22. During 1899 flying shuttles were the cause
+of 1 fatal and 161 non-fatal accidents. Shuttle guards, of which an
+example is given in Fig. 23, are either rigid or semi-automatic, but
+in either case great care has to be taken that they are not fixed too
+high on the slay cap.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 22.
+
+ FRONT
+ Balance Wheel removed, showing guard
+ over spur wheels.
+
+ SIDE
+ Spur Wheels guarded
+ at intake side.
+
+ FRONT
+ Balance Wheel (Plate Wheel) in position, guarding
+ the crank and tappet wheels (toothed).]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 23]
+
+Turning to non-textile machinery, probably no three classes of machine
+tools show so large an array of accidents as:--
+
+ 1. Circular saws.
+ 2. Planing machines.
+ 3. Power presses.
+
+Each of these classes present dangers peculiar to itself, and therefore
+needs special safeguards.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 24.--Elvatka Guard.]
+
+_Circular Saws._--Circular saws during the year 1899 were
+responsible for 1289 accidents, of which 9 proved fatal. The purposes
+for which they are used are so various that no one universal guard
+is practicable, but in all cases a riving knife should be provided
+at the back of the saw, whilst as much of the top and front should
+also be covered as circumstances will permit. Figures 24 to 27 show
+illustrations of a few guards which appear best to fulfil these
+requirements.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 25.--Longmore’s Guard.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 26.--Victor Guard.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 28.--Campbell and Greenwood’s
+ Guard.]
+
+_Planing Machines._--Accidents through planing machines are of
+frequent occurrence. They are often of such a severe nature that no
+planing machine should be permitted to be used without an efficient
+guard, of which an illustration is given in Fig. 28.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 27.--Woodhouse and Mitchell’s
+ Guard.]
+
+_Power Presses._ Power presses like circular saws are put to so
+many uses that various forms of guards are needed to suit the variety
+of work. They are usually put into motion in one of two ways: either
+the plunger is released by means of a foot treadle or by a hand lever.
+Of these the latter naturally presents the fewest elements of danger,
+owing to the necessary position of one hand whilst using the lever.
+Additional safety has recently been imparted by the introduction of
+machines furnished not only with hand levers, but also fitted with
+slides obviating any necessity for either hand to approach the die.
+
+Fig. 29 illustrates an approved guard for an ordinary tin stamping or
+cutting press.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 29.--Power Presses.]
+
+
+
+
+ ADDENDA.
+
+
+ FIG. 14.--DESCRIPTION OF KNOWLES’S IMPROVED SAFETY
+ HOIST.
+
+ The rod A, which extends the full depth of the hoist well, is
+ attached at its upper end to the lever B, the latter carrying
+ the lever C with the stop or projection D, which drops into
+ the toothed rim S on the side of the starting pulley E, and
+ locks the hoist when a door is open, as in Fig. 1. Each door
+ is provided with the lever H, mounted on the centre I, one end
+ being coupled to the rod A by the arm K and rod L, the other
+ end being fitted with the bolt or draw-bar X. To the lever C is
+ attached the hook T extending over the lever B, by which the
+ stop or projection D, on the lever C, is lifted out of gear with
+ the tooth rim S in making an upward movement, caused by dropping
+ the bolt or draw-bar X. When the lever B drops, by the action
+ of opening one of the doors, the stop or projection D on the C
+ is pressed or forced into the toothed rim S by the spring V, as
+ shown in Fig. 2. This apparatus operates as follows:--When the
+ attendant desires to work the hoist, he simply closes the door
+ and drops the bolt or draw-bar X into the hole or slot N in
+ the threshold O, which lifts the levers B and C by the upward
+ movement of the rod A, and moves the stop or projection D from
+ the toothed rim S, as in Fig. 3, at which point it remains
+ until one of the levers H is operated from the inside by the
+ attendant, when it is locked, as shown in Fig. 2. When the stop
+ or projection D is removed from the toothed rim S, the starting
+ band or chain P is at liberty to be operated in the requisite
+ direction at will. To prevent the hoist being started when a
+ door is open, the lever H is latched into the catch or fixing R.
+ It is impossible to start the hoist until the attendant has both
+ closed and bolted the doors.
+
+ FIG. 15.--MORGAN’S PATENT SAFETY CATCH. (An improved
+ safety gear for colliery cages, hoists, lifts, etc.)
+
+ _To sustain the Cage, in case through any mishap the Hoisting
+ Ropes break._--In the arrangements of these catches, two strong
+ steel colliery rods are stretched from top to bottom of the
+ hoist well, and the cage is fitted with two or more cams, across
+ the face of which grooves are made to correspond with the
+ strands of the steel guides.
+
+ The cams are fitted in a steel casing, through which the guides
+ pass, so that should the hoisting ropes break, the steel guides
+ are at once gripped by the cams, which hold the cage suspended.
+
+ H. S. RICHMOND.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XV
+
+ AGRICULTURE; HORSES; CATTLE
+
+ _Agriculture_
+
+
+(1) _Labourers._--The manifold occupations included under the
+general term of tilling the soil, exercises a beneficial effect on
+the husbandman as regards mere length of days, for he often lives far
+beyond the allotted span, although he rarely comes to the end of his
+career a hale and hearty old man. His operations are carried out for
+the most part in the open air, leisurely, and in a greater or less
+degree of isolation. His condition, therefore, has its drawbacks as
+well as its advantages. As one of the oldest occupations of mankind
+it has been very largely adopted as a means of gaining a livelihood,
+and, until recently, the supply of farm labourers has exceeded the
+demand. It is badly paid; the farmer, at least in England, has many
+anxieties, disappointments and losses in his crops and stock; the
+labourer receives but small wages, and has perforce to put up with
+scanty living and poor accommodation. The living is made worse by the
+ignorance of cooking and domestic economy, which is so general amongst
+the wives and daughters of the labouring class. Field work begins early
+in the morning, and leads to exposure in all weathers. It is usually so
+monotonous, that it is unattractive to the better intellects amongst
+the lower orders; it is sometimes very hard, as during hay-making and
+harvest, and it is occasionally dangerous, as in hedging and ditching.
+
+“Rheumatic” affections are foremost amongst the bodily ills of field
+workers, not often as acute rheumatism, but rather in some of the
+protean forms which affect the connective tissues. Osteo-arthritis,
+sciatica, lumbago, and valvular heart lesions are commonly met with.
+Indeed, the rheumatic affections of old age have been known for so
+long a time that Scapula, in his great lexicon, says, with doubtful,
+though picturesque, etymology, “Γέρων, the Greek word for an old
+man, has been derived by some παρὰ τὸ εἰς γῆν ὁρᾷν, because old men
+by their stooping look towards the earth; though others, with more
+probability, derive it from the same stem as Γέρας, on account of the
+reverence due to age.” The etymology, whether right or wrong, draws
+attention to the stooping habit which is typically a senile kyphosis,
+though it is accentuated by occupation, and is found early in middle
+life in agricultural labourers, as often as in tailors, cobblers,
+clerks, Swiss mountain porters, and, latterly, in some bicyclists. True
+senile kyphosis or stooping arises from simple weakness and wasting
+of the tissues, with absorption of the intervertebral discs, and is
+not necessarily due to rheumatism. But amongst agricultural labourers,
+it is usually associated with osteoarthritic changes, which tend to
+unite the individual vertebræ by bridges of bone, whilst it thickens
+the spines and hardens the ligaments. The stage of anchylosis is often
+preceded by a period of inflammatory softening, which leads to more or
+less deformity of the vertebral column, for lateral curvature is nearly
+as common as the forward stoop to which the name kyphosis is given.
+
+The same factors of hard manual labour, often in constrained attitudes
+and under unfavourable conditions of weather, produce other “rheumatic”
+affections, such as pains in the limbs, aching in the bones and
+stiffness in the joints, which disturb the comfort without lessening
+materially the wage-earning power of the rural population. No one can
+have attended the local fair or feast without noticing the peculiar
+shuffling walk, and the knock-knee of the ploughboy, the results
+respectively of flatfoot and over-growth, aided by badly fitting,
+uncouth boots, and a habit of walking over uneven surfaces.
+
+The palmar fascia of the hand often becomes contracted--Dupuytren’s
+contraction--a condition whose cause is unknown, though it has
+been variously attributed to such predisposing causes as gout and
+rheumatism, or to habits and occupations necessitating pressure in
+the palm and flexion of the fingers, as in digging. The contraction
+usually begins in that portion of the fascia which is continued on
+to the sheath of the flexor tendon of the little finger, afterwards
+attacking the portion extending to the ring finger, and sometimes
+the remaining fingers. The fingers are thereby flexed and drawn down
+towards the palm, with which they may even be fixed in contact. This
+form of contraction may be distinguished from that due to a contracted
+tendon, by the puckering of the skin in consequence of its adhesion
+to the fascia, and by the contracting band bifurcating to be inserted
+upon either side of the flexor tendon, whilst the contracted tendon is
+placed centrally, and can be traced under the annular ligament.
+
+The kindness of the late Dr Tinley, and Dr Granger at Whitby, and of
+my brother-in-law Mr G. H. Fosbroke, the County Medical Officer of
+Worcestershire, has lately allowed me to examine the death returns
+of two typically rural districts. The chief causes of death are
+bronchitis, including pneumonia and pleurisy; heart disease, a very
+vague term covering a multitude of pathological conditions; and
+phthisis. The deaths from bronchitis and heart disease, in a period of
+ten years, are nearly equal in number, whilst those from phthisis were
+only half as many as either of the other two.
+
+Typhoid fever is endemic in many districts, owing to the improper
+disposal of excrement, and from the use of polluted water in surface
+wells.
+
+Some of the older countrymen living in the fen districts east of
+Cambridge still take opium regularly to keep off ague, and I have a
+working hypothesis that these same dwellers in districts which were
+once highly malarious are now more subject to cancer than persons who
+live in towns where the soil is drier and insects are fewer. Be this
+as it may, however, gardeners and those who have to handle soot in the
+course of their work are liable to develop epitheliomatous ulcers of
+the hand and wrist more often than those who are free from such source
+of local irritation.
+
+Lunacy is increasing markedly amongst the rural population in some
+parts of the country, and notably in Ireland. This is probably due
+to the tide of emigration carrying away the more highly endowed and
+enterprising, whilst it leaves the old and those who are enfeebled in
+body and mind.
+
+Agricultural labourers do not, on the whole, fare very badly. Even with
+low wages and bad sanitary surroundings, the social condition of the
+English farm hand compares most favourably with that of the peasantry
+in many European countries. The absence of the three great diseases
+epidemic amongst those who are reduced to the lowest depths of misery
+by chronic starvation, is a proof of this superior position. The three
+diseases are ergotism from the use of spurred rye; pellagra due to bad
+maize; and lathyrism caused by the consumption of the chick-pea.
+
+Ergotism is rife amongst the rye-eating inhabitants of Germany,
+Bohemia, Sweden, Russia, and the central provinces of France. It occurs
+especially after rainy seasons, and the bread made from the diseased
+rye is violet in colour, and of a disagreeable taste and smell. It is
+usually badly made and badly baked. The symptoms of ergot poisoning
+are either acute or chronic. The acute form begins with giddiness,
+headache, lassitude, and disturbances of sight and hearing, which have
+led to its being called “ergot intoxication.” The chronic poisoning is
+ushered in with symptoms of ergot intoxication, but the later stages
+are either convulsive or gangrenous. The convulsive form is marked by
+intermittent clonic spasms of the limbs, with dilatation of the pupil,
+delirium, and coma, which soon ends in death, without any appearance
+of gangrene. The mortification in the gangrenous form is preceded by
+pain in the part, with intolerable “creeping” feelings, followed by
+diminished sensibility, which ends in dry gangrene, and finally in
+separation of the affected tissues. The patients suffer occasionally
+from vomiting of blood, or from passing blood in the urine, the
+bleeding being as difficult to arrest as in hæmophilia.
+
+Pellagra from the consumption of bad maize, truly known as the
+_malattia della miseria_, is epidemic in parts of France, Spain,
+Italy, Africa, and Brazil. It requires for its full manifestation
+a most wretched peasantry. Pellagra is characterised by headache,
+depression of spirits, sleeplessness, cramps, palsies, giddiness, and
+dyspepsia. There are vague but often severe pains in the spine and
+joints, and there is a skin eruption, which begins in April or May,
+and goes from bad to worse, until it begins to improve in July or
+August. The eruption is an erythema of the parts exposed to the sun.
+The skin becomes swollen and tense, with petechiæ and bullæ, which
+leave indolent ulcers when they break. The attacks recur in the spring
+of each year, until in time the skin becomes thickened and of a light
+sepia colour. The nervous symptoms culminate in a settled melancholia.
+The spinal cord appears to be definitely affected both in ergotism and
+pellagra, the posterior columns suffering chiefly in ergot poisoning,
+the lateral columns in pellagra.
+
+Lathyrism results from the use of the chick-pea (_Lathyrus
+sativus_, _cicer_, or _clymenum_) as an article of diet.
+Like ergotism and pellagra, it is associated with extremely wretched
+conditions of life, and has been observed in France, in the Abruzzi,
+at Allahabad, and in other parts of India. Oxen, horses, pigs, and
+geese are attacked as well as men. The symptoms point to an affection
+of the lower part of the spinal cord, and are manifested by a sudden
+inability to use the legs in the ordinary manner. The legs are so
+stiff that when the patient walks he is obliged to throw his body into
+a succession of curves, so that he describes a screw or figure of eight
+as he proceeds. There is much hyperæsthesia of the lower extremities,
+which may be followed by loss of sensation, though the patient
+complains of the same tingling sensations as are felt in ergotism. The
+onset is usually sudden, and is coincident with the advent of cold
+weather, but the symptoms take four or five weeks to reach a maximum.
+
+The increasing use of machinery in ploughing, reaping, threshing, and
+other farming operations leads necessarily to a greater number of
+machine accidents than was formerly the case when labour was abundant
+and machines were few. Even small farmers now possess a chaff-cutter,
+and injuries to the hands and arms produced by its cog-wheels are
+correspondingly frequent. Much more serious injuries are caused by
+the large threshing and reaping machines, which are sometimes tended
+by unskilled persons, as they are often let out on hire. Overstrain
+from the lifting of loads in awkward positions during harvest is no
+uncommon cause of hernia in those who are otherwise predisposed to this
+condition. Poisoned wounds of the hand, and penetrating wounds of the
+eye, are often sustained in the occupation of hedging and ditching, a
+form of labour which is also the cause of rheumatism. Occasionally,
+too, an agricultural labourer presents himself with a viper bite, for
+vipers are still indigenous in several parts of England. He complains
+of a burning pain at the part bitten, the limb swells and becomes
+discoloured within an hour or two, there is great prostration marked
+by sweating, vomiting, feeble pulse, and restlessness. The more acute
+symptoms usually pass off in the course of twelve to twenty-four
+hours, but in unhealthy persons the swelling increases; there may be
+suppuration, and the bite then ends in a severe attack of inflammation
+of the tissues, known as cellulitis.
+
+In like manner stings from bees, wasps, hornets, and gnats, which
+are usually of small importance, may become serious, either from the
+bad condition of the patient’s health, or from the position of the
+sting, as when the mouth or conjunctiva is affected. A tolerance is
+established for bee-stings and gnat-bites, as is shown by the very
+slight reaction which takes place in bee-keepers and the inhabitants of
+mosquito countries, as compared with the sufferings of a town-bred man
+who is stung by either of these insects.
+
+In mushroom-poisoning the poisonous constituent is muscarin, a
+nitrogenous body allied to cholin. It causes vomiting, diarrhœa,
+and prostration, with convulsions and contraction of the pupil.
+Death may occur from syncope and failure of respiration, but such an
+ending is rare, except in children, because the vomiting promotes the
+evacuation of the poison. Atropin is the physiological antidote, and
+a subcutaneous injection of as much as ¹⁄₃₀ to ¹⁄₁₆ of a grain may be
+given hypodermically, whilst diffusible stimulants are administered by
+the mouth.
+
+(2) _Gardeners_ appear to suffer from many of the affections
+common to farm-labourers, except that as they receive higher wages
+they are better clothed, better fed, and better housed, and are thus
+able to withstand climatic changes more successfully. It is said, on
+the other hand, that gardeners are somewhat more liable to phthisis.
+Their work in hothouses causes them to catch cold more easily, and may
+thus increase any predisposition to infection by the tubercle bacillus.
+The handling of such plants as the _Primula obconica_ sometimes
+produces a very troublesome erythema of the skin, whilst constant
+contact with fresh soil allows greater opportunities of contracting
+tetanus.
+
+The Museum of St Bartholomew’s Hospital contains an interesting
+specimen, showing that the epitheliomatous form of cancer sometimes
+follows the irritation produced by gardening. The specimen consists
+of the hand and part of the forearm removed on account of a growth
+covering nearly half the surface of the skin. The growth is warty, very
+vascular, superficially ulcerated, and with an everted sinuous edge.
+It bears a close resemblance to an ulcerated cancer of the scrotum in
+chimney sweepers. The patient was forty-nine years old. Five years
+before the amputation of his hand he was employed as a gardener in
+strewing soot over the ground for several mornings in succession;
+a warty growth then formed, and it increased and ulcerated in the
+spring of both the following years, whilst he was similarly employed.
+After this, though he was no longer in contact with soot, the disease
+increased until the limb was removed. He recovered completely after the
+operation. The case is related by Sir James Earle in his edition of
+Percivall Pott’s works.
+
+Dupuytren’s contraction of the palmar fascia is by no means uncommon
+in gouty and rheumatic gardeners as they become advanced in years. It
+is best treated by dissecting out the contracted bands, if this can
+be done without suppuration, the resulting scar being afterwards kept
+supple by daily massage.
+
+
+ _Horses._
+
+(3) _Ostlers, Stablemen, and Cartmen._--This class of men, from
+their close attendance in stables, necessarily contract the diseases
+which are transmissible from horses to ourselves. Foremost amongst
+these diseases are glanders and farcy, of which I have seen several
+cases in veterinary students; and tetanus, whose bacillus is said to
+live in the horse’s intestines.
+
+Glanders, in its acute or generalised pyæmic form known as farcy,
+attacks grooms, ostlers, coachmen, knackers, and veterinary surgeons,
+because they are brought into contact with diseased animals. It has
+also been seen as a result of accidental infection in the pathological
+laboratory during the preparation of mallein; in surgeons who have
+operated upon glandered patients, and even in washerwomen who have
+washed the clothes of those affected.
+
+Glanders occurs in an acute form which kills in eight to fifteen days,
+and a chronic form said to last as long as eleven years.
+
+Acute glanders in man has an incubation period of three to eight days,
+though the symptoms are occasionally delayed for three weeks, or they
+may appear within twenty-four hours, and suppuration may occur at the
+end of the second day. The patient complains of a general feeling of
+ill-health with headache, and such vague pains in the muscles and
+joints as lead him to think that he is about to have acute rheumatism.
+The symptoms increase in severity, and there is often sufficient
+gastro-intestinal disturbance associated with deafness and stupor to
+lead to an erroneous diagnosis of typhoid fever. The pulse is full and
+soft, beating 90 to 100 in a minute; the skin is dry; the mouth foul,
+and epistaxis is frequent. Swellings--“the farcy buds”--soon appear in
+the intermuscular planes near the joints on both sides of the body. The
+swellings are at first hard, but they quickly soften, point, burst, and
+leave large foul ulcers, which eventually contract into sinuses if the
+patient survive. The case may then be looked upon as one of chronic
+pyæmia, especially as rigors are numerous and severe, but all doubt as
+to the true nature of the disease is set at rest when the face becomes
+affected. The skin over the nose is reddened and swollen, whilst the
+mucous membrane is injected and discharges a fœtid secretion, clear
+at first, but soon becoming yellow, purulent, viscid, and finally
+blood-stained. Ulceration of the nasal mucous membrane occurs less
+frequently in man than in the horse. The conjunctivæ are often affected
+in a manner similar to the nasal mucous membrane, and the inflammatory
+condition spreads to the pharynx, palate, and glottis. Dyspnœa, with
+pleuritic pain, may be a marked symptom of the disease, extensive
+gangrene may occur, and death follows.
+
+Glanders is generally inoculated through a wound or abrasion, but
+the bacilli are able to penetrate to the uninjured lymphatics of the
+skin by way of the hair follicles, and in the case of two veterinary
+students who have been under my care the infection was directly
+traceable to their being sneezed over by a glandered horse they were
+examining. If a wound be the seat of infection it may heal, but in a
+day or two it becomes swollen and painful, an eruption of vesicles
+often appears round it, and the lymphatics become swollen and painful,
+though the glands are rarely affected. The skin, in some cases of
+farcy, shows erythematous patches like those of erysipelas or erythema
+nodosum. The patches become pustular or phlyctenular, or a pustular
+rash without umbilication may first be noticed. The latter form of rash
+is said to be of very grave significance, for recovery seldom if ever
+takes place when it makes its appearance.
+
+Glanders affects many animals besides horses, mules, and donkeys.
+It has been seen in lions, leopards, tigers, and bears in various
+menageries; field-mice, guinea-pigs, and hedgehogs are highly
+susceptible. Infection may result not only from direct contact with the
+sick animal and its nasal discharge, but also from the pus, saliva, and
+milk. Food and drink may convey bacilli directly into the alimentary
+canal, which is thus affected primarily, the nasal mucous membrane
+becoming involved as part of a secondary process.
+
+Chronic glanders may last for years, the patient suffering from acute
+but intermittent attacks of fever, in one of which he may die, or from
+which he may wholly recover. The skin in these cases is often the part
+chiefly affected. It becomes swollen and œdematous, with nodules, which
+only appear in one part and break down into indolent ulcers. The ulcers
+heal and leave scars which, with the destruction of the septum of the
+nose and the ulceration of the pharynx and soft palate, sometimes raise
+a suspicion of syphilis.
+
+The disease depends upon the presence of the bacillus mallei and
+the toxic substances produced during its growth. The bacillus may
+be isolated from the abscesses, blood, enlarged skin follicles, and
+the ulcers. They are more easily recognised in properly stained
+“smear preparations” than in sections, and are readily cultivated
+in three to five days on acid potato media at a temperature of 35°
+to 37° C. as a brownish, moderately thick and opaque growth. The
+active principle of the growth is “mallein,” which can be obtained
+as a syrupy fluid. Mallein injected into a glandered animal produces
+an inflammatory swelling at the seat of inoculation. The tumour is
+tense, painful, and very extensive. The lymphatics from the seat of
+inoculation to the neighbouring lymphatic glands become inflamed, and
+are painful, swollen, and sinuous. The local tumour increases in size
+for twenty-four to thirty-six hours, but does not suppurate unless
+septic organisms have been introduced at the time of the inoculation.
+It subsides slowly in eight to ten days. Inoculation is followed by
+a general reaction, which appears within eight hours of the time
+of injection, reaches a maximum in ten to twelve hours, and lasts
+twenty-four hours. The animal shivers and sometimes has well-marked
+convulsions. The test is a very valuable one for latent glanders in
+horses, and as mallein diluted with ten times its volume of a ½ per
+cent. solution of carbolic acid preserves its qualities unimpaired
+for many months, it is now largely used in all parts of the world. A
+healthy horse either does not respond at all to a much larger dose
+of mallein than will affect a sick animal, or else a small swelling
+appears at the seat of inoculation, which only lasts for twenty-four
+hours. Glandered men, in the few cases where it has been employed, show
+the same reaction to mallein as glandered horses. The Straus test is
+also valuable in the diagnosis of glanders. It consists in diluting the
+suspected secretion with sterile water, which is then injected into the
+peritoneal cavity, and beneath the skin of male guinea-pigs. The testes
+appear to swell two or three days after the injection, and the animal
+dies in four to fifteen days with acute inflammation of the tunica
+vaginalis, the testicles and epididymis being only rarely affected.
+
+Acute farcy is very fatal, but 50 to 60 per cent. of the patients
+affected with chronic farcy recover. The treatment at present is
+most unsatisfactory. Stimulants and tonics must be given liberally.
+Every abscess must be opened and disinfected as soon as possible, and
+benzoate of soda may be administered in drachm doses three or four
+times a day. In chronic cases marked improvement is said to have taken
+place after the continued injection of mallein in doses of ¹⁄₂₀ to ¹⁄₁₅
+c.c. at intervals of two or three days.
+
+Tetanus, often called lockjaw, is due to the poison produced by
+certain bacilli, which were first isolated by Kitasato, Tizzoni,
+and Cattani, in 1889. The micro-organisms are delicate threads with
+somewhat rounded ends, which reproduce by sporing. When the bacilli are
+about to spore one end becomes enlarged, and the organism resembles a
+pin or a drumstick. The spores are extremely tenacious of life, they
+resist the effect of high temperatures for an unusual length of time,
+they survive a temporary immersion in strong antiseptic solutions, and
+they have been known to retain their vitality for more than twelve
+months if they are protected from light and air. The parent bacilli are
+widely distributed in garden earth, in dust, and in the excrement of
+animals, especially in those of the horse, for this animal seems to be
+their natural host. They have been found, therefore, in stables and in
+manured fields, and they have the power of growing outside the body.
+
+During their growth the bacilli produce a powerful poison, which
+is formed so slowly that it may take two or three weeks to produce
+its full effects. This poison is formed at the seat of inoculation,
+for the bacilli do not seem to travel far from the place where they
+are introduced, and it is generated more rapidly and abundantly in
+suppurating than in aseptic wounds. It produces its effect by a
+definite action upon the nervous system, and probably travels through
+the circulation, though there is still some doubt whether it does not
+reach the spinal cord by way of the nerves, so definite are some of
+its early effects. Tetanic symptoms can be produced by the inoculation
+of toxins, which have been purified of bacilli, and mice appear to be
+especially susceptible to the disease thus produced.
+
+It will be clear from what has been said that tetanus is by no means
+rare. It may ensue from a wound at any part of the body, the wound
+varying in severity from a total crush to a slight abrasion which
+has passed unnoticed, and the case is then looked upon as one of
+spontaneous origin. It is especially frequent after injuries of parts
+which are usually dirty, and is consequently somewhat more common after
+wounds of the hands and feet. Though gardeners, horse keepers, and
+agricultural labourers often suffer, I have repeatedly seen cases in
+people who have been run over, and inoculated with the foul mud of an
+ill-kept London street. Horses, sheep, and cattle are also liable to
+infection. But on the whole tetanus has become less frequent, since an
+attempt has been made to keep wounds aseptic, or at any rate to shorten
+the process of suppuration.
+
+The onset of the disease is usually marked by a feeling of general
+uneasiness and depression, unless the wound is too severe to allow
+of this manifestation. The first symptoms usually consist of a
+feeling of stiffness or soreness about the jaws and throat, with
+some tonic contraction of the platysma-myoides, causing the _risus
+sardonicus_, which is particularly well marked when the patient is
+asked to protrude the tongue. Spasms of greater or less severity then
+occur in the voluntary muscles, the pain varying greatly in different
+patients, though it is usually less than that of ordinary cramp. The
+muscles, especially those of the abdominal wall, are in a state of
+persistent tension in the intervals between the attacks, the tension
+being reduced to a minimum during sleep or anæsthesia produced by
+artificial means. The intellect remains undisturbed unless there is
+much fever. Death takes place from exhaustion as early as the third
+day in acute cases, but it is often postponed for a fortnight or three
+weeks.
+
+The prognosis seems to vary with the rapidity of onset, for the
+mortality is great when the incubation is under ten days, whilst nearly
+half the patients recover if the symptoms do not appear for more than a
+fortnight after the injury.
+
+The treatment is largely prophylactic. A wound contracted under
+suspicious circumstances, as when other cases of tetanus have occurred
+in the same village or stable, should be immediately rendered aseptic
+by a process of thorough cleansing. This is preferable to the use
+of the actual cautery, which leads to suppuration, and thus tends
+to increase the growth of the bacillus. When the initial symptoms
+appear, the injured part must be removed, as the wound is a local
+factory for the production of the nerve poison. Doses of antitoxin
+must be administered by hypodermic injection, and I prefer to do this
+by injecting it deeply into the gluteal muscles rather than into the
+brain or subarachnoid space, as is now the custom. The maximum dose
+of Tizzoni’s antitoxin is 40 c.c., which is equivalent to 2,500,000
+units. This large dose may be given at once, 5 c.c. injections being
+afterwards given two or three times a day until the tonic contraction
+of the muscles has disappeared. The antitoxin appears to cure the
+slighter cases, and it produces a temporary relief in the most severe,
+but all the severe cases I have seen have died in spite of treatment.
+
+Hydrophobia, the rabies of animals, is another form of poison acting
+upon the spinal cord, to which huntsmen and stablemen are peculiarly
+liable from the nature of their occupations. The pathology of the
+disease, however, is much less clearly understood than in the case of
+tetanus. Dogs, foxes, wolves, and cats; horses, cows, and deer, may
+contract rabies and transmit it to man by the saliva, or more rarely by
+the milk; whilst monkeys, rabbits, and guinea-pigs are susceptible to
+infection. The latent period appears to vary enormously, as its limits
+have been given as fourteen days to five years, though the ordinary
+incubation period seems to be from three to six weeks, the length of
+time depending upon the ease with which the poison reaches the nerve
+sheaths, and passes along them to the nerve centres in the medulla and
+upper part of the spinal cord. There is no doubt, however, that the
+poison of rabies can be absorbed from the uninjured mucous membranes of
+the body, especially from the conjunctivæ and the nasal mucous membrane.
+
+In the cases which I have seen the symptoms have been preceded by two
+or three days of mental agitation and apprehension without apparent
+cause. Hiccough and difficulty in swallowing were the earliest signs
+of the disease, and these slight symptoms of undue reflex irritability
+gradually increased until the whole body became convulsed, the
+patient’s sufferings being increased by the viscid saliva, which he has
+attempted in vain to expectorate. Death took place suddenly either from
+cardiac failure or from spasm of the glottis.
+
+The Pasteur treatment offers the best chance of a cure to a person who
+has been inoculated with rabies. Its success depends upon the fact
+that the spinal cord of a rabbit dying of rabies contains the poison,
+which becomes progressively less virulent after death, if the cord
+be protected from decomposition by exposure to pure dry air, until
+on the fifteenth day it is harmless, and a solution of the cord may
+be injected into a susceptible animal without producing any effect.
+Successive inoculations of an animal already infected show that it is
+possible to establish a condition of complete tolerance, even for a
+strong dose of the poison previously introduced, though the process
+of inoculation has not been begun until five days or longer after the
+bite. The Pasteur treatment at the present time consists of a series
+of simple inoculations lasting fifteen days, during which emulsions
+from cords of fourteen to three days’ desiccation are injected in doses
+of 3 to 2 c.c. at a time under the skin of the abdomen. There is also
+an “intensive” method, for more serious cases, such as the bite of
+a mad wolf, or when the wounds have been on the face. In this method
+the number of injections which are usually spread over five days is
+compressed into three days, the whole duration of the treatment being
+twenty-one days, a fresh series of injections being recommenced on the
+fourteenth day. Certain modifications of Pasteur’s method have been
+adopted, notably the use of an antirabic serum from the dog, prepared
+by Babes of Bucharest, and an attenuated vaccine by a process of peptic
+digestion, recommended by Tizzoni and Centanni.
+
+As anthrax or charbon, sometimes known as splenic fever or malignant
+pustule, is considered elsewhere in this work, it is only necessary
+to state that the disease is due to the _Bacillus anthracis_,
+which is readily communicated from domestic animals to man. It is met
+with in the following classes: (1) those who come into contact with
+living animals suffering from anthrax, as drovers, shepherds, farmers,
+farriers, and veterinary surgeons; (2) those who touch the carcasses
+of animals that have died of anthrax, as knackers, slaughterers, and
+others; (3) those who handle the offal, skins, hoofs, horns, hair,
+wools, and other derivatives from such diseased animals, as tanners,
+fell-mongers, wool-workers, hair-workers, horn-workers, rag-sorters,
+plasterers, furriers, felt-workers, brush-workers, mattress-makers, and
+so forth; (4) in those who have a less direct connection with infective
+materials; as, for instance, those who live in the neighbourhood of
+such manufactories or occupations, for the disease may be carried by
+animals and insects; (5) anthrax has been transmitted from person to
+person by accidental contact, and may be contracted at a post-mortem
+examination upon a patient or animal who has died of the disease.
+There is some reason for supposing that small meat-eaters are more
+susceptible to anthrax than those who are accustomed to much animal
+food.
+
+Influenza has long been known to occur in horses, and in several
+epidemics the disease has been observed to spread from these animals to
+their attendants. Mr Youatt first pointed out that influenza attacked
+horses in very local epidemics, so that the majority of horses on
+one side of a yard might be attacked, whilst there was not a single
+sick horse on the other side. These prevalences and exceptions are
+altogether unaccountable, but the probability of the disease is in
+tenfold ratio to the number of horses inhabiting a stable. Two or three
+shut up in a comparatively close stable would escape, and out of
+thirty distributed through ten or fifteen little stables, not one would
+be affected. But in a stable containing ten or twelve horses, although
+proportionately larger and better ventilated, the disease would
+assuredly appear, and when it enters one of the largest stables almost
+every horse is affected. Horsekeepers may also suffer from horsepox or
+“grease,” a specific eruption transmissible from the horse to man, of
+which further details are given at page 246.
+
+Much riding early in life may produce a condition of knock-knee or
+bowed legs quite apart from rickets. Later in life, the tendon of the
+adductor longus muscle at its point of origin below the spine of the
+pubes, and more rarely the tendon of the adductor magnus, may become
+partially calcified, leading to the condition known as “cavalryman’s
+leg,” whilst the calcified portion is known as “rider’s bone.” A wrench
+or sprain of the adductors, “rider’s sprain,” is not an uncommon
+accident in the hunting-field. It leads to a very troublesome form of
+chronic inflammation, which may quite prevent riding exercise, and has
+proved the starting-point of a “rider’s bone.” “Rider’s bursæ” are
+described as occurring in the fold of the groin and on the inner side
+of the knee. They are probably enlargements of the ilio-psoas bursa or
+of the bursæ situated between the semi-membranosus and semi-tendinosus
+tendons, or beneath the inner head of the gastrocnemius muscle, but I
+have never seen cases of either occurring in riders, though they are
+common enough in tuberculous patients. Popliteal aneurism is said to be
+somewhat more common in jockeys and grooms than in other persons, and
+these occupations lead also to an increased liability to fractures and
+dislocations.
+
+
+ _Cattle._
+
+(4) _Butchers, Slaughterers, and Tanners._--Butchers and
+slaughterers suffer from an undue tendency to diseases of the throat
+and chest, because their occupation, at any rate in London, entails
+very early rising to attend market, their shops are usually quite open,
+and they are some of the few tradesmen who still cry their wares.
+Their wounds are very likely to become poisoned, and as they are often
+overfed and gross in habit, erysipelas is a common sequel of slight
+injuries. Many porters from the Metropolitan Meat Market apply annually
+at St Bartholomew’s Hospital for the relief of hernia and ruptured
+muscles, which they attribute to the strains produced by carrying
+heavy carcasses and to slipping on greasy pavements. The hospital
+practice seems also to contain a considerable proportion of cases of
+aneurism amongst the same class of men.
+
+It is said that the habit of eating tiny bits of raw meat from the
+chopping block sometimes causes butchers to become infected with
+the various parasitic worms, which can be transmitted in this way.
+Their meat-eating and beer-drinking habits, coupled with a sedentary
+occupation, must be held accountable for their obesity and for the
+frequency with which they suffer from gout.
+
+I do not know whether tanners are liable to any special diseases except
+anthrax, but in the business of leather-dressing which is carried on in
+connection with tanning, the various eruptions produced by aniline dyes
+are not uncommon, and there is some danger of arsenical poisoning from
+the use of orpiment.
+
+(5) _Cowmen and Dairymaids._--Cowmen and dairymaids in those
+counties where they are brought into direct contact with cows
+as milkmaids, are liable to several diseases by reason of their
+occupations. Foremost amongst these, and of the greatest historical
+interest, is vaccinia or cowpox, though it is quite a rare complaint in
+English dairy farms.
+
+Vaccinia is a specific disorder occurring in epidemics amongst bovine
+animals. It is transmissible to the goat, dog, ass, camel, rabbit,
+guinea-pig, monkey, and with greater difficulty to the sheep. It
+is characterised in the cow by a local eruption almost exclusively
+confined to the udder and teats. The eruption passes through the
+successive stages of papule, vesicle, and pustule, the number of pocks
+always being few, and there is considerable constitutional disturbance.
+The lymph from the vesicles of a cow suffering from pox is sometimes
+inoculated on the hands of the milkers, when inflamed spots appear more
+particularly about the joints and tips of the fingers. The spots become
+vesicular, with a swollen, hard, and inflamed base. The axillary glands
+become inflamed, and the disorder is attended with some constitutional
+disturbance. An analogous condition in the horse is called “grease”
+or horsepox, and inoculation of the horse with cowpox will produce
+“grease.” Cowpox in bovine animals and “grease” in horses can also be
+produced by inoculation with human smallpox. Both “grease” and cowpox
+are transmissible to man by inoculation, both diseases render him to
+a certain extent immune to smallpox, and both render him less liable
+to a second attack of cowpox or horsepox. It appears therefore that
+smallpox, cowpox, and horsepox are very closely allied to each other.
+They may be identical, the features being modified by transmission
+through different animals, or they may be descended from a common
+disease which was more akin to cowpox than smallpox.
+
+Tuberculosis is so common a disease in cows that it is no wonder if
+phthisis in their attendants sometimes derives its origin from a
+diseased animal. The disease, however, is much more often carried by
+the milk, and it is therefore a wise precaution to boil every drop
+of cow’s milk for three minutes before it is given to a child or to
+one who is predisposed to consumption. I have seen local tuberculosis
+of the skin in one or two cases contracted by veterinary surgeons in
+the course of their duties. Free excision of the affected part has
+always been followed by prompt healing, and I have never known of any
+generalisation.
+
+Diphtheria is sometimes carried by milk, the infection being derived
+either by accidental contamination or from the cow itself. The symptoms
+of diphtheria in the cow are those of “chapped teats,” viz., rise of
+temperature and an eruption on the udder and teats. The eruption begins
+as vesicles, which pass rapidly into pustules, scabs, or ulcers. When
+the disease is transmitted in this manner the cream and skim milk
+appear to be more dangerous than the new milk, probably because the
+organisms have a longer time to grow. Pigeons, turkeys, and cats have
+also been credited with the power of conveying diphtheria, and in the
+case of cats the accusation is proved.
+
+There is good reason, too, for thinking that cows suffer from scarlet
+fever, and that the disease is transmitted by their milk, for in no
+other way is it possible to account for local epidemics of scarlet
+fever which have been traced to large dairy farms.
+
+Cows certainly suffer from ringworm, and the tinea is transferred to
+those who lean their heads against them in the act of milking.
+
+Foot and mouth disease is highly contagious amongst ruminants and pigs.
+It has often been transmitted to man, usually by the milk of cows
+suffering from the disease, sometimes by the butter, but most often
+by direct contact with diseased beasts. Milkmaids, cowmen, shepherds,
+and veterinary surgeons are thus especially liable to infection. The
+disease, as it occurs in man, is ushered in by rigors, diarrhœa, and
+some rise of temperature. On the second or third day a vesicular
+eruption appears on the gums and tongue, and it may also occur on
+the fingers or other seat of inoculation. Fortunately the disease
+as it occurs in man is not serious, and recovery usually takes place
+spontaneously in the course of a fortnight.
+
+Actinomycosis.--This disease is sometimes derived by inoculation
+from cattle affected with the fungus, but it comes more often from
+infected grain. The symptoms are those of a chronic abscess affecting
+the skin, mucous membranes, or viscera, especially the lungs, liver,
+and ileo-cæcal portion of the intestine, where it is liable to be
+mistaken for appendicitis. It appears on the skin in the form of
+numerous globular masses, which are soft and spongy, and have an
+indurated erythematous base. Pus which contains the yellow granules
+characteristic of the disease exudes from the ulcerating points. The
+disease runs a very chronic course, which is shortened, and the patient
+cured by enormous doses of iodide of potassium. Doses of a drachm may
+be given three or four times a day, and the patient not only shows no
+symptoms of iodism, but improves markedly in general health.
+
+(6) _Shepherds_ suffer by reason of their occupation in two ways.
+They are of necessity closely associated with dogs, and are thus more
+liable to hydatids and rabies, whilst from the sheep they obtain
+flukes, and in the process of dipping they may suffer from arsenical
+poisoning.
+
+A hydatid is the asexual and cystic form of the _Tænia
+echinococcus_, a small tapeworm consisting of three segments, found
+in the intestines of dogs and wolves. The fertilised ova are swallowed
+with impure water or with uncooked vegetables, like lettuce and
+watercress, fouled by the excreta of infected dogs. The hydatid cyst
+develops slowly in any part of the human body. It is most common in
+the liver and intermuscular connective tissues, but it is not unusual
+to find a hydatid cyst in the lungs, kidneys, pelvis, and brain, and
+I have seen specimens in which the vertebræ and os innominatum were
+involved. The symptoms are very obscure, and are usually dependent upon
+the amount of pressure exercised by the tumour. There is sometimes a
+characteristic hydatid thrill, but its absence does not invalidate the
+diagnosis. For practical purposes the cyst is composed of two layers,
+an external or adventitious covering formed by irritation from the
+tissues of the host, and the soft and white but tough internal cyst,
+filled with a limpid fluid, containing the characteristic hooklets.
+The inner lining of this cyst develops daughter cysts by a process of
+budding, though it is sometimes sterile.
+
+The treatment is essentially surgical. Whenever it is possible the
+tumour should be freely exposed, the fibrous cyst opened, the fluid
+contents removed, and the whole endocyst withdrawn. The edges of the
+ectocyst may then be sutured, and the external wound closed if union
+by first intention can be practically guaranteed. But if there is any
+doubt as to the probability of securing asepsis it is better to free
+the edges of the outer cyst from its attachment to the surrounding
+organs, and then suture it to the sides of the external opening without
+including the skin. The cavity usually has to be plugged after the
+removal of a hydatid from the liver.
+
+It is not supposed that the liver fluke, or _Distoma hepaticum_,
+is transmitted from the sheep to man, as is the hydatid from the
+dog to the man, but it is probable that the shepherd has become
+the involuntary host of the distoma in the same way as the sheep,
+by drinking water containing the amphibious snail (_Limnæus
+trunculatus_), which is the true intermediate host of the liver
+fluke in the sheep. This trematode worm has been found in subcutaneous
+abscesses more often than in the human liver. The treatment, when
+possible, consists in opening the abscess and thoroughly scraping out
+its contents, for they show a great tendency to refill.
+
+_Pig-keepers._--It does not appear that pig-keepers suffer from
+any particular diseases by reason of their occupation. It is possible
+that where only a few animals are kept and are afterwards eaten by
+the owners there may be some increased liability to trichiniasis,
+which is an inflammatory state of the voluntary muscles due to the
+irritation produced by the presence of the nematode worm, _Trichina
+spiralis_. I recently saw a young lady who was suffering from a
+chronic trichinosis. She had numerous hard masses beneath the skin of
+her legs, which were locally irritable when they first appeared, though
+they soon ceased to give trouble. At first it was thought that the
+tumours were multiple fibromata, but on cutting one out and submitting
+it to microscopic examination it was found to contain encapsuled
+trichinæ.
+
+ D’ARCY POWER.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XVI
+
+ ELECTRIC GENERATING WORKS
+
+
+This article is simply an attempt to apply expert knowledge to the
+practical purpose of safe-guarding those employed in electrical works.
+The writer was a member of the Home Office Committee on Dangerous
+Trades, and of necessity much that now appears is a repetition of what
+was presented by that Committee in its Second Interim Report in 1897.
+It is satisfactory to record that many of the suggestions offered by
+the Committee have been accepted without hesitation and acted upon.
+
+The generation and distribution of electrical energy, so far as it
+relates to the health and safety of the workers, may be considered
+under the following heads:--
+
+(_a_) The risk of shock by accidentally coming in contact with
+conductors at high pressure, whether in generating or transformer
+stations.
+
+(_b_) The fencing of all mill-gearing and machinery used for the
+conversion of mechanical into electrical energy.
+
+(_c_) The health of the operatives.
+
+Before dealing with these specific points it may be desirable to
+state in general terms what is meant by “generating and transformer
+stations.” A generating station is a place in which, by the aid of
+steam, gas, water, or other source of power, mechanism is used for
+driving dynamos, which are machines for converting mechanical into
+electrical energy, whether for producing light, driving machinery,
+running railways, tramcars; for depositing metals, plating, welding,
+heating, etc., etc., or for charging storage batteries.
+
+Transformer stations vary in size from buildings of considerable
+proportions to mere cellars, or even boxes too small for entry. In such
+places are found appliances for the conversion of small current at
+high pressure to large current at low pressure, or _vice versâ_.
+Stationary transformers are used for alternating currents, while rotary
+converters or transformers, requiring more room and attention, are
+necessary for direct currents.
+
+To appreciate the risks hereafter described, a statement in the most
+elementary terms now follows, showing how mechanism can produce the
+foregoing results.
+
+A conductor of electricity, _e.g._, a piece of copper wire made
+to traverse a magnetic field (that is, the space between the poles
+of a magnet), has an electro-motive force, or difference of electric
+pressure, set up in its ends, which depends upon its length in the
+field, its velocity, and the strength of the field, being in fact
+proportionate to the product of these three. As the movement cannot
+continue in a limited field in one direction indefinitely, it must be
+reversed, thus causing a reversal in the electrical state of the ends.
+If the ends slide on stationary conductors, these too will share the
+electrical state of the ends, and alternating current will pass between
+these stationary conductors if they are joined by a conducting wire.
+This current will be greater as the difference of pressure is greater
+and as the electrical resistance of the conducting circuit is less.
+In order to increase the effect of a moving conductor, its length may
+be increased by suitable windings, the arrangement of which, however,
+cannot be described in these pages. The effectiveness, moreover, is
+enormously increased by winding over a laminated iron core, which
+greatly increases the magnetic force. If, instead of connecting the
+ends to sliding contact rings from which an alternating current is
+taken off by stationary contact brushes, the ends of a number of coils
+are joined to a series of insulated commutator bars, it is possible by
+suitable connections so to arrange that all the coils remain in action
+and that the points of the commutator rubbed by the fixed conducting
+brushes do not change in their electrical pressure, so that a direct
+(_i.e._, non-alternating) current is the result. This is desirable
+for arc lighting, and is essential for charging batteries and generally
+for effecting chemical change.
+
+Dynamos of many forms are made. Sometimes the field magnets revolve,
+the armature being stationary, but usually the reverse is the case.
+In some machines there are two poles only, in others, many. The main
+principle, however, is the same in all.
+
+When the direction of the current is not commutated, it will, in
+consequence of the rapid revolution of the armature, alternate or
+change its direction very frequently, 100 alternations in a second
+being not uncommon. The currents produced may be classed as low
+pressure, high pressure, and extra high pressure. Currents at low
+pressure distributed from generating stations are invariably direct.
+High pressure currents are distributed either as direct or alternating.
+One, if not more, extra high pressure station in Great Britain supplies
+alternating current.
+
+Opinions differ as to the pressure at which these currents become
+dangerous. The recommendation made by the Committee before referred
+to was to the effect that currents should be considered dangerous at
+700 volts direct, and 350 alternating; and that all metal conductors
+carrying a current equal to or greater than this should be deemed to
+be at high pressure. It is from currents at high pressure that we may
+expect special danger to life from shocks caused by parts of the body
+coming in contact with conductors differing considerably in pressure,
+not necessarily metal conductors, for one contact may be with earth,
+especially if the ground is damp. American experts have laid down that
+the pressure which may be relied upon to cause death is 1500 volts.
+According to this standard, the Home Office Committee would appear to
+have erred on the side of extreme caution. Subsequent events, however,
+have proved that this is hardly the case. Possibilities fore-shadowed
+in section 19 of its report have almost literally been realised in a
+large factory at Bradford, where a lad, aged nineteen, engaged in doing
+repairs, came in contact with a frame of an arc lamp. He was working
+in a warm cellar, his boots were damp, and, unhappily, he stood upon
+an earthed metal plate. The frame of the lamp accidentally touched
+formed part of the circuit. A leakage from the positive brush to the
+dynamo-frame, which was earthed, created a short circuit between the
+frame of the dynamo and the frame of the lamp, the man forming a part
+of the circuit. A direct current, of 250 volts only, passed through
+his feet, probably through his heart, causing death. It is much to
+be regretted that artificial respiration, as recommended by eminent
+authorities and described in the report of the Committee, was not
+attempted. An article published in _Nature_ of 23rd August 1900,
+gives in detail a description of experiments carried out by Professor
+H. F. Weber, of the Zurich Polytechnic, to decide what pressure is
+dangerous on electric railways with overhead trolley wires. These
+experiments were undertaken owing to a dissension, between a firm
+of electrical engineers and the Baden authorities, as to the proper
+pressure to be used for two electric railways to be worked by the
+3-phase alternating current. The details showing the physiological
+effects on the human body are highly interesting, Professor Weber
+allowing himself to be the medium of the experiments, and constituting
+himself the measuring instrument. Two series of experiments were made.
+In the first, a person seized the two bare leads with both hands
+simultaneously, or both of the leads fell upon a bare part of the human
+body. In the second, a bare part of a person standing on the railway,
+or on a car, came into contact with one of the leads. Professor Weber
+draws the following conclusions:--
+
+ “A simultaneous touching of both of the poles of an alternating
+ current circuit is dangerous as soon as the pressure exceeds 100
+ volts; and since it is impossible to set one’s self free, the
+ case must be regarded as fatal whenever immediate help is not at
+ hand.”
+
+“These results,” continues the article, “are consistent with several
+disasters which have happened in practical life.
+
+“In 1896, in Horgen (Switzerland), a man, to prevent himself falling
+from a ladder, seized with both his hands two non-insulated leads with
+a P.D. of 240 volts between them, and was immediately killed. In a mine
+in Silesia, a workman seized in the same manner some non-insulated
+leads and was killed, on account of his being unable to release them,
+the P.D. being 300 volts. In the Electric Central Station in Olten,
+a workman, desirous of proving to his companions that a pressure of
+500 volts was quite safe, seized both of the leads and was killed
+instantly. From this it is obvious that the general opinion of a
+pressure of 500 volts not being dangerous does not hold good, the limit
+being much lower. In spite of the great number of disasters which have
+already happened, the danger does not seem to have been generally
+appreciated, and workmen and erectors are often seen to deal with leads
+and apparatus of relatively high pressures in the most careless manner.
+That disasters have not taken place oftener may be due to the fact that
+in most cases help has been readily at hand.”
+
+In the second series of experiments the person is supposed to stand on
+one of the poles itself, namely, the earth, being rather well insulated
+by means of his shoes. In this case the conclusion arrived at is that--
+
+ “To touch one of the poles is not dangerous as long as the
+ pressure does not exceed about 1000 volts; the intense
+ stinging which appears at the first slight touching serves as
+ a protection against the danger, for the hand is instinctively
+ drawn back rapidly.
+
+ “The main result of these experiments is, then, that all
+ pressures between 100 and 1000 volts must be regarded as equally
+ dangerous, and consequently there is no reason for not using the
+ higher pressures between 500 and 1000 volts, especially as they
+ lead to greater economy in the working of the electric railway.
+ Further, there is only a very little chance of the passengers
+ or other persons coming into contact with both of the leads. To
+ this danger the employés only are exposed, and being generally
+ people with some electric training, they are acquainted with the
+ danger, and may be supposed to be sufficiently careful.”
+
+It is of interest to note that the authorities, after the
+investigation, decided upon allowing a working pressure of 750 volts.
+Both series of experiments relate to alternating currents.
+
+There is perhaps no better method of impressing upon people the dangers
+of electric shock than by stating briefly, as under, some of the fatal
+accidents that have happened during the last few years in electrical
+stations, factories, and other places in the United Kingdom. Fatalities
+in transformer stations will be separately noticed. The voltages in
+most cases were from 2000 to 2400; in one case 1000, and in another (a
+high pressure station) 10,000:--
+
+1. Touching exposed terminals when manipulating a switch at a
+generating station.
+
+2. Accidentally grasping an insufficiently protected volt meter wire.
+
+3. When up a ladder in a central station, deceased accidentally came in
+contact with a highly charged metal conductor.
+
+4. When oiling the bearing of an alternating machine, and using a metal
+can, the can came in contact with a highly charged conductor. Deceased
+had one hand on a metal rail intended for the protection of the
+machinery. The current passed through the metal can, through his body,
+and thence to earth.
+
+5. When doing repairs at the back of a switch at a central station,
+deceased accidentally touched two metallic connections varying greatly
+in pressure.
+
+6. When a workman was carrying an iron ladder in a factory the ladder
+touched a highly charged conductor in an arc lamp circuit, the current
+passing to earth through the body of deceased.
+
+7. Whilst performing test operations at an electrical station.
+
+8. An operative was putting some capping on a casing in an electric
+lighting works. Inadvertently he drove a screw through the insulation
+of a cable then “dead.” The current was turned on. The operative
+touched the screw head and at the same time an adjacent water-pipe. The
+current passed from the screw through his body and the water-pipe to
+earth. (A brother of this man was killed in a transformer chamber.)
+
+9. An operative, when at work in a factory, accidentally stumbled, and
+seized hold of a wire stay supporting a pole of an arc lamp. There must
+have been a defect in the insulation, and this stay was highly charged,
+the man being killed instantaneously.
+
+10. When covering wires leading to a switch, deceased fell across the
+terminals of one of the machines.
+
+11. By accidentally touching a synchronising switch in a generating
+station when doing repairs. The current passed through deceased’s body
+to an iron column that he happened to be touching at the same time.
+
+12. A boy employed in a large steel factory accidentally came in
+contact with the frame of an arc lamp lowered for the purpose of
+recarbonising.
+
+13. An operative employed in ironworks accidentally touched a wire used
+for raising and lowering an electric arc lamp. He was found on his back
+in a weighing-cabin. Another workman thought that he was in a fit, and
+went to his assistance. Both men received fatal shocks.
+
+14. At an extra high pressure generating station an operative was found
+dead on the floor. Medical evidence tended to show the difficulty of
+stating with certainty whether the man died from shock or from heart
+disease. The coroner’s jury, however, found that death was due to
+asphyxia produced by electric shock.
+
+Our attention may now be turned to fatalities in transformer stations,
+or boxes in which alternating currents at high pressure are converted
+to large currents at low pressure. A dangerous pressure is found in
+the main conductors, this being reduced by causing induced current in
+the consumer’s circuit, the strength depending upon the proportion of
+the windings in the primary and the secondary circuits, the secondary
+being in no way metallically connected with the high pressure main.
+Under these circumstances, and under normal conditions, the safety of
+the consumer should be secured. That, unhappily, cannot be said so far
+as relates to the workers, whose duties take them near the transforming
+apparatus. It is undesirable to give names, places, or dates, but the
+following brief summary of fatal accidents that have happened during
+recent years in transformer stations may be relied upon as being
+generally accurate. Many non-fatal accidents have happened, but these
+are not noticed.
+
+1. Attempting to assist a servant of an electrical company, who was
+working in a cellar on the consumer’s premises, and who received a
+severe but not fatal shock.
+
+2. Killed when pulling back the slack of a main wire in a street
+surface-box.
+
+3. Accidental contact with undischarged and unfenced omnibus bar in
+high pressure distributing station.
+
+4. A second accident of the same kind as the last foregoing, and at the
+same station.
+
+5. Killed when dusting a high pressure fuse in a cellar transformer.
+
+6. Contact with dangerously placed terminals at a transformer chamber
+in a cellar.
+
+7. Accidentally touching a high pressure terminal when cleaning or
+repairing in a street transformer chamber.
+
+8. Touching a highly charged transformer frame in a street chamber.
+Defective insulation in the main conductor led to leakage and to the
+frame becoming highly charged.
+
+9. When descending by an iron ladder to a street transformer chamber,
+the operative came in contact with a highly charged frame of a
+transformer.
+
+10. Two workmen were removing a transformer from a corporation
+sub-station. They accidentally put on a wrong switch. The exposed ends
+of the cable, which were in contact with the transformer frame, caused
+the frame to become highly charged. Two men touching the frame were
+killed, others were seriously injured.
+
+11. A workman, when making a connection in a corporation sub-station,
+came in contact with the bared ends of a highly charged cable.
+
+12. Killed by grasping an imperfectly insulated connection in a street
+transformer pit.
+
+Such accidents are not confined to operatives. The following are known
+to have been due to electric shock. At Bournemouth, ’bus horses outside
+a hotel fell down dead. At Norwich, dogs that passed a certain spot
+uttered an unearthly howl. At Hartlepool an overhead wire broke,
+killing a horse. Two cabmen who came to the rescue received severe
+shocks. The _Matin_ of 27th January 1897 describes how two horses
+were suddenly struck down by the current from a subterranean cable used
+for running an electrical tram. In Dublin a gentleman was standing
+close to an electric lamp in the street, which he states paralysed
+him, causing him to fall “like a lump of lead.” Others going to his
+assistance received shocks similar to those of the two cabmen at
+Hartlepool. The _Melbourne Argus_ records a fatality to a young
+man who climbed a pole supporting a heavily charged wire, which he
+touched. “This,” says the _Argus_, “is not the first terrible
+accident which has happened in connection with the lighting of the city
+and suburbs. At the Richmond works of the New Australian Electric Light
+Company, whose wires were concerned in Saturday’s fatality, a workman
+or overseer was killed instantaneously through touching a “live” wire.
+Another, who was engaged in the A. U. Alcock works in the city was
+more fortunate. He seized a wire with one hand to prevent himself from
+falling, and was so seriously shocked by the current that he could
+not let go. Another workman, observing his predicament, cut the wire,
+and he fell to the ground. A third and even more remarkable case than
+the others occurred some time ago in Russell Street. There had been a
+violent storm, and a post carrying electric lighting wires had been
+blown to the ground. In the fall some of the wires broke and trailed
+across the footway. A pedestrian idly picked up the end of one of the
+broken wires. In a moment he was kicking and plunging upon the ground,
+unable to release his hold of the wire. Another pedestrian, who saw
+the accident, and who recognised that it was a struggle with death,
+hastened to the rescue, and attempted with all his strength and both
+his hands to drag the first man into safety. His good heart cost him
+his life.”
+
+Enough has been said to show that a shock, whether from a direct or an
+alternating current at high pressure, is highly dangerous to life, many
+authorities being of opinion that the alternating is the more deadly
+current of the two.
+
+Where a direct current is transformed, it is done by mechanical
+appliances. The risks to operatives in such a case include those that
+are incurred where machinery is left unguarded; but in dealing with
+alternating currents no mechanism is used, and the risk is confined
+to the danger from shock. The cases quoted show, better than detailed
+explanations, the manner in which these shocks are received, and it
+cannot be out of place to urge the importance of insisting on all known
+precautionary measures for the protection of those whose duties take
+them into transformer stations. The number of such places increases
+year by year, and they are likely to increase to a greater extent in
+these days, when induction motors, driven by alternating currents,
+are so rapidly coming in favour for running machinery in factories.
+Modern science has shown that the alternating current can be used in
+this manner, and that by substituting the alternating for the direct
+current, power may be economically conveyed for considerable distances,
+the advantages of the alternating current being the ready conversion of
+high to low pressure, and hence the saving of copper in the conducting
+wires, the further saving of the cost of brushes and commutators,
+whilst the absence of “sparking” lessens the risk of fire, and the
+non-handling of brushes, etc., reduces the danger of shock. These
+advantages were referred to and summarised in the report of Mr Bremner
+Davis, reproduced in the Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories for
+the year 1898.
+
+Science has not yet explained what is the mystic force known as
+“electricity.” Its effects, however, are known. How the human system is
+affected by contact with a conductor charged with electricity at high
+pressure has been fully considered by eminent scientific men, such as
+Drs D’Arsonval, Goelet, Hedley, and Lewis Jones, to whom the public
+are indebted for suggestions on which were based the excellent rules
+published by the _Electrical Review_, for dealing with apparent
+death from electric shock. A copy of these suggestions is appended, and
+one should be found and understood in all places where electricity is
+used.
+
+The highly interesting question as to how death from electric shock
+is caused, is ably dealt with by Professor Thomas Oliver, who in
+an article published in the _British Medical Journal_ of 15th
+January 1898, placed the public in possession of knowledge gained by
+experiments and long and careful study. He believes that electricity
+kills either by suddenly arresting respiration, or by stopping the
+heart’s action. A series of experiments carried out by him showed
+that in most instances the effect of the electric shock was felt
+principally by the heart. This organ immediately ceased to beat where
+very high pressure currents were used, whilst breathing might continue
+a few minutes longer. Within the last few months, Drs Prevost and
+Battelli, of the Geneva University, have instituted a fresh series
+of experiments, and they have found that whether the direct or the
+alternating current is used, death comes, practically speaking, in
+the manner stated by Dr Oliver, viz., by paralysis of the heart. Dogs
+were in this way immediately killed, and yet the breathing continued
+for a few minutes afterwards. When fairly high voltages were employed,
+_e.g._ 550 volts, these experimenters found that the heart was
+suddenly arrested by one shock, and that, while the breathing was
+at the same time suspended for a few seconds, respiration gradually
+returned in a feeble and superficial manner, and soon finally ceased.
+
+After all, the main question is, how to avoid death from electricity;
+and the obvious reply is, avoid shock. This is no simple matter, but
+to some extent a solution is found in the recommendations made by the
+Home Office Committee, which were largely based upon the opinions of
+Professor C. V. Boys (a member of the Committee), and other eminent
+electricians. These recommendations are here reproduced in appendix
+form. In the light, however, of fresh experience showing that an
+artisan working in a factory was killed by direct current at 250 volts,
+prudence may hereafter suggest that precautions should be taken in
+places where the voltage is lower than that named by the report.
+
+The operatives engaged in electrical works do not appear to be subject
+to any exceptional risks so far as health is concerned; but those
+who work where plates for storage-batteries are manufactured, or who
+subsequently manipulate the plates, are liable to suffer from plumbism.
+Special Rules founded upon the recommendations of the Home Office
+Committee appointed in 1893, and known as the “White Lead Committee,”
+were issued by the Home Office. These apply to electric accumulator
+works, and require the provision of bath and lavatory accommodation,
+hot and cold water, soap, brushes, towels, respirators, and overall
+suits for persons employed in mixing dry red lead and dry litharge, and
+gloves and aprons for persons engaged in “rubbing,” that is, rubbing
+red lead into the interstices of the lead plates.
+
+Rooms in which accumulator batteries are found are always
+well-ventilated, preventing any undue accumulation of oxygen and
+hydrogen gas given off during the charging process, but in electric
+launches or tramcars, where the accumulator cells are shut up in
+confined spaces, dangerous explosions have taken place.
+
+So far as the fencing of machinery and mill-gearing used in the
+generation of electricity is concerned, common sense points to
+precautions being taken, such as are required in all factories. All
+dangerous mill-gearing, such as cranks and fly-wheels of engines,
+shafting, wheels, drums, pulleys, etc., for communicating the first
+moving power to the machines, should be securely fenced. In doing this,
+however, special care should be observed lest in removing one source
+of danger another may be created. In ordinary factories fencing-rails
+are almost universally of metal. These rails in generating stations
+should be of wood or other insulating material; for should, perchance,
+an operative make an accidental contact with metal at high pressure in
+the circuit, at the same time touching any part of a metal rail, the
+current would pass through his body to earth, always assuming that the
+rails are not sufficiently insulated from the earth. Such accidents
+have happened, and are liable to occur again, to men engaged in oiling
+bearings, adjusting brushes, cleaning commutators, collector-rings,
+etc., the risk of course being increased should any defect in
+insulation cause the current to run to frame. Terrible fatalities
+due to unfenced machinery have occurred in generating stations, as
+in other works, none more painful perhaps than one that happened to
+an engine-driver at an Electric Supply Company’s works, who, when
+examining bearings, fell into some part of the machinery driven by a
+7000 horse-power engine, and was torn to pieces.
+
+As time goes on, there appears to be a fuller realisation of the
+dangers incurred, and it is not too much to expect that those in
+positions of responsibility will heartily co-operate with public
+officials in taking precautions suggested by prudence and common sense.
+
+
+ APPENDIX I.
+
+The following recommendations were made by the Dangerous Trades
+Committee of the Home Office. For the purposes of these regulations
+a station where the direct current generated is at 700 volts or any
+higher number, or where the alternating current generated is at 350
+volts or any higher number, shall be considered a “high pressure
+station,” and all metal conductors, whether they be on the dynamos,
+the switchboard, the mains, or any other part of the station carrying
+a current at a pressure equal to or greater than that above mentioned,
+shall be deemed to be at “high pressure.”
+
+The Committee recommend that the following regulations should be
+applied in all those cases mentioned in paragraph 1 where electricity
+at high pressure is in use. It is not intended that they should be
+applied to low pressure systems:--
+
+ 1. The frames and bed plates of all generating machines shall be
+ efficiently connected to earth.
+
+ 2. The rails fencing dynamos, or other generating machines,
+ shall be made of wood or other non-conducting material.
+
+ 3. All terminals, collecting brushes, main connectors, parts of
+ dynamos, motors or other appliances, to which neither Regulation
+ No. (6) nor No. (7) applies, shall be so placed, covered, or
+ fenced with non-conducting materials, that no person can touch
+ accidentally, either with his body, clothing, or any conducting
+ tool, two parts differing from each other by an amount which
+ constitutes a high pressure. This rule is to be read in
+ connection with No. 4.
+
+ 4. The floors of all places where it would be possible to make
+ connection with metal at high pressure shall be covered with
+ an insulating mat of suitable material and kept in a state of
+ efficient insulation.
+
+ 5. The material use for wiping or cleaning the commutator strips
+ or collector rings of dynamos, motors, or rotary converters of
+ any form shall be applied by means of an insulating handle.
+
+ 6. In switchrooms and on the front of switchboards, the main
+ switches, main fuses, main terminals, omnibus bars, and all
+ other metallic parts shall be insulated or arranged in such
+ manner as to render it impossible for any person by accident or
+ inadvertence to touch them.
+
+ 7. The backs of all switchboards shall be kept closed, except
+ for the purpose of alterations or repairs. When such work
+ has to be carried on either at the back or at the front of
+ switchboards, the following regulations shall apply:--
+
+ (_a_) No person except a skilled electrician, or a
+ workman under his personal and immediate supervision,
+ shall be employed when any part is at high pressure.
+
+ (_b_) No extensive or serious repairs shall be
+ executed upon metal which is at high pressure.
+
+ (_c_) Where the alterations or repairs are not of
+ an extensive or serious character, all metallic parts at
+ high pressure shall be covered with an insulating cap or
+ protected by some form of insulating covering, only one
+ part, or several at the same pressure, to be exposed at
+ any one time.
+
+ 8. All switchboards erected after the application of these Rules
+ shall have, at the back, a clear space of at least four feet.
+ This space shall not be utilised as a store room or lumber room,
+ or be obstructed in any manner.
+
+ 9. Any person at work upon a cable or portion of the mains under
+ high pressure shall wear indiarubber gloves on both hands.
+
+ 10. All aerial high pressure conductors in factories or
+ workshops shall either be insulated over their entire length,
+ and supported at such frequent intervals that, in the event
+ of breakage, they shall not come within reach at places where
+ persons are liable to pass or to be employed, or shall be so
+ placed and arranged as to comply with the requirements relating
+ to such wires in streets enjoined by the Board of Trade.
+
+ 11. The gloves shall be supplied by the occupier, and it shall
+ be the duty of the manager to see that they are in a proper
+ state of repair, and are worn by the workpeople.
+
+ 12. No examinations, repairs, or alterations necessitating the
+ handling of mains, wires, machines, or other apparatus, shall be
+ carried on except in cases of urgent necessity while such parts
+ are under high pressure, and all such work shall be done under
+ the personal supervision of an electrical engineer or competent
+ manager or foreman.
+
+ 13. Where operations are being conducted upon mains from which
+ the current has been cut off, the switch shall be locked and
+ precautions taken that it shall not be unlocked except by the
+ person in charge of the station on his being satisfied that the
+ danger is at an end.
+
+ 14. Every vessel used for lubricating purposes shall be so
+ constructed that it cannot act as a conductor between the hand
+ and anything touched.
+
+ 15. Metal transformer boxes shall be efficiently connected to
+ earth, and so constructed that in the event of “running to
+ frame” the earth connection will not be broken by the removal of
+ the fuse box or any other part of the box.
+
+ 16. Transformer cases, iron ladders, and all permanent metallic
+ parts contained within the transformer chamber, and not forming
+ part of the electric circuit, shall be metallically connected
+ together.
+
+ 17. All holes in transformer cases, through which high pressure
+ conductors pass, shall be lined or bushed with suitable and
+ effective non-conducting material.
+
+ 18. All high pressure connections within a transformer chamber
+ shall be so protected with insulating material that it shall be
+ impossible to touch them.
+
+ 19. Switches which can be conveniently operated from the outside
+ for cutting off both the high and low pressure connections of
+ the transformers shall be fitted in all transformer chambers
+ erected after the application of these Rules, and in all
+ existing chambers, unless it is proved to the satisfaction
+ of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Factories that such an
+ arrangement would be attended by special difficulty.
+
+ 20. Each post or support where series arc lighting is employed
+ shall be provided with means for completely disconnecting the
+ arc lamps from the mains, without disturbing the action of the
+ other lamps.
+
+ 21. All persons engaged in electrical works shall be made fully
+ aware of the dangerous parts of the machinery, cables, and their
+ connections, and shall be practically instructed in methods of
+ artificial respiration--that known as Sylvester’s is both simple
+ and efficacious. Rules for artificial respiration, and for the
+ restoration of persons apparently killed or injured, shall at
+ all times be kept affixed in the station. All persons engaged
+ in the works shall thoroughly understand these rules and be
+ capable of putting them into practice. In the event of a person
+ being rendered unconscious by an electric shock, artificial
+ respiration shall, on the careful removal of the body from its
+ electrical contact, be at once resorted to, and a qualified
+ medical man immediately summoned.
+
+ 22. All accidents occurring in generating stations or
+ transformer chambers shall be notified according to the
+ provision of section 18 of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1895.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ The Committee feel that any set of special rules framed for
+ the safety of the workpeople in this industry must imperfectly
+ realise their object if a specially qualified person be not
+ retained to advise the Secretary of State or Her Majesty’s Chief
+ Inspector of Factories on matters requiring technical knowledge
+ of electricity.
+
+ H. J. TENNANT.
+ MAY TENNANT.
+ THOMAS OLIVER, M.D.
+ C. V. BOYS.
+ H. P. SMITH.
+
+
+ APPENDIX II.
+
+ _The “Electrical Review’s” Suggestions for dealing with Apparent
+ Death from Electric Shock._
+
+The following suggestions are based on the recommendations of Drs
+D’Arsonval, Goelet, Hedley, and Lewis Jones, for the treatment of
+persons apparently killed by electricity:--
+
+ _Apparent Death._--In many cases where persons receive
+ electric shocks, death is only apparent, and animation may be
+ restored if efforts at resuscitation are not too long delayed.
+
+ _Method of Resuscitation._--The method of resuscitation
+ resorted to should be that known as artificial respiration.
+
+ Efforts to induce respiration should not be relaxed until
+ breathing is fully and normally restored, or until it is
+ absolutely certain that life is extinct.
+
+ _Danger of Seizing the Victim’s Body._--If the accident has
+ been due to contact with a “live” or faulty cable, the injured
+ person may retain a grasp of it. When the injured person retains
+ his hold of the cable it is dangerous to seize any part of him,
+ even the parts of the body covered by clothes.[49]
+
+ Perspiration may make the clothes damp and render them good
+ conductors, especially under the armpits, which would be the
+ part most likely to be seized.
+
+ In such a case the person who goes to the assistance of the
+ victim should protect his hands, whenever possible, with
+ indiarubber gloves.
+
+ Where gloves are not available, a thick layer of dry rags might
+ be used to cover the hands, or a coat or any other garment, if
+ made into a thick pad, might be used when pulling the victim
+ away from the cable or machinery.
+
+ _Send for a Medical Man at once._--No time should be lost
+ in sending for a qualified medical man, but in the meantime the
+ following efforts should be made to restore animation.
+
+ _How to Place the Body._--The body should be at once placed
+ upon the back and the clothes loosened. A roll made of a coat
+ or anything else convenient should then be placed under the
+ shoulders. It should be sufficiently large to prop up the spine
+ so that the head drops backward (see Fig. 30).
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 30.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 31.]
+
+ _Position of the Operator._--The operator should kneel
+ behind the subject’s head, in the manner shown in the
+ illustrations. He should then grasp the elbows and draw them
+ well over the head, so as to bring them almost together above
+ it, and hold them there for two or three seconds. Then he should
+ carry them down to the sides and front of the chest, firmly
+ compressing the chest by throwing his weight upon the arms.
+
+ After two or three seconds the arms should be again carried
+ above the head, and the operation repeated at the rate of about
+ 16 times per minute.
+
+ _Additional Means of Resuscitation._--In addition to the
+ foregoing, if there be an assistant at hand, the tongue should
+ be seized by a cloth or handkerchief and drawn forcibly out
+ during the act of inspiration, _i.e._, when the arms are
+ extended above the head; when the arms are brought down, the
+ tongue should be allowed to recede. This operation should be
+ repeated with the same regularity as the movement of the arms.
+
+ _Stimulants to be Avoided._--According to Dr Hedley the
+ efforts of the bystanders to pour stimulants down the throat of
+ the victim should be resisted until a medical man arrives.
+
+ _Necessity of Deliberation._--It should be borne in mind
+ that to be successful the foregoing operations should be carried
+ out deliberately and methodically. There should be no haste, but
+ the operations should be executed vigorously.
+
+ In many respects the treatment suggested above is similar to the
+ method of treating apparent death by drowning.
+
+ HAMILTON P. SMITH.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XVII
+
+ DUST AS A CAUSE OF OCCUPATION DISEASE
+
+ _General View of the Subject._
+
+
+Were it not for dust, fume, or gas, there would be little or no disease
+due to occupation except such as might be caused by infection, the
+breathing of air poisoned by the emanations of fellow-workmen and
+exposure to cold after working in overheated rooms. Dust plays such
+a prominent part in the causation of occupation disease that I have
+thought it advisable to discuss the subject in a general way _apart
+from_ the various industries detailed by separate writers. The
+harmful effects of dusty trades have long been known. As far back as
+the end of the seventeenth century, Ramazini, who was the Professor
+of Medicine in Modena, and subsequently at Padua, had drawn attention
+to this subject. He showed in his treatise, the _Diseases of
+Artificers_, how ill-health was caused by the inhalation of subtle
+particles that were offensive to human nature, and its aggravation by
+the unnatural postures of the body assumed in certain occupations. He
+also pleaded for the introduction of such contrivances as would lead to
+the safety of the workmen and the necessity for their being medically
+inspected. In these senses, therefore, he was the pioneer of the State
+Medicine of our time.
+
+Apart from anything inherently poisonous in the dust that is given
+off in a particular trade, dust itself, mechanically speaking, is
+prejudicial to health. A considerable length of our respiratory
+passages is lined with a layer of ciliated epithelial cells,
+_i.e._, cells from the free end of which project numerous
+hair-like processes that execute a rhythmic bending movement, like
+a field of wheat when a current of wind passes over it, and whose
+function it is, owing to the cilia actively bending in an outward
+direction, to prevent dust getting into the lungs, and to favour its
+expulsion should it have gained access to the smaller bronchial tubes.
+Nature, anticipating that dust would be drawn into the lungs in
+inspiration, has therefore provided this means for making its access as
+difficult as possible, and of effecting its removal when the breathing
+of the dust is intermittent. When animals are exposed for a period to a
+sooty atmosphere and are subsequently killed, their lungs are found to
+be perfectly black, but if other animals, after similar exposure, are
+allowed freedom in the open air, the lungs after death exhibit few dark
+patches. One of the effects of recurrent inflammation of the bronchial
+tubes is to bring about detachment and removal of this ciliated
+epithelium, and with its disappearance an important safeguard to the
+lungs is lost.
+
+Dust affects the body by being deposited upon the skin, hair, eyelids,
+and the oro-nasal passages. Through the mouth and nose it is aspirated
+into the lungs during respiration, or it reaches the alimentary canal
+through the saliva or with the food.
+
+When the skin becomes affected through an individual working at a dusty
+trade, the lesions thus caused are called _dermatoconioses_,
+similar affections of the lungs constitute _pneumoconioses_,
+while those of the gastro-intestinal tract are known as
+_enteroconioses_. Although the intestine, as in plumbism, is
+one of the most important and frequent channels by which industrial
+poisoning occurs, yet, pathologically speaking, the lesions of this
+canal are the least definite.
+
+So far as _dermatoconioses_ or inflammatory affections of the skin
+are concerned, it is mostly in industries in which dry dust is given
+off that these are met with, as, for example, in dry bronzing, but
+certain fumes also cause them, as is seen in the smelting of antimony.
+No portion of the skin is free from the possible contamination by
+dust, but it is upon the hair, beard, eyelids, under the nails, upon
+the lips, and inside the nostrils, upon any uncovered part of the body
+when the individual is at work, or where the clothing loosely meets
+the skin, also in such flexures of the body as the armpits and the
+groins, and where the garters fix the stockings, that the effects of
+dust are mostly observed upon the skin. When the factory is warm, or
+the work heavy, and the individual perspires freely, the dust mingling
+with the products given off by the humid skin either falls off in
+muddy drops of sweat, or it cakes and forms crusts. As a consequence,
+there is a variety of lesions, _e.g._, simple irritation or
+itchiness, known as pruritus; inflammation or erythema proceeding to
+eczema; or, as in the case of antimony smelters, vesicles that become
+pustular, and in arsenic grinders, ulceration. Since dust that
+of itself is harmless can induce disorders by mechanically blocking
+the pores of the skin and the excretory ducts of glands, so, too, can
+harmful dusts act, but they produce in addition certain irritating
+and poisonous effects proper to the peculiar character of the dust.
+Some dusts are crystalline or sharp-pointed, and penetrate readily and
+deeply, while others have a distinct caustic action, and erode or eat
+away the tissues, as is the case with the bichromate compounds. Some
+forms of dust again are composed of soft particles that of themselves
+inflict little local damage, and only become harmful like flour in
+forming plugs; while attached to some forms of animal products, such
+as horsehair used in brushmaking, are micro-organisms that become
+a source of danger. It is unnecessary to mention the various skin
+affections or _dermatoconioses_ produced by dust. They are all
+more or less the result of inflammation. In many of the erythematous
+forms of skin eruption the redness of the skin may simply be the result
+of the mechanical action of the dust, or the dust may be absorbed.
+One consequence of local irritation may be the formation of vesicles.
+Sometimes the itchiness becomes so great that scratching is resorted
+to and there follows eczema. Where the vesicles become pustular,
+this is generally due to the action of metallic poisons of an acrid
+character, or to poisons of an animal nature, as in anthrax. Ulceration
+of the skin, on the other hand, is the result of such caustic action
+as that induced by arsenic and the chrome compounds. The accompanying
+Photographs show various forms of dermatitis that occur in flax
+spinners, also of diseases of the finger nails in hide dressers. They
+are introduced here not as illustrating the harmful effects of dust,
+for they occur in the wet processes of an industry, but as indicating
+what is meant by the term _dermatoconioses_.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 32.--Mild form of Dermatitis
+ in Flax spinner (moist method); girl aged 16. Three years’
+ service in Factory. (Dr Glibert).
+
+ FIG. 33.--Medium degree of Dermatitis in Flax
+ spinner (moist method); woman aged 33. Eighteen years’
+ service in Factory. (Dr Glibert).
+
+ SKIN DISEASES OF FLAX SPINNERS.
+
+ [Illustration:
+
+ FIG. 34.--Severe form of Dermatitis in Flax spinner
+ (moist method); woman aged 19. Eight years’ service in Factory.
+ The small punched-out looking sore on thumb resembles what is
+ known to medical men as “Specific” ulceration, but it is in no
+ ways connected with it. (Dr Glibert).
+
+ FIG. 35.--Severe form of Dermatitis in Flax spinner
+ (moist method); woman aged 19. Eight years’ service in Factory.
+ Observe special round callosity on ulnar side of hand, an
+ affection first pointed out by Dr Van Eecloo of Lille. (Dr
+ Glibert).
+
+ SKIN DISEASES OF FLAX SPINNERS.]
+
+
+ _Skin Diseases of Flax Workers._
+
+It is through the kindness of Dr Glibert, Medical Inspector, Labour
+Office, Belgium, that I am able to show in the accompanying Photographs
+these particular lesions of the skin. The four Photographs in which the
+palmar surface of the hand is shown, are taken from flax workers. They
+indicate varying degrees of erosion, due to the frequent contact of
+the hands of the female worker with the irritating materials contained
+in the liquid used for spinning. At the commencement of the malady,
+as is well shown in the Photographs, the lesion is limited to an
+exfoliation of the epidermis, and this is not accompanied either by
+pain, pruritus, or functional trouble of any kind. Later on the dermis
+itself, or true skin, becomes involved at certain places, usually very
+few, and at these spots there exists considerable irritation, also a
+sensation of painful pricking, especially pronounced after working,
+and when the wounds are brought into contact with the air. As a rule,
+the malady does not proceed beyond this stage, but in some rather rare
+cases, met with mostly during severe weather, the ulceration tends to
+pass into the deeper tissues of the skin, and to assume an appearance
+which, to an unskilled observer, recalls the lesions met with in
+syphilis. There is nothing, however, in the flax workers’ dermatitis
+to confirm this suspicion. It is necessary to remark that there is
+never produced erythema, the formation of vesicles or a vesico-pustular
+eruption, and still less the glossy and bright appearance of the skin
+of the hand observed in eczema of a lichenoid character. Dr Glibert
+has frequently met with this form of eczema, to which Dr Leloir and
+his pupil Lefèbvre have drawn attention, but the ulcerative type of
+dermatitis indicated in the accompanying Photographs is absolutely
+distinct from these, and must not be confounded with them. It is only
+right to mention that although dermatitis has been observed in Belgian
+flax spinners, Belfast operatives similarly employed do not, according
+to Dr Purdon, suffer.
+
+
+ _Diseases of Nails in Furriers._
+
+The two Photographs showing the back of the hands of workmen who scrape
+rabbit and hares’ skins used in the manufacture of artificial furs
+exhibit an affection of the nails, to which Dr Glibert of the Belgian
+Labour Office drew attention in the Annual Report of the Inspection
+of Labour, 1896. The work of separating the layer of aponeurosis,
+which occurs on the under surface of the hide, causes in the dresser a
+special disease of the nails of the fingers. The groove under the nail
+becomes deeper, the nail is subsequently detached from the finger and
+falls off, either by some peculiar pathological process unaccompanied
+by ulceration, or by one of an inflammatory nature akin to what occurs
+in whitlow. The malady may attack all the fingers of the two hands,
+but it seizes by preference the thumb, the middle and ring fingers of
+the right hand. It is a common affection in fur-pullers in Belgium. Dr
+Glibert is the only writer I know who has described it. Of 22 workmen
+whom he examined, it was present in 18. He regards the lesion as
+distinctly microbic.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 36.--Disease of Finger Nails
+ in Hide dressers. Man, aged 35. Fifteen years’ service. (Dr
+ Glibert).
+
+ FIG. 37.--Severe type of disease of Finger Nails
+ in a Hide dresser. Man, aged 49. Twenty years’ service. (Dr
+ Glibert).
+
+ DISEASE OF FINGER NAILS IN FURRIERS.]
+
+
+ _Lung Diseases due to Dust._
+
+In pneumoconiosis the lung is altered in structure as the result of
+irritation caused by inhaled dust. A healthy lung is composed of loose
+spongy tissue, through which run in all directions the bronchial tubes
+and their fine ramifications (see Fig. 38). The essential part of the
+lung is made up of alveoli or air-cells, like the meshes of a net.
+Just as an ordinary net is made of strands of cord, so are the walls
+of the pulmonary alveoli formed of delicate lines of connective and
+elastic tissue, in which run capillary blood-vessels. The partitions
+thus formed are coated on both sides by a layer of flattened epithelial
+cells. It is this loose and almost uncovered condition of the pulmonary
+capillaries that allows of the rapid interchange of gases between
+the blood circulating in the alveolar walls and the air in the lung
+during respiration. Nature has placed certain obstacles in the way of
+particles of dust gaining easy access to the lungs, to wit, the narrow
+openings of the nostrils, the mucus secreted by the lining membrane of
+the nose, and of the trachea and bronchi; the narrow chink between the
+larynx and trachea known as the vocal chords, the ciliated epithelium
+already described, and a mechanical difficulty generally; so that while
+even with forced inspiration it is not easy for dust to be carried into
+the lungs, yet the fact remains that where an individual is working
+in the dusty atmosphere of a factory for several hours a day, week
+after week, particles of dust ultimately find their way into the finer
+bronchi, and subsequently into the pulmonary tissue itself. It is the
+repeated working in a dusty atmosphere that causes the trouble. A
+good deal depends, too, upon the character of the dust. Certain fine
+dusts, such, for example, as flour, may for a time be arrested in the
+mucus secreted by the respiratory passages, and be expectorated; while
+others, such as white lead, become dissolved in the alkaline mucus, are
+absorbed into the system, and thus induce constitutional poisoning.
+Fine fluffy material, like that given off from cotton and flax, can
+reach the lung, while sharp-pointed particles of metallic dust wound
+the epithelial lining of the smaller bronchi and penetrate into their
+walls, or they destroy the protecting layer of epithelium, and reach
+the alveoli either directly or indirectly through the lymphatics. These
+particles set up irritation in the lung, followed by a very marked
+increase of its fibro-connective tissue, which encroaches upon the
+spongy structure of the lung and destroys its aerating function. In
+the coal-miner’s lung, for example, there can be observed small masses
+of cells deeply laden with carbon particles surrounded by a hardened
+zone of altered lung, numerous black streaks underneath the pleura or
+covering of the lungs, ink-like dots in the walls of the small bronchi,
+and enlargement with pigmentation of the bronchial glands. The special
+pathological changes in the lungs in the various pneumoconioses are
+peribronchitis, and a great increase of the fibro-connective tissue,
+whereby the lung becomes converted into a hard and almost solid organ,
+incapable of carrying on the work of respiration. Hence are explained
+the difficulty and shortness of breath in people thus affected with
+what is called fibrosis of the lung. On examining microscopically a
+portion of lung that has undergone this change, there can be seen
+imbedded in the thickened fibrous tissue, particles of grit which
+exactly correspond in shape and size with those found on examining
+the dust removed from the mine in which the person works, or from the
+factory, in the case of steel-grinders’ lung. The identity of the
+particles of grit in the lung and those in the dust of the factory
+can be additionally confirmed by chemical examination. Such, in a few
+words, is the effect upon the lung caused by inhalation of the dust
+generated in a dusty occupation. The newly formed fibro-connective
+tissue is of low vitality, and is badly supplied with blood-vessels,
+and yet it goes on increasing and encroaching more and more upon the
+lung tissue, which it replaces. Although it seldom tends to break down,
+the consolidated tissue notwithstanding shrinks, the chest becomes
+smaller, cough more harassing, and emaciation progressive. The affected
+workman is regarded as the victim of consumption, but the disease
+is not necessarily _tuberculous_. Under these circumstances,
+where a lung has become altered in structure and its vital resistance
+diminished, it becomes an easy matter for true tuberculosis, as the
+result of its specific bacillus, to be grafted on to a pneumoconiosis,
+or dust lung disease. In people who have worked in a thick atmosphere
+there is therefore found a form of consumption due to the inhalation
+of dust, and another the result of the tubercle bacillus, but in
+old-standing cases the two are generally found combined. The tendency
+of modern pathology is to look upon all pulmonary phthisis or
+consumption as tuberculous, but the fact remains that phthisis can be
+caused by dust. Pneumoconiosis differs from the tuberculous type of
+lung disease in being more amenable to treatment in the early stage,
+also in the fact that while both lungs are affected, it is the bases
+rather than the apices that suffer. If the workman, for example,
+leaves his dusty employment, especially in the early stages of his
+illness, the malady may be arrested. Usually the march of the disease
+in this form is slower than the tubercular. It is an old idea, yet
+one that many seek to palm off as modern, that pulmonary consumption
+is an infective disease. In factories where many persons are at work,
+there are almost sure to be some who are tuberculous, and who cough and
+expectorate upon the floor. The expectoration dries, is trodden under
+foot, and, mingling with the dust, it rises into the atmosphere and is
+inhaled. Infection from consumptive fellow-workers must therefore play
+a part in the propagation of industrial phthisis, but the bulk of such
+cases do not assume the character of the occupation form of fibrotic
+phthisis to which we have just alluded, and which is known to occur
+frequently in men employed in dusty trades conducted in the open air,
+_e.g._, in masons and French millstone builders, in whom infection
+is less likely to prevail, and where the breathing of close and impure
+air can play no part.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 38.--Human Lung in health.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 39.--Lead Miner’s Lung. × 70
+ diameters. (T. O.)]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 40.--Steel Grinder’s Lung. × 70
+ diameters. (T. O.)]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 41.--Coal Miner’s Lung. × 70
+ diameters. (T. O.)]
+
+There are four recognised types of pneumoconioses or industrial lung
+disease: (1) _Chalicosis_ or _silicosis_, due to stone dust and
+siliceous material, as in masons’ phthisis; (2) _siderosis_, due to
+metallic dust; (3) _anthracosis_ or coal-miners’ phthisis; and (4)
+_byssinosis_, caused by inhalation of cotton particles.
+
+
+ _Gastro-intestinal Lesions._
+
+The _enteroconioses_ or gastro-intestinal lesions induced by dust
+are less well-defined pathological entities than the affections of
+the skin and lungs, and yet they play an important part in poisoning
+by such metallic dusts as lead, arsenic, and mercury. Apart from such
+symptoms as vomiting, diarrhœa, and colic; which these cause, there
+are the well-marked physical signs of poisoning present in the gums,
+as, for example, the “blue line” in plumbism, and the loose teeth and
+ulcerated gums in mercurial poisoning.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The attention of the reader is directed to the accompanying series of
+Microphotographs as illustrations of some of the forms of dust seen
+through the microscope, to which workpeople in various trades are
+exposed. Apart from the poisonous character of any particular kind of
+dust, _e.g._, that of lead and arsenic, the presence of chemical
+irritants inherent in the dust itself as in bichromate compounds, and
+the clinging of micro-organisms to such animal products as horsehair
+and wool, there is an opinion entertained by pathologists that the
+actual form of the particle of dust and its hardness are responsible
+for much of the damage inflicted upon the lungs of workmen engaged in
+dusty trades. Mineral and metallic particles of dust are hard and often
+sharp-pointed. Theoretically, therefore, it is expected of them that
+when they reach the lining membrane of the respiratory passages they
+will inflict greater damage than particles of dust that are softer and
+rounder. How far pathological experience supports this expectation I am
+not prepared to say. The dust that is given off in various occupations
+may be mineral, metallic, vegetable, or animal. I have reproduced some
+Microphotographs taken from Dr Migerka’s monograph, _Staubarten in
+Wort und Bild_, Vienna, 1895, and have added a few taken by Dr R.
+A. Bolam and myself, of dust from various industries, supplied by H.M.
+Inspectors of Factories. Some of these Microphotographs may be briefly
+described:--
+
+Fig. 42, _cement_ dust. Under the microscope are seen a few
+sharp-edged little plates and amorphous masses like small clumps. The
+particles are not of themselves so dangerous as might at first sight
+appear. Although cement workers suffer from pulmonary disease, they
+do not do so to the great extent that might be expected. Probably
+the harmful effects are largely due to the hygroscopic character of
+the particles and their alkaline reaction. Hirt gives the following
+percentage statistics of diseases for comparison:--
+
+ -----------------+-----------+-----------+------------+-----------+
+ | Phthisis. | Bronchial | Emphysema. | Pneumonia.|
+ | | Catarrh. | | |
+ -----------------+-----------+-----------+------------+-----------+
+ Porcelain Makers | 16 | 15 | 4 | 5 |
+ Masons | 12.9 | 10.4 | 6.5 | 4.4 |
+ Cement Makers | 8 to 10 | 15 to 17 | ... | 4 |
+ -----------------+-----------+-----------+------------+-----------+
+
+Comparing Figs. 43 and 44, _sandstone_ and _granite_, it will be
+observed that the granite dust is lightish-grey in colour, with black
+specks, and contains numerous flat, transparent splinters of quartz.
+Sandstone dust, on the other hand, is a finer powder, it is yellowish,
+and equal in colour throughout; it is rather an amorphous powder; in
+some samples a few sharp-edged plates of quartz can be seen. From
+microscopical appearances it might be assumed that granite dust would
+be very much more hurtful to the workmen than sandstone, and yet,
+according to Arlidge, _Diseases of Occupations_, p. 303, who made
+special inquiries into this subject, the workmen employed around
+Aberdeen in the cutting, dressing, and polishing of granite, are seldom
+the victims of pulmonary disease attributable to their occupation. This
+circumstance may be due to the igneous character of the rock, and the
+small quantity of dust that is thrown off, especially in the act of
+chiselling. Besides, as the particles of dust are of considerable size,
+they would, if inhaled, be caught in the upper part of the respiratory
+passages, and therefore not have the opportunity of inflicting damage
+upon the lung. The fact remains that while Aberdeen granite workers
+suffer from chronic bronchitis, they are remarkably free from the
+pulmonary fibrosis to which stone masons and French millstone builders
+are liable.
+
+ [Illustration:
+
+ FIG. 42.--Cement.
+
+ FIG. 43.--Sandstone.
+
+ FIG. 44.--Granite.
+
+ FIG. 45.--Lead Dust from Printing Shop, and
+ Type casting.
+
+ Microphotographs of Dusts developed in Dusty Trades. The
+ first twenty are reproductions after Migerka: the last six
+ after Bolam and Oliver.]
+
+In Fig. 45, _lead_ dust, as obtained from a printer’s shop, the
+particles are seen to vary in size and form. The particles are for the
+most part round, and not unusually sharp. This dust is not harmful on
+account of its form so much as dangerous through being absorbed into
+the blood. The dust that is given off in _file-making_ contains
+particles of iron as well as lead and charcoal (see p. 342), and this
+is productive of a large amount of pulmonary disease in men and women
+engaged in this trade. But with file-cutters as with printers and
+typographers generally, the unhealthy and close workrooms in which
+they follow their avocation are to some extent also responsible for
+the lung diseases. As bearing upon this subject, the annual reports of
+Benefit Societies are not without interest. The reports of the Benefit
+Societies of the printers and type-casters of Vienna, from 1889–1892,
+give the following percentage of illnesses:--
+
+ --------------------------------+----------+-----------+----------+
+ | Typists. | Printers. | Casters. |
+ | | | |
+ --------------------------------+----------+-----------+----------+
+ Tuberculosis | 2.8 | 1.7 | 1.6 |
+ Diseases of Respiratory Organs | 11.4 | 7.5 | 10.8 |
+ Disorders, etc., of Digestive „ | 7.5 | 5.1 | 7.1 |
+ --------------------------------+----------+-----------+----------+
+
+ Part 2 of Table.
+
+ --------------------------------+-----------+-----------+----------+
+ | Assistant | Female | Female |
+ | Workers. | Printers. | Casters. |
+ --------------------------------+-----------+-----------+----------+
+ Tuberculosis | 1.5 | 1.7 | 2.8 |
+ Diseases of Respiratory Organs | 7.5 | 9.0 | 11.1 |
+ Disorders, etc., of Digestive „ | 4.0 | 8.5 | 18.0 |
+ --------------------------------+-----------+-----------+----------+
+
+
+It is the typist and caster who suffer most from diseases of the
+respiratory organs, while among the printers and their assistants, the
+average is just above the normal. So far as diseases of the digestive
+organs are concerned, the printers suffer less than the others,
+but there is a preponderating amount of sickness among the females
+in nearly all branches of the industry. When the amount of general
+sickness in these trades is examined, it is found that the averages
+of total sickness are as follows: typists, 44.7; male casters, 41.2;
+female casters, 91.2; while printers are only 27.9, and assistants
+28.5. These remarks are introduced here to emphasise the fact that in
+the printing trades it is not alone the dust that is injurious, but the
+lead poisoning which it causes, and they also strengthen an opinion
+expressed in other parts of this book, viz., that females are more
+liable to plumbism than males, as the following figures also show. The
+percentage of plumbism in male casters in Vienna is 8 per cent.; in
+female casters it is 22.7 per cent.
+
+In Fig. 47, dust developed during _needle-grinding_, the particles
+of dust are frequently hook-like in appearance and sharp-edged. Lying
+among these are also observed particles of quartz with edges that are
+more or less sharp.
+
+Fig. 48 represents dust from _mother-of-pearl grinding_. Hirt
+regarded this trade as extremely dangerous. He found that 15 to 16 per
+cent. of the men engaged in this trade died from phthisis. According
+to Guggenbauer, turners of mother-of-pearl are said to suffer from a
+peculiar affection of the bones (osteomyelitis) owing to absorption of
+carbonate of lime from particles of the shell that have been inhaled.
+It is said that obscure rheumatic-like pains subsequently occur, and
+that the bones ulcerate. I have visited mother-of-pearl grinding shops
+in Sheffield and interrogated the workers there, but have been unable
+to find any evidence to support Guggenbauer’s contention. The grinding
+in Sheffield is done by the wet process, and none of the men seem to
+suffer in the manner alluded to.
+
+_Flax dust_, Fig. 50, is injurious to the worker. It contains
+mineral particles, vegetable cells, and broken stalks--so too does
+_hemp_, Fig. 51. In the teasing and spinning of _cotton_,
+Fig. 53, there is a considerable amount of dust raised in which
+fine fibres of cotton are found, _Jute_, Fig. 52, shows
+vegetable fibres which are often torn and ragged, and therefore
+with difficulty detached from the bronchial mucous membrane. In
+the figures representing dust obtained from _felt-making_,
+_fur-brushing_, and _rag-cleaning_, may be observed various
+forms of hairs and vegetable structures, with numerous foreign
+particles adherent to and encircling them. Some of these particles
+are of animal origin and may carry micro-organisms. The dust obtained
+during _wheat-cleaning_, Fig. 61, contains pointed vegetable hairs
+and numerous particles of organic and inorganic material, and would, if
+inhaled, be particularly irritating to the bronchial mucous membrane.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 46.--Gilchrist-Thomas Slag.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 47.--Needle Grinding.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 48.--Mother-of-Pearl.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 49.--Sawdust.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 50.--Flax.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 51.--Hemp.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 52.--Jute.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 53.--Cotton.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 54.--Silk.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 55.--Horn.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 56.--Ivory.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 57.--Felt Manufacture.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 58.--Dust from Fur Brushing
+ Machine.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 59.--Dust from Rag Cleaning.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 60.--Bone Meal.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 61.--Dust from Wheat Cleaning.]
+
+ [Illustration:
+
+ FIG. 62.--Ordinary Slag. Consett Iron
+ Works.
+
+ FIG. 63.--Basic Slag. North Eastern
+ Steel Works, Middlesbrough.
+
+ FIG. 64.--Ganister. Messrs Grayson,
+ Lowood & Co., Middlesbrough.
+
+ FIG. 65.--Dust from Fork Grinding
+ on dry stone. Sheffield.
+
+ FIG. 66.--Powdered Flint. Earthenware
+ Works, Stoke-on-Trent.
+
+ FIG. 67.--Glaze cleaned off Ware.
+ Stoke-on-Trent.
+
+ Microphotographs of Dusts, high-power. (T. Oliver and R. A.
+ Bolam).]
+
+It is a well-known fact that some forms of basic slag are more
+injurious than others. From a microscopical examination of the
+various dusts sent to me by Commander Hamilton Smith and
+Mr H. J. Wilson, H.M. Inspectors of Factories, and others (see
+Microphotographs, Figs. 62–67, by Dr Bolam and myself), I do not find
+sufficient evidence, judging by its appearance alone, to explain
+why one kind of basic slag manure is so very much more harmful than
+another. There may be chemical as well as physical causes at work in
+the production of pathological changes in the bronchial mucous membrane
+of those who work in basic slag. Some slags, for example, contain
+larger quantities of lime than others.
+
+ THOMAS OLIVER.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XVIII
+
+ DUST WOMEN
+
+
+Many readers are probably not aware that there is such a recognised
+employment for women as the sifting and sorting of the refuse of our
+houses. Any one wishing to observe how this work is carried on can
+see it daily in the dust-yards and wharves of London. In these places
+there are women who are actually spending their lives handling all
+the obnoxious waste that a great city produces. Dust-carts bring
+load after load of refuse to the yards. The drivers tip the contents
+of the carts before the women, who are drawn up in line and whose
+duty it is to sieve and sift this refuse, and then to sort into the
+different baskets that are standing close by, such things as rags,
+bones, string, cork, boots, paper, coal, broken glass, etc. It is a
+dirty and dusty occupation, and as a rule the women have their clothing
+covered and permeated by the dust, and their hair laden with it too,
+notwithstanding the handkerchief or shawl that covers their head.
+Wrapped with a piece of old sacking round their skirts and cloth bands
+round their legs, they lean over their work and inhale the unsavoury
+dust that has gone forth from the houses and the shops of the city. In
+one sense it is fortunate that this unpleasant operation is conducted
+in the open air, for therein to a large extent lies the comparative
+harmlessness of the employment. From time to time the hands of the
+women get cut by broken glass, and there is incurred the risk of
+festering wounds and the danger of blood poisoning.
+
+The story of dust women is told by Miss Emily Hobhouse in the
+_Economic Journal_, September 1900, p. 411, from whose interesting
+report I have drawn largely for the information supplied in this
+article. Miss Hobhouse naturally raises the question as to how far the
+sifting and sorting of refuse is a fitting and sanitary employment
+for women. Theoretically it cannot be a pleasant one, considering
+what the refuse may and does contain, and yet from the organic and
+inorganic materials, the dead and dying organised heaps that leave
+our houses as refuse, these women pick out certain things that are
+sent to manufacturers and reappear for sale in the form of glue, soap,
+bottles, and paper, while even such a thing as broken glass is rescued,
+transported to Sweden, and comes back to this country in the form of
+emery paper for polishing steel.
+
+The employment of dust women is dwindling, and must perforce disappear
+owing to the multiplication of destructors, the expense of dealing
+with the ever-increasing refuse by means of sifters and sorters, and
+the growth of public opinion, which is certainly opposed to regarding
+this work as a proper employment for women. It is a well-known fact
+that if a woman takes to refuse picking early in life she becomes
+almost utterly unfit for any other employment. At the present time
+the destructors do much of the work that has hitherto been done by
+men and women, but these furnaces can only destroy certain things in
+the refuse, and consequently leave a residue that has still to be
+got rid of. The question of removing the increasing amount of refuse
+from London and our large towns is a difficult one to solve. It has
+an economic side which cannot be ignored. In some of the vestries of
+London the clinker and fine ash that are removed from the destructor
+are converted into mortar, and the steam that is generated by the
+destructor is used for driving the machinery for grinding the mortar
+and clinker. It has been ascertained by sanitary engineers that town
+refuse has about ⅑ the heating power of coal, and that in a large city
+like London it can be destroyed for 2s. 5d. per ton, a less sum than it
+costs to barge it away. Some of the Boards of Works dispose entirely of
+their refuse by destructors, while others only do so partially; some
+again have their own yards or wharves, but not in all of them are women
+employed. Twenty-six of the vestries let out the work to contractors,
+many of whom, on account of the cheaper labour, employ women. In
+London alone there are at least 300 women employed as dust sorters.
+The wages given by the vestries, and the conditions of labour found
+under them, are much superior to those under contractors. The vestries
+pay the women 15s. a week, each day’s work, except Saturday, extending
+from 5 o’clock A.M. to 5 P.M., but 7s. to 8s. a week is all that can
+be obtained from the contractors. The broken-down appearance of the
+women who work for contractors, and who are sweated beyond all bounds,
+causes them to compare most unfavourably with the dust sorters for the
+vestries.
+
+The evidence obtained from officials, contractors, and the women
+themselves rather went to show that the general health of the men and
+women working in the dust-yards was good. Owing to being so much in the
+open air the women seemed hale and well-coloured, and they contrasted
+most favourably with those who were working in the factories or at
+home. Occasionally such troubles occur among them as sore throat,
+ophthalmia or “blight,” poisoned wounds, and among the elderly women
+recurrent attacks of cold on the chest, due to exposure to severe
+weather and the wet. On the whole, however, it would seem as if the
+open air life agreed with the women. In some of the yards the sifting
+is done by machinery, and the women only do the sorting. In these yards
+the women complain of finding it hard to keep pace with the machinery
+and of having to lift too heavy loads.
+
+Under all circumstances dust-sorting is dirty and disagreeable work.
+It is generally undertaken by women of the lowest class. The only zest
+that is given to the occupation is the prospect of finding money.
+Occasionally a copper, silver, or gold coin is found, and in most of
+the yards the money belongs to the finder. Such a piece of good luck,
+however, seldom benefits the individual, for it is made the excuse
+for a drunken spree that often lasts for days. The work is hard and
+exposed. It not only unfits women for other employment, but even for
+the ordinary duties of housewife and motherhood. It destroys the
+best instincts of maternity. The work takes the mother away from her
+children, who are consequently ill-tended and often die from neglect.
+Although several children may be born of these women, in many instances
+none of them live beyond a few months, not by the employment affecting
+the children through the mother, but because maternal duties are
+totally disregarded. For these reasons, therefore, it is scarcely
+desirable work for women under thirty years of age. It is with dust
+women as with many of the laundry women in London; they form a class by
+themselves, and so the work becomes more or less hereditary.
+
+As to the occupation being unsanitary, medical opinion is divided. Dr
+Thomas of Limehouse does not think it increases the death-rate, and
+Dr Dudfield reports that he has not observed any bad effects upon the
+health of the women. On the other hand, Dr Priestley states that while
+he has not observed any actual injury to health from the sorting of
+refuse, he thinks there cannot be any doubt that the trade is dangerous
+to health, and on this ground he recommends its discontinuance.
+The occupation is one which theoretically might be expected to be
+prejudicial to health, and yet experience indicates that the women
+become hardened to the work and immune to its possible evil effects.
+It is an undesirable employment for women all the same. If it is to
+continue, it ought to be brought under the supervision of the Factory
+Department of the Home Office, and as the conditions of labour under a
+private contract system are in this instance worse than when conducted
+and controlled by municipal authorities, Vestries or Boards of Health
+should retain the management of dust-yards in their own hands.
+
+ THOMAS OLIVER.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIX
+
+ LEAD AND ITS COMPOUNDS
+
+
+Of all the metals employed in the arts and industries, none lends
+itself to such general applicability as lead. In its metallic state it
+is so plastic that it can be readily moulded. It forms compounds which
+for colour and persistence have enduring properties superior to most of
+the metals. There are few articles of manufacture that have not been
+directly or indirectly brought into contact with lead, and in many of
+the newer industries the association is extremely close. The census for
+1891 showed that there were 132,010 persons employed in lead processes.
+Of these, 123,829 were painters, 2431 workers in leaden goods, and
+5750 were lead-miners. If we add to these the numbers employed in the
+potteries, electric accumulator works, etc., it will be at once seen
+that a very large proportion of the artisan class is brought into
+contact with lead. It is this wide use of the metal, the extremely
+poisonous character of its compounds, and the peculiarly subtle manner
+in which they act upon the human organism, that make lead a dangerous
+substance. Besides, it is frequently present in the water, the aërated
+beverages, and the wine we drink; the food we eat may be contaminated
+by having been cooked in common earthenware or in cheap enamelled pots,
+or by tinning as in canned goods. The acid juices of fruits or foods
+may dissolve out the lead in the solder. The clothing we wear may have
+been dyed by lead compounds, and thus not only industrially but in our
+domestic and personal lives we are daily running the risk of plumbism.
+
+
+_Lead-mining and the Health and Surroundings of the Miner._
+
+Professor Louis, in his article on Mining, p. 538, has briefly alluded
+to lead-mining. As in the following pages the subject of lead generally
+is dealt with, I feel that the reader will have a fuller grasp of all
+the points relating to lead and its history, if I slightly amplify
+what he has said by throwing a little side-light upon the medical and
+social aspects of the lead-miner’s life. Lead-mining in this country
+is an extremely old industry. Bars of pig-lead have been found in
+Derbyshire stamped with the imperial arms of Rome, indicating that the
+Romans worked our mines and smelted the ore. Since 1401 lead-mining
+has been carried on in the North of England, and has given employment
+to many families in the remote dales of Cumberland and Durham. It
+was formerly a source of very great wealth, but the mines have been
+gradually closing, owing to the importation of cheaper lead and of ores
+richer in silver than those that exist in this country. To-day it is
+rather a decaying than a prosperous industry. At present only 15,000
+tons of lead are melted annually on Tyneside. Most of it is foreign
+pig-lead. During 1895 there were 250,000 tons of ore converted into
+pig-lead in this country. It is perhaps more to the poverty of silver
+in the native ore than to the cost of production of the raw material
+that the diminished output of recent years is to be ascribed. It hardly
+pays the proprietor to extract the silver when it is present in small
+quantity. English pig-lead contains a very small percentage of silver,
+seldom more than from 8 to 10 ounces to the ton. Foreign ores vary
+as regards the amount of silver held. In Spanish ore there may be as
+much silver as 40 to 80 ounces to the ton, and in Greek 80 ounces.
+Australian ores show very great variations. In some of the veins the
+ore contains 60 ounces to the ton, while in other samples there may be
+500 ounces or even more.
+
+So far as lead-mining in the North is concerned, the methods adopted
+for obtaining the ore are antiquated. Owners are apparently afraid to
+risk money in the enterprise, and as a consequence the means by which
+lead is mined are much inferior to those for getting coal. Lead mines,
+too, are not under the same Government regulations as collieries. Their
+ventilation is bad, the roadways are ill kept, and the mines are often
+damp, while the means of descent into, and ascent from, the mines,
+by a series of ladders, are arduous for the workers. So far as the
+mining of the ore is concerned, there is in this country practically
+no risk to the miner from lead poisoning, for he is dealing with
+almost a pure ore, viz., galena, which is a sulphide. Metallic lead
+is harmless compared with its compounds, the oxide and carbonate. It
+is this circumstance that explains why lead-miners at Broken Hill in
+Australia suffer so severely from colic and convulsions, while their
+confreres in England escape. The ore at Brocken Hill is very largely a
+carbonate. The English lead-miner runs the ordinary risks to life and
+limb from accidents, and in a special manner his health is endangered
+by pulmonary consumption and rheumatism, largely the result of exposure
+when returning from work heated and fatigued, also of the barrack
+system in vogue in certain places for housing the miners.
+
+There is not much lead-mining carried on in France, but where it is
+there is freedom from plumbism among the miners as in our own country,
+with the exception of an outbreak of colic that occurred among the
+men who were working in the veins at Asprières (Aveyron), where the
+mineral was found, like the Australian ore, to be composed mostly of
+_cerusite_ or carbonate of lead. It is to a similar condition of
+the ore in the lead mines of Sierra de Gador that are attributed the
+400 to 500 cases of colic annually observed by Dr Bayer among 12,000
+miners--a malady to which the crushing of the cerusite in the dry state
+no doubt very largely contributes. (_Poisons Industriels_, Paris,
+1901, p. 14.)
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 68.--A LEAD MINE. Large
+ building on right is the lodging for the Miners; lower part
+ of building is occupied as a stable. Top of shaft seen high
+ up on left; lower down, the “level” or drift with hauling
+ machinery.]
+
+The dales of Durham in which lead-mining is carried on are sparsely
+populated: they are bleak, and swept by cold winds for the greater
+part of the year. In many instances the miners live a considerable
+distance from their work, and as railways have not yet penetrated into
+these remote corners of England, the men have to cover the ground on
+foot. Lead-miners are brought very little into touch with the outer
+world. They form a class by themselves, and cling with affection to
+their homes on the hillsides: they closely intermarry, and thus form
+not only one family socially but industrially as well. Their wages
+are small, seldom more than ten to twelve shillings a week, and yet,
+unless compelled through sheer necessity to renounce their badly paid
+and not too healthy occupation, they will not leave the district for
+the more lucrative work of coal-mining. As a class they are thrifty,
+intelligent, temperate, and religious. They are not long-lived.
+Pulmonary phthisis is extremely prevalent among lead-miners. In close
+proximity to some of the mines large “lodging shops” or “barracks”
+have been erected, where many of the workmen stay during the week. In
+one district, Dr William Robinson of Sunderland, formerly of Stanhope,
+found that 166 miners occupied one of these shops during three or
+four days and nights in the week. Often the barracks are in a filthy
+condition, for they are badly kept. As the sleeping accommodation is
+limited, the bedrooms are crowded to excess. In one room, 16 feet by
+13½ and 9¾, there were 20 miners accommodated, _i.e._, at the rate
+of 124 cubic feet of air per man, while the model regulations of the
+Local Government Board require not less than 400. Most of the rooms
+have no fireplaces: the windows are fixed, and consequently there is no
+means of ventilation. As large numbers of men have to be accommodated,
+the beds are crowded together in two tiers 3 feet 6 inches from each
+other, so that there is barely space to pass between them. Since the
+rooms are occupied by different sets of miners working alternate
+shifts, the beds are hardly cooled before being again occupied, while
+in consequence of the air of the rooms not being renewed, the stench
+is overpowering. Bad as the sleeping accommodation is, the day rooms
+are not any better. The closet accommodation, too, is scanty and often
+badly placed. In his lodgings as well as at his work many a lead-miner
+is exposed to the influence of very unwholesome atmospheric conditions,
+the results of which are seen in his deteriorated constitution and
+diminished resistance to disease. The air of the lodging-shops is
+heavy with the effluvia from the bodies of their occupants. Sooner or
+later lead-miners suffer from asthma and pulmonary catarrh, the end
+of which is often tubercular consumption, and as the men expectorate
+upon the floors of the sleeping-room, the tubercle bacilli find in
+the badly-lit and ill-ventilated rooms the conditions which favour
+their multiplication. In this manner, and apart from his work, the
+lead-miner is brought under the influence of the microbe of pulmonary
+phthisis. The excessive amount of carbonic dioxide in the mines, the
+unconsumed products given off by the burning candles and those given
+off by explosion of gunpowder, render the atmosphere of the mine for
+the greater part of the twenty-four hours unhealthy. By the workman
+who lives a few miles from the mines, and who has to walk home across
+a bleak and wind-swept moor, tired and heated after a hard day’s
+work and wearing wet clothes, colds on the chest are readily caught
+and not readily got rid of. Out of these repeated pulmonary catarrhs
+consumption is prone to develop. Commencing work in the open air as a
+crusher and washer of ore, the son of a lead-miner--for the occupation
+is largely hereditary--will for health compare most favourably with
+any young artisan, but he has only to work a few years in the mine
+when he becomes short-winded. Once this defect is induced it gradually
+increases, and so at the age of forty to forty-five the lead-miner is
+old for his years: an asthmatic, he is the subject of wheezing cough
+and expectoration, and is often obliged to give up work entirely before
+the age of fifty. Life, however, may be prolonged for years, for
+the summer months bring abatement of the symptoms; the improvement,
+however, is only temporary, for the cold winds of winter and spring
+again light up the chest affection. Since in the mine the air is
+dusty, and the worker inhales particles of grit, pathological changes
+in the lungs are established similar to those mentioned in the chapter
+on Dust and Disease. The lung of one lead-miner that I have is almost
+solid from excess of fibrous tissue, and it feels as hard as stone, see
+Fig. 39. On microscopical examination the alveolar structure of the
+lung is found to be replaced by dense fibro-connective tissue. In the
+expectoration of some of the lead-miners I have found tubercle bacilli.
+The pulmonary disease of lead-miners, therefore, like that of workers
+in dusty trades, may be either a simple form of fibrotic phthisis due
+to inhalation of grit, or it may be a truly tubercular lesion grafted
+on to the less formidable fibrosis. The average age at death of
+lead-miners is about fifty. Nearly 50 per cent. of them die from chest
+diseases. In the dales around Stanhope, in the county of Durham, the
+death-rate from phthisis among a secluded population of lead-miners was
+4.7, while in another part of the same Union composed of farmers it was
+only 0.6.
+
+
+ _Lead-smelting._
+
+While the miners in this country do not suffer from lead poisoning, the
+same cannot be said of the men who smelt the ore. I have seen several
+smelters die from plumbism. In a few instances I have witnessed son
+after son in a family thus carried off before the age of thirty. The
+fume that escapes from the flue of the smelting shop contains oxide
+and sulphate of lead, and it is the inhalation of this that causes
+plumbism. Usually the lead fume is conducted into a long flue, 5 feet
+high and 3 feet wide; in some places the flue is carried up the side
+of a hill for a mile or two before it terminates in the chimney.
+This allows of the deposition from the fume of some of the oxide and
+sulphate of lead which is recoverable. At one large smelting works
+which I visited along with my colleagues on the White Lead Commission,
+we found that recovery of the deposited lead by men entering the flues
+was attended by such serious symptoms that we recommended two hours
+at a stretch as the maximum time for men to work in cleaning out the
+flues. Twenty cases of plumbism in lead-smelters were reported to the
+Home Office in 1900.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 69.--OTHER VIEW OF LEAD
+ MINE. Crushing Machinery, etc., in shadow; Washing
+ Troughs, Sluices, “Sludges” in foreground.]
+
+Although British galena contains usually but a very small quantity of
+silver, this can be profitably extracted when present in the ratio
+of even 2 of silver to 1000 of lead. Frequently the amount of silver
+present in foreign ores is so large that manufacturers prefer to
+extract the more valuable metal only. Desilvering of lead ore is
+generally carried out by the Pattinson process, introduced in 1829.
+Until that date silver was not extracted from galena. The ore had to
+be converted into an oxide in order to separate the silver, and the
+oxide resmelted to recover the lead, but unless the lead contained 8
+to 11 ounces of silver to the ton it did not pay to extract it. While
+its removal has increased the production of silver, its extraction is
+by some authorities believed to have improved the quality of the lead.
+On the other hand it is stated that lead pipes made from desilverised
+ore are, when used for conveying drinking water into our houses, found
+to be too soft. They are more readily acted upon by water, and become
+consequently a more frequent cause of plumbism than the harder pipes
+made from British galena, from which the silver has not been extracted.
+The introduction of the Pattinson process has caused silver extraction
+to become a special industry. The process depends upon the formation of
+an eutectic alloy of silver and lead.[50] It is unnecessary to describe
+the Pattinson process, since it is detailed in all text-books on
+metallurgy and chemistry. Suffice it to say that the _desilvering_
+plant usually contains five pots made of cast iron and set in masonry,
+and by a series of melting and skimming, cooling and transferring
+the separated silver and lead to a series of pots in succession,
+all the silver, practically speaking, can be removed from the lead.
+Although I have frequently examined men engaged in desilvering lead
+I have rarely found them the subjects of plumbism. Two cases of lead
+poisoning were reported to the Home Office in 1900 as having occurred
+in silver-smelters.
+
+
+ _Red Lead_; _Lead Oxide_; _Litharge_; _Massicot_;
+ _Minium_.
+
+Lead oxide, the yellow and red, is got by melting metallic lead in a
+furnace exposed to atmospheric air. By means of a long iron rabble
+a workman keeps raking the molten liquid so that it is brought into
+intimate contact with the oxygen of the air. When removed from the
+furnace and cooled, the product assumes a red or yellowish colour
+according to the amount of oxygen it contains, and is known as the
+red oxide of lead and minium, or as massicot. During the operation of
+melting and raking the lead a certain amount of fume escapes from the
+open mouth of the furnace. The fume ought to be removed by a strong
+upward draught through a hooded chimney. Where this is not done and the
+men approach too near the mouth of the furnace, fume is inhaled, with
+the result that the workmen suffer from plumbism. A fairly large number
+of red-lead makers become anæmic and suffer from colic and wrist-drop.
+Great as is the risk run by the red-lead worker through inhaling the
+fumes from the molten metal, it is less than that incurred during the
+crushing and packing of the finished product. The substitution of
+mechanical agitation of the molten lead in the furnace for that done
+by hand by the workman would diminish the danger, since it would allow
+the doors of the furnace to be closed, except during the charging of
+the interior. The packing of casks with red lead should be conducted
+in closed spaces provided with a hood and such means as will create an
+effective draught. The workmen ought to wear overalls, have frequent
+baths, and be inspected at least every fortnight by a doctor. Men can
+work longer in red than in white lead without losing their health.
+There is no truth in the statement that they are _absolutely_
+free from the severer forms of plumbism. As a rule, I have found the
+symptoms of lead poisoning in massicot makers on the average milder
+than those observed in white-lead workers; but the result depends upon
+the proximity and length of exposure to lead compounds rather than
+upon the particular nature of the compound itself--always, of course,
+remembering that the more soluble the lead compound the greater the
+danger. Some physicians have had quite other experience. Layet, for
+example, in a paper read before the Congress of Hygiene at Turin, 1880,
+stated that minium is more dangerous than white lead, and that the form
+of poisoning is just as severe, if not more so. He had found red-lead
+makers more liable to what is known as encephalopathy, _i.e._, the
+cerebral type of Saturnism, than white-lead workers.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 70.--A “Blue” Bed in a White
+ Lead Factory, showing tan in lowest part, and resting on it
+ rows of earthenware pots containing acetic acid. Resting
+ upon the pots in left hand corner can be seen thin sheets of
+ metallic lead.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 71.--Female carrying Basins
+ filled with Washed White Lead from Vat to Stoves.]
+
+
+ _White Lead_; _Carbonate of Lead_ (_Céruse_, Fr.)
+
+All the soluble salts of lead are capable of inducing plumbism, and
+of these the carbonate is perhaps the most prolific cause of lead
+poisoning. In Britain most of the white lead of commerce is made by the
+_old Dutch_ process. Thin sheets of metallic lead (wickets) are
+taken to the stacks or blue beds. The floor of the stack is covered
+by a layer of tan, and on the tan is arranged a series of earthenware
+pots containing dilute acetic acid. Upon the pots are placed the
+sheets of lead. Boards are laid over these, and thus the first layer
+is formed. Tan is thickly strewn over the boards, and when this has
+reached a sufficient thickness, other rows of pots partially filled
+with dilute acetic acid and covered over by thin sheets of lead are
+arranged on the tan, and the whole is covered over by boards. This
+second layer is followed by others similarly constructed, until by a
+succession of tiers the ceiling is reached, when the doorway is built
+up by boards and kept closed for a period varying from ten to fifteen
+weeks, during which the conversion of blue into white lead by corrosion
+takes place. The stacks are ventilated by means of a shaft at each
+corner. Once the “blue” beds are made up and the doorway closed, the
+tan begins to get warm and evolve carbonic acid. In consequence of this
+heat the acetic acid becomes volatilised, and through the interaction
+between the lead and acetic acid on the one hand, and the carbonic acid
+on the other, chemical changes of a nature not thoroughly understood
+occur, which ultimately end in the production of the basic carbonate of
+lead, or what is popularly known as white lead. When this conversion
+is believed by the manufacturer to have taken place, the stack is
+opened. It is then no longer spoken of as a “blue” but as a “white”
+bed. Workpeople enter the white bed to strip it of the corroded lead.
+What was originally placed in the blue bed as a thin layer of metallic
+lead has become converted, if the corrosion has been satisfactory, into
+a much thicker plate made up of a white crisp incrustation of lead
+carbonate, which often conceals from view very thin pieces of unaltered
+metallic lead. In stripping the white lead off the unchanged metal a
+considerable amount of dust is given off, the inhalation of which was
+previously much more frequently a cause of plumbism in the workpeople
+than now, owing to the fact that present regulations require that the
+white beds must be watered by means of a “rose.” The carbonate and
+unaltered lead removed from the white beds used formerly to be taken
+direct to the rollers, crushed and washed, so as to separate the two.
+After washing, the white lead is placed in earthenware vessels and
+taken to the stoves to be dried. The emptying or drawing of stoves has
+been the cause of a larger number of severe and fatal cases of lead
+poisoning than any other department in a white lead factory. Until 1898
+the filling and emptying of stoves was very largely done by women,
+young and middle-aged, but the work was found to be so detrimental to
+female life that the White Lead Commission recommended that no woman
+or girl should be allowed to work in the stoves. I have known young
+women die from plumbism within three months after entering a white
+lead factory and working in the stoves. It takes from three to five
+days for the white lead to become thoroughly dried in the old form
+of stoves, after which it is packed into casks. Since the White Lead
+Commission published its Report there have been many improvements in
+stoves. There are many now in use which will tend still to diminish
+plumbism. In some factories wagons ladened with basins of moist
+white lead are run on rails into the drying chamber, while in others
+the white lead is made to fall mechanically on to a series of large
+revolving discs in a closed chamber heated by air. Packing is often a
+dusty and dangerous process if it is not conducted in a confined space
+ventilated by a shaft and fan. The white lead is mixed with oil and
+converted into paint. When visiting the white lead works in Paris of
+Messrs Expert-Besançon et Cie., a short while ago, I found that while
+the old Dutch method of manufacture was in use there was an immunity
+from plumbism among the employés that created a favourable impression
+upon me. That freedom I found was in the main due to the following
+circumstances: (1) no female labour was employed; (2) stoving was
+practically done away with; (3) the white lead was taken direct from
+the stacks to the rollers, where it was crushed and washed; then (4)
+passed through a series of rollers and mixed with oil, which gradually
+displaced the water,[51] so that a perfectly finished paint escaped
+from the last roller, practically free from, or containing only a very
+small percentage of water, and was passed automatically into casks,
+thus abolishing some of the dusty and dangerous processes as well as
+the handling of the white lead; (5) careful personal supervision of the
+workers, and attention to cleanliness; (6) regular medical inspection;
+and (7) alternation of employment. I reported to the Secretary of State
+upon these facts, with the result that they were laid before the white
+lead manufacturers of this country, many of whom adopted in a modified
+form the practice observed in Besançon’s works. English makers have
+since then informed me that it not only saves labour and therefore
+cheapens production (the product itself not suffering in quality), but
+has materially diminished the number of cases of lead poisoning in
+their factories.
+
+White lead can be made by other methods. In what is known as the
+_chamber_ process strips of lead are suspended over parallel bars
+in a chamber, which is heated by steam, and into which carbonic
+acid is passed, while acetic acid is present in pans on the floor.
+The result is the same, viz., formation of white lead by a process of
+corrosion, only the conversion is much more rapid, being four or five
+weeks as against the ten to fifteen required by the stack process.
+The subsequent treatment of the white lead is the same in both cases.
+Much of the white lead manufactured in Germany is made by the chamber
+process, and in that country emptying the chamber is regarded as
+dangerous to health.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 72.--Interior of Stove for
+ drying White Lead.]
+
+By the old Dutch process an excellent and very pure white lead is no
+doubt produced. The drawbacks to the method are that it is tedious,
+and that some parts of the process are extremely dusty, and therefore
+dangerous. There have been various attempts to manufacture lead
+carbonate by quicker methods, and of these the method of obtaining
+white lead by the action of acetic acid and glycerine upon the red
+oxide may be mentioned. In it the first step consists in reducing
+metallic lead to litharge by placing pig-lead in a furnace and allowing
+a jet of steam to play upon the vapour of the molten metal. The lead
+oxide is subsequently crushed into a fine powder. This, as I saw it,
+can be a very dusty and dangerous process. The red oxide is placed in
+large revolving barrels along with acetic acid and glycerine, and the
+churning is allowed to go on for about two hours. A greenish-white
+liquid is the result, and this is allowed to escape from the barrels
+into storage vats, from which it is conveyed into large cylinders
+called _carbonators_. Into these carbonating tanks carbonic
+dioxide obtained from burning coke and lime is conveyed, and the
+gas is allowed to bubble through the mass for about an hour, when
+carbonate or white lead is formed. After running off the supernatant
+liquid, the deposited lead carbonate is removed through pipes to the
+_presses_, where it is washed and any acetate that may cling to
+it is removed. After this it is taken to the stoves, into which it is
+run on a series of long narrow wagons, the workmen not entering the
+stove at all. By the third day it is sufficiently dried to be ready for
+packing or mixing with oil to make paint. This method of manufacture is
+known as the _precipitation_ process. In it there is no handling
+of the white lead until it reaches the presses. The dangerous parts of
+the process are: (1) the grinding of the lead oxide: this is dusty;
+(2) the pressing: in this the men handle the white lead, and as a
+consequence I have observed in young workmen marked anæmia, tremor
+of muscles, colic, and the presence of a deep blue line on the gums;
+and (3) filling the barrels with the finished white lead, when danger
+arises from inhalation of dust. In some works ammonia is substituted
+for glycerine. Conducted as an experiment, white lead manufactured on
+the lines just detailed is extremely satisfactory, but financially it
+is not very successful. Although the precipitation process is more
+rapid it is more costly, and as a consequence factory after factory
+which has adopted this method has been obliged to close.
+
+In the manufacture of white lead by the _Bischof_ process the
+first stage consists, after converting metallic lead into litharge,
+in the reduction of the litharge to suboxide in gas-tight cylinders
+by means of water gas at a temperature of about 300° C. The suboxide
+is moistened in mechanical mixers with water, and converted into
+hydrate. By means of carbonic acid, dilute acetic acid and glycerine,
+the hydrate is converted into white lead in a gas-tight apparatus, and
+after separation of the liquid and washing of the sludge, the aqueous
+white lead is mixed with oil by mechanical means, and becoming thus
+ordinary white lead paint, it is packed ready for the market. No female
+labour is employed in the factory. The manufacture of white lead by
+the Bischof process at the time of writing is still to a large extent
+experimental, but it gives promise of commercial success. As the work
+is done by machinery, and is for the most part wet, there is no dust
+given off. The only possible unhealthy part of the process I observed
+was the mixing of the suboxide of lead with water, but where this is
+done mechanically, as I presume it can be in chambers provided with
+ventilating shafts, all danger can be averted.
+
+In white lead factories the dangerous processes are emptying the
+white beds, washing the incompletely converted metallic lead plates,
+crushing, grinding, sifting, filling the pots with white lead for the
+stoves, emptying the stoves and packing the barrels with the dry white
+lead. It is the continual absorption into the body of very minute
+quantities of lead compounds either by the pulmonary or digestive tract
+that causes plumbism. The skin, too, offers another channel by which
+it may enter the system. Although it is usually in the form of dust
+that lead enters the body, it can also enter it in the form of fume,
+and possibly, too, mixed with steam in which the particles of lead are
+either dissolved or suspended.
+
+Lead carbonate is an extremely fine white powder, and is largely sought
+after as a pigment by house painters, by plumbers for searing joints,
+and by pottery manufacturers for making the glazes in which the ware is
+dipped. As a pigment it is said by a large number of house decorators
+to be superior to any other. There is a decided preference in the
+trade, too, for that made by the stack process. It always commands a
+higher price, the reason being that it is believed to have much greater
+covering power than white lead made by some of the other processes.
+On account of white lead being such a dangerous product, both in its
+manufacture and manipulation, the question of finding a suitable
+substitute has often been raised. This subject was carefully gone into
+by the White Lead Committee a few years ago.
+
+Zinc white, for example, was recommended, but the opinion come to was
+that while zinc oxide was practically free from the dangers incidental
+to lead carbonate, and answered well for internal decoration, for
+covering purposes and endurance in all kinds of weather there was no
+pigment equal to white lead. It is this widespread belief among house
+painters generally that makes white lead such a valuable commercial
+product.
+
+The question of finding a substitute for white lead has not been
+confined to Britain alone. One hundred and twenty years ago, Courtois
+presented to the Academy of Dijon some zinc white, which was
+remarkable on account of its permanence, and in 1783 Guyton de Morveau
+recommended, from hygienic motives and on account of its chemical
+properties, zinc oxide for lead carbonate. Ten years ago a small
+representative committee reported to the Commission des Logements
+Insalubres of the city of Paris upon zinc white as a likely substitute.
+As far back as 1849 the Minister of Public Works ordered that all the
+Government buildings in France were to be painted with zinc oxide
+instead of lead carbonate, and although in 1852 the Minister of the
+Interior followed with a similar request to the various prefects,
+the resolution remained a dead letter. It was indicated to a fresh
+committee, appointed in 1891, that from an economic and industrial
+point of view, zinc white was inferior to white lead, that it had
+no great covering power, little durability, that it cost more, and
+that therefore the painting of State buildings by it would entail an
+unjustifiable expense. Some persons, on the other hand, held the belief
+that zinc white possessed just as good covering properties, so long as
+it was mixed with a larger proportion of oil and less of turpentine,
+and that the painter gave a sufficient amount of attention to his
+work so as to make the coating flat, also that it was not so readily
+blackened by sulphurous vapours. As for the increased expense, it was
+to be remembered that if zinc white costs more, it is also less heavy,
+and therefore weight for weight gives a larger body of material. The
+Commission, taking into consideration the hygiene of dwellings, the
+health of the workers, and the interest of landlords, and having the
+choice of two substances before it, of which one is almost harmless,
+and the other a strong poison, adopted the following resolutions: (1)
+the employment of zinc white to the exclusion of white lead will be
+specified in all the orders for painting; (2) the Commission renews the
+wish expressed in 1880 in regard to the exclusion of white lead in all
+public works. No special action followed these recommendations. Within
+the last few months the question has again been raised in France, and
+on this occasion more vigorously than before. The operative painters
+met in congress, and passed resolutions denouncing the use of lead in
+the manufacture of paint, and demanding that the law for compensation
+for accidents should be extended to include cases of plumbism. To the
+painters’ representatives the Minister of Commerce, at a personal
+interview, while admitting that the law on accidents was imperfect,
+stated that it was too soon to hope for its amendment. He undertook to
+do all he could to enforce the decree of 1849, that no more lead should
+be employed in painting and decorating State buildings. In France zinc
+sulphide, oxysulphide, and oxide have all been tried as substitutes
+for white lead, but although there is a belief that these can replace
+lead carbonate, there is an unwillingness on the part of architects
+and house-painters to discontinue the use of lead. In Britain
+other chemical compounds in addition to the above have been tried,
+_e.g._ sulphate of barium, but although this is a beautifully
+white substance, it does not mix so well with oil nor has it the
+covering power of white lead. The surface of the object painted can be
+seen through the coating of barium sulphate, a circumstance probably
+due to the fact that the barium salt exists in a more highly developed
+crystalline form than the lead compound.
+
+In March 1901 the Comité Consultatif d’Hygiène of France reported upon
+this subject[52] that the manufacture of white lead has become less and
+less the harmful industry it was owing to the Expert-Besançon process
+of grinding and mixing the white lead in water, with the subsequent
+addition of oil as it passes through the rollers, careful medical
+examination of the workmen employed, and the removal from the works
+of those who seem to be susceptible to plumbism, or are inclined to
+the free use of alcohol. The Committee of Hygiene recognises that
+in house painters, want of cleanliness, also the excessive use of
+alcohol and absinthe, are responsible for much of the lead poisoning,
+and therefore, since it is impossible to regulate and control the
+habits of these men, they ought to be provided with paints which do
+not contain such an injurious substance as white lead. In zinc white
+the committee is of opinion that a proper substitute can be found for
+lead for most purposes. Many architects and builders still object to
+the use of zinc white, but there are many, on the other hand, who claim
+for it the same advantages as regards covering power and endurance,
+and who maintain that when exposed to sulphuretted vapour it forms a
+sulphide which is white compared with the black sulphide similarly
+obtained from lead. The zinc coating dries more slowly, and there is
+therefore some loss of time; the work of laying on, too, may be a
+little more difficult, and for polishing purposes zinc mastics do not
+harden so well. Zinc is not so good in calico-printing as white lead.
+There are some things therefore, the committee admits, that lead may
+be better for than zinc. It is also admitted that even zinc oxide may
+be accidentally contaminated by small quantities of arsenic and lead,
+also that it is slightly more expensive--for example, it costs 0.0152
+franc more for each metre of work done. The committee concludes its
+report by stating that both in the manufacture of zinc white and in its
+application as a paint it is free from the dangers incidental to lead,
+and therefore it is worthy of a lengthened trial as forming the basis
+of colours for house painting, since there is a considerable amount of
+educated opinion to show that it can be substituted for white lead.
+The French Government is asked to set the example by having the public
+buildings painted with oxide of zinc.
+
+No industry, unless, perhaps, it be that of pottery manufacture, has
+caused so much plumbism as the manufacture of white lead, and yet in
+none has strict attention to regulations and personal hygiene been so
+productive of good as in these two industries.[53] The bulk of the
+work is unskilled labour. In Newcastle and neighbourhood, until the
+last three years, most of the work in the dangerous processes was
+performed by women who led rather a casual life, and who took to the
+trade as a last resource, owing to the idleness, illness, or death of
+their parents or husbands. They were mostly of the poorest class,
+and were often ill-fed and ill-clad. After a few weeks or, at the
+most, a few months of pretty regular employment in a lead factory,
+particularly if much of the time was spent in stripping the white
+beds or emptying the stoves, young women would suffer severely from
+plumbism. As already stated, I have known young women who were strong
+and healthy when they entered a white lead factory, die from Saturnine
+poisoning within three months. In one instance a young woman had, to my
+knowledge, only worked forty days, spread over a period of nine weeks,
+when she succumbed to lead poisoning. I am firmly convinced that women,
+especially young women, are much more susceptible to plumbism than
+men. The predisposition to lead poisoning is in both sexes doubtless
+spread over all periods of life, but so far as occupation exposure to
+lead is concerned, my opinion is (1) that women are more susceptible
+than men; (2) that while female liability is greatest between the ages
+of eighteen and twenty-three years, that of men is later; and (3)
+that while females rapidly break down in health under the influence
+of lead, men can work a longer time in the factory without suffering,
+their resistance apparently being greater. In addition to a sexual
+predisposition to plumbism there is also an individual and a family
+tendency as well. It is difficult to explain this susceptibility of
+certain persons to lead poisoning. As to the fact, however, there is no
+doubt. It is partly a constitutional, and it may be partly a temporary
+and accidental condition. We find illustrations of constitutional
+predisposition to certain maladies in the greater liability of some
+people, for instance, to contract infectious diseases than others,
+in the readiness, for example, with which they catch typhoid fever
+and suffer severely from it. We have similar illustrations of the
+influence of age in the early years of adult life being those in which
+enteric fever is most severe. As an indication of how susceptibility
+to plumbism may be accidentally and temporarily developed, I would
+instance the influence of poverty, which, by preventing the purchase
+of wholesome and abundant food, allows the gastric juice probably to
+dissolve out more of the lead that has been swallowed. No doubt much
+of the greater prevalence of plumbism hitherto observed in women who
+have worked in white lead factories is to be explained by the fact
+that they have until recently worked in larger numbers than the men in
+the dangerous processes, for since June 1898, the date in which the
+Home Office required that male should replace female labour in these
+processes, the number of cases of plumbism in the men has increased,
+and correspondingly decreased among the women. Taking for example
+my own district, the number of cases of plumbism notified to the
+Home Office from Newcastle-upon-Tyne for the two six months’ periods
+preceding and succeeding June 1898, the date of the displacement of
+female by male labour, is as follows:--
+
+ NOTIFICATIONS. FATAL CASES.
+ Males. Females. Males. Females.
+ 1st December 1897 to 31st May 1898 19 66 1 4
+ \ / \ /
+ \ / \ /
+ 85 5
+ 1st June to 30th November 1898 82 12 0 2
+ \ / \ /
+ \ / \ /
+ 94 2
+
+Between January and October 1898, Dr M. Legge states that there were
+received at the Home Office from certifying surgeons, 192 reports of
+plumbism. Of these the stoves supplied 76 patients and the white beds
+31. The ages of the workers being--
+
+ Under 20 yrs. 20 to 30. 30 to 40. 40 to 50. 50 to 60. Over 60 yrs.
+ 7 84 58 24 15 1
+
+In three instances the patients had worked less than one week in the
+factory. In four-fifths of the total cases the lead poisoning took
+the form of colic, in the remaining one-fifth paralysis and cerebral
+symptoms.
+
+Next to the susceptibility of women generally, and of young women
+in particular, I would say that all young adult life offers less
+resistance to plumbism than mature and middle age. In the House of
+Commons, 17th February 1898, the Home Secretary stated that there had
+been 37 cases of lead poisoning in factories and lead works among boys
+under eighteen years of age which had proved fatal.
+
+Looking back upon the tables just presented, it will be observed that
+when males undertake the work hitherto discharged by females in white
+lead factories they develop plumbism in a ratio which might raise
+doubt in the mind of the reader as to the susceptibility of women to
+plumbism being greater than that of men. Admitting for the moment that
+the susceptibility is equal in the two sexes, and the fact, too, that
+in both the illness may be severe, still I unhesitatingly assert that
+in the main the symptoms are neither so severe in men, nor does the
+malady run so rapidly to a fatal termination as it does in women. In a
+word, females contract lead poisoning more readily, the symptoms are
+usually more acute, they suffer more severely, and they succumb to it
+more quickly than males. In women acute lead poisoning is more prone
+to assume the cerebral type than in men. We have, it is true, only the
+experience of the last three years to enable us to form an opinion as
+to the abolition of female labour in the dangerous processes of white
+lead manufacture having been a wise recommendation on the part of the
+White Lead Commission, but limited as the time is, the records of the
+Newcastle-upon-Tyne Royal Infirmary are not devoid of interest on this
+point.
+
+
+ LEAD POISONING.
+
+ _In-patients admitted into Royal Infirmary, Newcastle-upon-Tyne._
+
+ +------+--------+-------------------+--------------------+-----------+
+ |Year. | Total. | Recoveries. | Deaths. | Remaining |
+ | | | | | on Books. |
+ +------+--------+--------+----------+--------+-----------+-----------+
+ | | | Males. | Females. | Males. | Females. | |
+ | 1892 | 44 | 15 | 27 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
+ | 1893 | 32 | 5 | 25 | ... | ... | 2 |
+ | 1894 | 31 | 7 | 20 | ... | ... | 4 |
+ | 1895 | 35 | 11 | 18 | 1 | ... | 5 |
+ | 1896 | 38 | 12 | 22 | ... | 2 | 2 |
+ | 1897 | 21 | 7 | 12 | 1 | 1 | ... |
+ | 1898 | 36 | 22 | 12 | ... | ... | 2 |
+ | 1899 | 20 | 19 | 1 | ... | ... | ... |
+ | 1900 | 14 | 14 | ... | ... | ... | ... |
+ +------+--------+--------+----------+--------+-----------+-----------+
+
+ It will be observed that the number of deaths is equal for the
+ two sexes.
+
+A decade ago the Newcastle Infirmary wards were scarcely ever clear
+of a case or two of lead poisoning. At present weeks or months may
+pass without one being in the wards. Beyond male labour having been
+substituted for that of females in the dangerous processes in the
+factories, and the circumstance that men are believed to do more work
+than women, I am not aware that there has been any reduction[54] in
+the number of people engaged in white lead manufacture on Tyneside that
+will explain the smaller number of cases of plumbism coming into the
+Infirmary, nor beyond the workhouses is there any other institution in
+this neighbourhood, other than the Royal Infirmary, to which patients
+suffering from plumbism could go. During 1898, the year in which men
+exchanged places with the women in the dangerous departments in white
+lead factories, the number of cases of plumbism admitted into the
+Infirmary was slightly greater than for one or two of the previous
+years, a circumstance possibly explained by the greater irregularity
+of work on the part both of the men and women, and the fact that the
+men were of a casual class and had not become accustomed to the work.
+Immediately after the abolition of female labour, not only is there
+observed a marked fall in the number of female admissions, but there
+is this astonishing feature, that while during 1900 only 14 cases,
+all males, were admitted, for the first time in the history of the
+Newcastle Infirmary within our memory a whole year passed without
+even one female being received. During the last three years, as also
+during 1893–1894, no death from acute lead poisoning took place in
+the Infirmary. There has been, too, a remarkable absence lately in
+the Newcastle daily press of announcements of coroner’s inquests
+having been held upon fatal cases of lead poisoning in the district
+compared with what there was a few years ago. Nothing could be stronger
+testimony to the wisdom of the Home Office in having enforced the
+recommendations than these facts. Although the manufacturers at the
+time strongly resisted the recommendation of the White Lead Committee,
+I believe they now admit that it was a proper step, also that work
+under the present system is better done than formerly, and that there
+is less sickness among the employés. The difficulty of substituting
+male for female labour, which manufacturers anticipated and which was
+their principal objection, has not been realised; the men do more
+work, and therefore the cost of production has not been increased,
+although wages have been higher; the men, too, are more cleanly.
+Improved methods of manufacture and diminished handling of products
+have doubtless contributed also to this satisfactory result. As the men
+have come to recognise the dangerous character of their occupation,
+and have made up their minds to follow it until they can get something
+better, they have become more careful, and therefore suffer less in
+proportion from plumbism. Casual work and irregularity of employment
+certainly play a not unimportant part in causing lead poisoning. The
+casual labourer is often ignorant and careless. As these pages are
+passing through the press, a man who had been stripping a white bed in
+a factory on Tyneside was found eating food with hands unwashed and
+covered with dust, while his face and beard showed only too plainly
+the presence of the same material. He stated that he had not been
+informed of any danger, and that no regulations had been read out to
+him. How easily, therefore, lead poisoning may be caused and almost as
+easily prevented. Dr Morison Legge found that of 1463 persons employed
+off and on in white lead works, the incidence of lead poisoning was 6
+per cent. of the average number regularly employed, and in those with
+casual employment 39 per cent. Taking the whole number of hands passing
+through white lead factories in a year, the difference between these
+two, however, is less marked than at first appears, the numbers being
+5 per cent. for the employed and 8.3 for the casual workers. Out of
+thirteen factories with regular employment four of them had no cases of
+plumbism to report at all, even although in one of these factories 110
+persons were employed, whereas from two factories in which there was a
+large amount of casual employment 50 cases of plumbism were reported.
+The reasons why casual hands suffer more than those regularly employed
+are to be found in their carelessness and want of personal cleanliness,
+intemperate habits as regards alcohol, tobacco-chewing when at work,
+and unwillingness to wear respirators. During 1900 there were reported
+to the Home Office 356 cases of plumbism in white lead workers, but Dr
+Legge says, if two firms, one in Newcastle and the other in London,
+were excluded from the 18 firms, the total would fall to 175.
+
+I have dwelt at considerable length on female labour and casual
+employment in lead works, and I hope have shown that the abolition
+of women’s work in white lead factories has been followed by marked
+improvement both in the conditions of labour and in the reduced
+number of cases of plumbism. Female labour, however, is still very
+largely employed in other trades where lead compounds are used. It
+may therefore be expected that I should offer some explanation of
+the attitude I have assumed in regard to this important industrial
+question. Where the two sexes are as far as possible equally exposed to
+the influence of lead, women probably suffer more rapidly, certainly
+more severely than men. To a certain extent the reason is to be found
+in the fact that lead exercises an injurious influence upon the
+reproductive functions of women. It deranges menstruation. Usually
+there is an excessive loss at the monthly periods, which causes women
+to become anæmic; in a few instances, on the other hand, the loss is
+scanty. It is upon pregnant women that the metal exercises its worst
+effects. The ecbolic or abortifacient action of lead is beyond dispute.
+It is knowledge of this fact that has caused women of the lower classes
+when pregnant to resort to diachylon pills, which contain a small
+quantity of lead, for the purpose of producing miscarriage. When a
+white lead worker becomes pregnant it is almost impossible for her to
+go to the end of term if she continues to follow her employment. As a
+rule she mis-carries, but if, perchance, she goes to term, the child
+is either born dead, or dies shortly after birth from convulsions. In
+the liver and kidneys of still-born children of female lead workers
+that I submitted to Professor Bedson for chemical analysis, there were
+found minute quantities of lead. Chemical analysis, therefore, confirms
+clinical experience as regards the cause of death in these children.
+As to the injurious influence of lead upon maternity I shall give a
+few illustrations taken from my own and others’ experience. Mrs H.,
+aged thirty-five, worked in a white lead factory for six years, before
+which she had four children born at full time. Since going to the lead
+works she has had nine miscarriages in succession and no living child.
+Mrs M., aged thirty, has had seven children and three miscarriages.
+The last two children were born and all the miscarriages took place
+after entering the lead factory. Mrs F. has had three miscarriages
+since taking up lead work. Mrs K., aged thirty-four, had four living
+children before going into the lead factory, and two living children
+afterwards. Still following her occupation, she had six miscarriages
+in succession, became the subject of plumbism, and was under my care
+in the Infirmary for a few months on account of colic and paralysis;
+she made a good recovery, but did not return to the lead factory; next
+pregnancy she went to term and had a living child, which survived. If
+additional medical testimony were required to support the opinion I
+have put forward as to the pernicious influence of lead upon maternity,
+it is to be found in that of M. Constantin Paul, a French physician,
+who has published in detail his experience of 15 pregnancies of 4
+women working in a type foundry. Ten of these pregnancies ended in
+abortion, 2 in premature labour, 1 in a still-birth, and 1 in a living
+child, who died a few hours after birth. In another series the facts
+are just as instructive. Five women before working in lead had borne
+9 children without one abortion. After exposure to lead there was a
+total of 36 pregnancies. Of these, 26 ended in abortion, 1 in premature
+labour, 2 in still-births, while 5 of the children born at full time
+died within one year after birth. Constantin Paul, grouping together a
+large number of pregnancies, viz., 123, found that of these, 64 ended
+in abortion, 4 in premature confinement, 5 children were born dead,
+and 20 of the infants died within the first twelve months. Of 1000
+pregnancies reported by Tardien, 609 ended in abortion (_Poisons
+Industriels_, Office du Travail, Paris 1901, p. 5). In the potteries
+Miss Paterson and Miss Deane, two of H.M. Inspectors of Factories,[55]
+found that “out of the 77 married women reported as suffering from
+lead poisoning during this period (the year ended 31st March 1897)
+15 have been childless and have had no miscarriages; 8 have had 21
+still-born children, 35 have had 90 miscarriages, and of these, 15
+have had no child born; 36 have had 101 living children, of whom 61
+are still alive, the great majority of the 40 who are dead succumbed
+to convulsions in infancy.” Dr J. F. Arlidge,[56] Certifying Surgeon
+for Stoke, has published his experience of 239 married women working in
+lead processes in the china and earthenware industry. Of the children
+born before the mothers worked in lead 40.4 per cent. died. Of each
+100 pregnancies there were 7.0 miscarriages, while, during or after
+lead employment, of the children born only 36.5 per cent. died, and
+the percentage of miscarriages was 11.8. Of the 239 women there were
+71 who had had no children prior to working in lead. These 71 women
+had subsequently 302 children (of whom 114 died) and 38 miscarriages;
+that is, for every 100 children born 37.7 died, and 11.1 of every 100
+pregnancies resulted in miscarriage. Dr J. F. Arlidge’s statistics
+show that in female pottery workers employed in lead processes the
+percentage of miscarriages is higher than in those engaged in other
+departments, but neither is this nor the death-rate of children born
+under these circumstances so great as M. Paul, Tardien, and I have
+found.
+
+If lead exercises a prejudicial effect upon the reproductive powers of
+women it is also capable, although to a less degree, of diminishing the
+virility of men. Children of female lead workers almost invariably die
+of convulsions shortly after birth or during the first twelve months.
+If a child is the offspring of parents, both of whom are lead workers,
+it is puny and ill-nourished, and is either born dead, or dies a few
+hours after birth. The power of lead not only to kill the offspring
+but to destroy for the time being the child-bearing powers of woman
+is remarkable, and it is this circumstance, along with the fact that
+women suffer more readily and severely from lead poisoning, that are
+the main arguments for keeping them out of the dangerous processes
+in any industry in which lead compounds are used. It is through the
+intermediary of the temporary structure known as the “after-birth”
+that the poison is transmitted to the fœtus _in utero_. Roques
+(_Mouvement Medical_, 1872), is of opinion that a mother working
+in lead conveys through her milk to the child she is suckling the
+metallic poison, and that there is produced a slow and progressive
+deterioration of the infant’s constitution. Prof. Bedson has analysed
+for me the milk of suckling lead workers without finding any trace of
+lead therein. Whether or not lead is only occasionally present in the
+mammary secretion, it is undesirable that women who have an infant at
+the breast should work in the dangerous processes.
+
+Lead is a subtle poison. Most of its salts have in small doses no
+unpleasant taste nor odour, they are very soluble, and they produce
+their baneful effects sometimes in such an insidious manner that the
+health of the operative becomes so gradually undermined that he is
+often precipitated into a serious illness without any warning. In
+most instances, however, there are prodromata, for lead causes colic
+or severe pain in the abdomen. Usually this is one of the earliest
+symptoms to cause a lead worker to seek medical advice, while in
+others, as just mentioned, there is such a gradual deterioration
+of health that it is not until the system is thoroughly impregnated
+with lead and pathological changes have been established in the
+internal organs that the individual comes for relief. Lead poisoning
+is widespread owing to the large number of industries into which
+lead in some form or other enters, and the accidental contamination
+of our food and drink. The metal gains an entrance into the system
+through the respiratory passages, the digestive canal, and very
+occasionally through the skin. It has been demonstrated clinically
+that the injection of acetate of lead up the nostril has resulted
+in the absorption of the salt by the nasal mucous membrane, and the
+production of paralysis. How far very fine white lead dust falling
+upon the eyelids may be dissolved in the lachrymal secretion and be
+absorbed, I am not at present in a position to state. Inhaled as
+impalpable dust, it is drawn into the respiratory passages, where it is
+dissolved and passes into the blood, or it is suspended in the saliva
+in the mouth and swallowed. On reaching the stomach it is acted upon by
+the hydrochloric acid of the gastric juice, converted into a soluble
+salt, and absorbed. Elsewhere[57] I have given in detail a series of
+experiments showing the solubility of white lead in the juices of
+different parts of the digestive tract, which, while confirming, at
+the same time explains the important fact already known to managers of
+white lead factories, viz., the great danger of employés commencing
+work in the factory in the morning without having breakfasted. As lead
+is a direct poison to the system, nature does her best to eliminate it
+by the fæces and through the kidneys.
+
+The symptoms of plumbism are manifold. Usually easy of recognition,
+they are sometimes so obscure as to render the malady difficult
+of detection even by a careful physician. One of the earliest
+signs is pallor of the countenance. There is developed a degree of
+anæmia which gradually increases until the features become altered
+and expressionless, a form of bloodlessness which since it is
+characteristic of lead poisoning, is spoken of as Saturnine cachexia.
+This becomes very pronounced, so that it is easy to recognise lead
+workers by sight. A few weeks’ work will transform a healthy-looking,
+florid young woman or man into a pallid and listless individual. During
+the time that pallor is developing, the individual often complains of
+a disagreeable metallic taste in the mouth, especially on rising in
+the morning, and of a distaste for food, so that he proceeds to his
+work in the morning without breaking his fast. There is no more certain
+way of courting plumbism than for any one to work in a factory where
+lead compounds are handled without having food in his stomach. This
+is a fact which the digestive experiments alluded to in my Gulstonian
+Lectures have placed beyond all question. It was therefore not only a
+humane action, but it was a wise step, from a white lead manufacturer’s
+point of view, when the employers gave a free breakfast to their
+hands before beginning work each morning in the factory, and it was a
+short-sighted policy that led them to abandon it.
+
+Two forms of lead poisoning are met with, the _acute_ and _chronic_.
+It is with lead as with many other poisons. One individual may work
+for several months or years without suffering, while another may
+succumb to its harmful influence in as many weeks. The manufacture of
+white lead is one of the industries that will not allow of familiarity
+breeding contempt. The most careful worker may suffer, so too may
+the oldest who has passed unscathed for years. Alcoholic excess
+predisposes to plumbism. Why colic is such a common and early symptom
+of Saturnine poisoning is because the alimentary canal is one of the
+principal channels by which lead enters the system, and lead is known
+to have a special affinity for muscular fibre and nerve tissue, and
+to induce spasm. Colic is often attended by vomiting and by obstinate
+constipation. The pain is of varying degrees of severity. Sometimes it
+is so mild that the individual is able to follow his occupation but
+in discomfort. At other times it is so severe that he rolls about in
+agony, and is with difficulty kept in bed. Occasionally relieved by
+pressure of the hand upon the abdomen, it is under other circumstances
+often aggravated by it. The pulse is slow, small, and feeble during
+the attack, although at times it is found to be hard and showing high
+tension. In severe colic the individual is collapsed--the face wears
+an anxious expression--there is sleeplessness, and the function of
+the kidneys is seriously impaired. Notwithstanding the severe nature
+of the pain in lead colic and the general derangement of internal
+functions, the symptoms by degrees yield to treatment. After recovery
+most of those who have been ill return too early to their employment.
+One attack of plumbism unfortunately predisposes to another. On
+examining the mouth of a lead worker there is usually to be seen a
+bluish line along the margin of the gums close to the teeth. The gums
+are ulcerated, and in the case of old lead workers they are retracted,
+and thus expose a considerable length of the fang. Although a valuable
+help in diagnosis, the presence of the blue line on the gums must not
+be regarded as an indication that the individual possessing it is at
+the time suffering from lead poisoning, for the line may be present
+for months without there being either any complaint or any symptom of
+ill-health. It tells the tale that the individual has been exposed
+to lead, and that the metal is present in his system, so that when
+associated with certain other signs and symptoms the presence of the
+blue line on the gums clenches the diagnosis of plumbism. The line
+itself is due to a deposit of sulphide of lead in the epithelial cells
+of the gum or in the large connective tissue cells present along
+the ulcerated edges. The blue line is met with under two different
+circumstances. It may be observed on the sound gums of white lead
+workers who have recently entered a factory, and who have been employed
+for a few hours in emptying a stove. If the mouth is rinsed with
+water it disappears, a circumstance which shows that this line is
+simply a deposit of lead on and not in the gum. The other is much more
+permanent: it persists for months despite the use of mouth washes and
+the administration of medicine internally. I know of no mouth wash,
+tooth paste, or drug that is capable of removing the blue line from the
+gum under from eight to twelve weeks.
+
+It is upon the nervous system that the worst effects of lead are
+seen. Usually after having experienced one or more attacks of colic,
+but sometimes without these, a lead worker suddenly or gradually
+loses power in his hands and fingers. His hands become paralysed,
+hang powerless by his side, and the patient is said to be suffering
+from “wrist drop.” This renders him unable to feed or dress himself.
+Both hands are usually affected, but not in equal degree. Bilateral
+paralysis is always suggestive of some form of metallic poisoning. In
+“wrist drop” the extensor muscles of the fingers and wrists rapidly
+waste. As a rule the affection is painless, but in some instances the
+loss of power is preceded by muscular tenderness. The muscles of the
+shoulders and upper arm, too, may be affected, or the weakness affects
+the muscles of the foot, and causes “ankle drop.” When the malady is
+of a more pronounced type the muscles of the trunk become paralysed.
+In this form the individual is perfectly helpless: he lies like a
+log, unable to turn or move himself in bed, and for the time being
+his condition is usually one of danger. It is characteristic of lead
+paralysis even in such minor forms as “wrist drop,” that it not only
+completely unfits the individual to earn his living, but to attend to
+his own personal wants. The paralysis is slow to disappear even when
+medicine, massage, and electricity are used.
+
+One of the worst forms of acute plumbism is what is known as acute lead
+_encephalopathy_, and to this women seem to be more predisposed
+than men. A female lead worker has perhaps been observed by her friends
+to have been getting paler and paler, and to have lost her appetite.
+She complains on getting up in the morning of severe headache which
+prevents her taking food, but notwithstanding these she goes to work,
+and is probably not more than an hour or two in the lead factory when
+she is seen to fall on the floor in convulsions. She is unconscious,
+and the convulsions come and go. In this condition she is taken home or
+to an infirmary, where within the next two days she dies, never having
+regained consciousness; or by the third day consciousness returns, but
+she keeps moaning on account of severe pain in her head. It is now
+noticed that she is blind; she loathes her food and is often sick.
+Recovery is slow. The power of vision may be gradually restored, or it
+remains permanently lost, and thus it happens that, at a comparatively
+early age, a young woman who has only worked in the dangerous
+processes of a white lead factory for a few weeks or months, and who
+has suffered from acute encephalopathy, not only swims for her life
+during the seizure, but may be rendered permanently blind, and thereby
+completely unable ever afterwards to earn her living. In the form
+of lead encephalopathy that I have just portrayed, there is usually
+some premonitory headache before the individual is struck down in
+convulsions, but in not a few instances the warning is of another kind,
+and of such a nature that it may be overlooked even by experienced
+medical men. I refer to symptoms of hysteria occurring unexpectedly
+in a young female lead worker. The patient does not seem ill. There
+is rather an exaltation than depression of her mental faculties and
+her feelings, and yet out of what appears to be ordinary hysteria the
+patient may pass into a state of coma, with or without convulsions,
+and die within three or four days. Under any circumstance it is a very
+fine line that divides functional from organic disease of the brain,
+and in lead poisoning this is particularly the case. To _toxic
+hysteria_, therefore, which often masks a deeper malady and is apt
+to throw both the friends of the patient and the medical attendant
+off their guard, I attach considerable importance as a premonition of
+acute lead encephalopathy. We have seen that after recovery from acute
+encephalopathy a patient may remain temporarily or permanently blind,
+and there may or may not be paralysis, but in some instances the mind
+is so shattered by the illness that complete consciousness is never
+regained. The patient passes into a state of acute mania, which is
+usually fatal, or the symptoms are subacute, recovery is incomplete,
+and the individual passes the remainder of his or her days in an asylum.
+
+The question of insanity in lead workers has been very ably dealt with
+by Dr Robert Jones,[58] the Medical Superintendent of the London County
+Asylum, Claybury, Essex. Taking the proportion of 1 lead worker, in the
+broad sense of the word, to every 58 of the adult population, there
+ought to be in Claybury 18 male patients belonging to that class. As
+a matter of fact, however, out of 1050 males in the asylum, there are
+35 who have been lead workers, plumbers, painters, and glaziers, but
+excluding pottery workers and miners. In examining the histories of
+3500 male patients admitted into Claybury, Dr Jones found that of these
+133 were artisans, who in their trade had possibly become impregnated
+with lead; their occupation was as follows:--
+
+ Painters 75
+ Decorators 13
+ Plumbers 18
+ Gasfitters 13
+ Labourers in lead works 6
+ Grainers 3
+ Gasmeter Makers 2
+ Colour Grinder 1
+ File Cutter 1
+ Tea Lead Roller 1
+ ---
+ 133
+ ---
+
+Of these, 19 had signs of lead poisoning upon admission, such as
+paralysis, colic, and blue line on gums, while in 22 there was a
+history of convulsions (encephalopathy), headache, giddiness, and
+paralysis. Of the 133 cases the following is the analysis of their
+mental condition:--
+
+ Mania 37
+ Melancholia 33
+ Dementia 19
+ Dementia with Epilepsy 10
+ Dementia with General Paralysis 24
+ (?) General Paralysis 7
+ Alcoholic Mania 3
+ ---
+ 133
+ ---
+
+“The proportion of general paralytics among these possible lead cases
+is 18 per cent.: the average yearly percentage of general paralytics
+to the total average number of male patients admitted into asylums for
+the five years 1893–97 was 13.1, and it appears to me there is a strong
+presumptive evidence that lead may be a factor in the cause of general
+paralysis of the insane.” Elsewhere[59] I have drawn attention to the
+association of lead poisoning and general paralysis, and indicated that
+as there is in the plumbic form a larger percentage of recoveries than
+in general paralysis proper, the probability is that the malady is not
+exactly of the same nature, but is rather a pseudo-general paralysis.
+Dr Jones summarises his conclusions thus: (1) that lead poisoning is
+a contributory factor to insanity; (2) that the mental symptoms may
+be grouped among one or other of the following varieties: (_a_)
+toxæmia, with sensory disturbances, which tend to get well; (_b_)
+hallucinations of sight and hearing, usually chronic and irrecoverable;
+(_c_) general paralysis with tremors, increased knee-jerks,
+inco-ordination, listlessness, and dementia, which tend to get well.
+
+So far I have depicted the acute rather than the chronic form of lead
+poisoning. There still remains that form in which the individual,
+after having been exposed for a lengthened period to the influence of
+lead, and having experienced one or more attacks of colic, indicating
+that his system is becoming impregnated with lead, is never well; he
+is profoundly anæmic, is the subject of frequent headache, imperfect
+vision, and incomplete wrist drop. Albumen is present in the urine,
+and there is a slight degree of dropsy of the face, hands, and feet,
+physical signs that point with these just mentioned to structural
+alterations having occurred in the kidneys, liver, heart, and
+blood-vessels, retina, and nervous system. Life drags on from day to
+day, only to end in a lingering illness, or it is brought to a sudden
+close either by uræmic convulsions, or in consequence of rupture of a
+blood-vessel in the brain. At the post-mortem examination in chronic
+cases the kidneys and liver are found to be hard and their secreting
+structure replaced by a low form of connective tissue, while in acute
+lead encephalopathy the brain may be dry on its surface and retracted,
+on section hard and dry, or watery and pale, the blood-vessels being
+congested. On microscopic examination very delicate changes have
+been found in some of the large nerve-cells of the brain and spinal
+cord, and also in the structure of the liver and kidneys. What, then,
+is the cause of death in acute lead encephalopathy? In most of my
+own fatal cases, lead was detected in the liver, kidneys, muscles,
+and brain, etc. To the fact that lead has been found in the brain,
+and has probably formed some complex chemical compound with it, may
+be attributed the convulsive seizures, insanity, and possibly, too,
+death. At the most it has always been a very minute quantity of lead
+that has been found in the brain after death. In one of my patients
+Professor Bedson found on chemical analysis only O.779 grain in a
+brain and cerebellum that together weighed 51.5 ounces: while from
+another brain and cerebellum that weighed 48 ounces, he obtained only
+0.634 grain of lead. From another brain Professor Bedson removed 4.04
+milligrammes of lead, while in a case reported by Mr Wynter Blyth
+there were 99.7 milligrammes of sulphate of lead found in the brain
+and 17.4 in the cerebellum. A brain whose nerve-cells have become
+poisoned by lead cannot functionate as in health, but as in some of the
+rapidly fatal cases of encephalopathy, occurring in young female lead
+workers hitherto healthy, no trace of the metal was detected in the
+brain on careful chemical examination, death must have been caused by
+some other circumstance than the hypothetical presence of lead in the
+brain. The human body is a laboratory, wherein even in health animal
+products are hourly being formed, and which if retained in the system
+would poison the individual. Were it not for the activity of such
+eliminating organs as the kidneys and bowels, life would be constantly
+menaced by this auto-intoxication. Lead in some people rapidly induces
+structural changes in the liver and kidneys, or it quickly interferes
+with the functional activity of these organs, so that poisonous
+materials generated by the individual himself are not removed. It is
+the circulation of these in the system and their action upon the brain,
+aided probably by the presence of a soluble compound of lead in the
+blood, that is the cause of the convulsions and death in some cases of
+acute lead encephalopathy. Occasionally lead workers are admitted into
+hospital suffering from convulsions and delirium, which are not due to
+lead, or at any rate to lead alone. In many of these cases there is
+a strong alcoholic history, that it is difficult to say how much is
+due to lead and how much to alcohol. Alcohol we know predisposes to
+plumbism.
+
+
+ _Treatment--Preventive and Curative._
+
+Of precautionary measures requiring mention I would allude to the
+avoidance of excess of all kinds on the part of the workpeople,
+including the use of alcohol; to the need of nutritious food, plenty
+of milk, and the avoidance of acid fruits; attention to personal
+cleanliness as secured by frequent washing, change of working clothes,
+good ventilation of the workrooms, and the wearing of respirators.
+
+A year ago, M. Armand Gautier presented to the Prefect of Police in
+Paris a report in which he showed that in Paris alone there were
+upwards of 30,000 persons exposed to the fumes, dust, and combinations
+of lead, and that the hospital treatment of the working people whose
+illness was due to lead poisoning cost the municipality a very large
+amount of money every year. In an earlier report presented to the
+Council d’Hygiène, and dealing with the admissions into the hospitals
+between 1870–80, he showed that this expense corresponded to a
+residence of 11,140 days in these institutions. In 1881 the French
+Government appointed a Commission to inquire into the prevalence of
+lead poisoning, and to draw out regulations. The enforcement of the
+rules was followed by a decided improvement in the number of cases.
+From 1881 to 1883 the number of patients fell from 552 to 421, and the
+number of days spent by patients in the hospitals fell one-half. This
+satisfactory decrease, however, was not maintained, despite the fact
+that the Clichy white lead works, which used to contribute nearly 50
+per cent. of lead cases, was closed, and new methods of production
+had been introduced. So far as white lead works are concerned, there
+is not the least doubt that the substitution of the moist for the dry
+method of dealing with lead carbonate materially diminished the amount
+of ill-health among the workpeople, and yet, while this improvement
+was taking place, the number of cases of plumbism rose all over Paris,
+owing to an increase in the amount of lead used in other trades, which
+had not attended to hygienic requirements. The number of fatal cases
+also of lead poisoning in Paris rose. Of 552 patients ill between 1877
+and 1880, 5 died; of 248 ill between 1887 and 1889, 16 died; of 302 ill
+between 1890 and 1893, died; while of 314 ill between 1894 and 1897, 17
+died. The fact therefore remains that since 1881, when fresh and more
+stringent regulations for French white lead workers were introduced,
+the number of patients suffering from lead poisoning, and dying from
+it, in Paris, has risen. The explanation of this anomaly is to be found
+in the fact that the victims of plumbism are no longer supplied by the
+white lead works in the same proportion as formerly, but that they
+come from other industries that have not yet been brought under the
+regulations. Of these industries house painting has contributed the
+largest number of patients. This trade, along with colour grinding,
+supplied no less than 223 patients during the years 1894 to 1898. The
+proof that improvement in methods of manufacture, _e.g._ the
+substitution of the wet for the dry method, has been satisfactory, is
+shown by the fact that before the introduction of the regulations of
+1881, white lead operatives occupied the second line on the list of
+dangerous trades, to-day they occupy the sixth. It is in consequence of
+the increasing prevalence of Saturnine poisoning in house painters that
+the agitation at present going on in Paris against the use of white
+lead as a pigment, and alluded to in previous pages, has reached such
+dimensions.
+
+A few years ago the white lead works at Clichy furnished for a long
+period nearly one-half of the cases of plumbism admitted into the
+hospitals of Paris. Demolition of this factory was followed by a rapid
+diminution in the number of cases of lead poisoning seeking admission.
+This circumstance shows that in some factories the conditions under
+which the work is carried on are more unhealthy than in others. On
+Tyneside we are not without a similar experience. There are some white
+lead works in which there is always more plumbism than in others, and
+the explanation is that either the works are older and the ventilation
+worse, or that the general management is in some way or other not so
+good. It is the same class, often the same people, who work in all the
+factories, for they occasionally migrate from one to another, and yet
+there remains the undesirable fact of a larger amount of sickness among
+the hands in some of the works than in others. As an illustration,
+take for example the lead-poisoned patients admitted into the Royal
+Infirmary, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, from October 1890 to March 1893--
+
+ Factory _A_ 52 cases.
+ “ _B_ 15 „
+ “ _C_ 8 „
+ “ _D_ 5 „
+ “ _E_ ... „
+ Other factories 8 „
+ ----
+ 88
+ ====
+
+Of 88 patients, one factory, not the largest, supplied nearly
+two-thirds of the total admissions. As illustrating the preventableness
+of industrial white lead poisoning, it is worth mentioning that in one
+of the largest and best conducted factories in the Newcastle district,
+there has only been one fatal case of lead poisoning within the last
+twenty years, and since the enforcement by the Home Office of the
+recommendations of the White Lead Committee, the factory that sent 52
+out of the 88 cases stated in the preceding table to the Infirmary in
+two and a half years, at present scarcely sends one patient per annum.
+Lead-poisoned females are now practically never met with in Newcastle,
+and male patients are becoming every year rarer. As long ago as 1849,
+Combe proposed that instead of washing, then drying the white lead in
+stoves, and subsequently packing it in barrels for sale, it would be
+safer from a worker’s point of view, since it would rid the atmosphere
+of dust, if the lead carbonate on its removal from the white beds were
+ground and washed at once in water, then forced to travel through a
+series of rollers and washers into oil under rollers. The oil displaces
+the water, and as a consequence the white lead escapes from the last
+roller as finished paint.[60] In order to obtain the white lead as
+a paint, the soft paste as it comes from the grinding stones, and
+which contains 15 to 20 per cent. of water, can be at once mixed and
+incorporated as it passes through the rollers with increasing fractions
+of 10 per cent. of oil. The water is thus gradually eliminated from
+the paste, so that the product as it escapes from the last roller
+contains hardly 1 per cent. of water, can be packed, and is ready for
+the market. Mr T. H. Leathart of Newcastle-on-Tyne, who has adopted
+this method in his works,[61] informs me that the paint is, practically
+speaking, free from water, there being not even .5 per cent. of it in
+the finished product. By the adoption of this method of manufacture
+there has not only been a saving of labour, but better health among
+the workmen, owing to the absence of dust. This small change in the
+method of manufacture has had a wonderful influence on health. The
+grinding and packing of all dry white lead should be conducted in
+hermetically-sealed compartments. Even to this there is the drawback
+that as time goes on, owing to the vibration of the machinery, the
+joints of the wood and iron become loose and the dust escapes. The
+defect, however, can be easily remedied.
+
+In 1899 the Chief Inspector of Factories issued special rules for white
+lead works, which were an advance upon those of previous years, and
+which have undoubtedly diminished plumbism in this industry. It is
+unnecessary to reproduce these rules here, but the main points included
+in them are that plans for new works or structural alteration of
+old factories must be submitted to the Chief Inspector of Factories;
+white beds must be watered when being emptied; drying stoves are to be
+ventilated, and no person is allowed to draw a Dutch stove on more than
+two days in any week; no women are allowed to work in the white beds,
+rollers, washbecks or stoves, or in any place where dry white lead is
+packed, or in other work exposing her to white lead dust; there must be
+weekly medical examination of every person employed in a lead process,
+with suspension in the case of illness, and medical re-examination
+before returning to work; suitable respirators, overalls, and
+head-coverings must be provided by the occupiers; adequate washing
+appliances are required, with cessation of work ten minutes before each
+meal-time and the end of the day’s work for the purpose of washing.
+The duties of persons employed are similarly defined, and any person
+obtaining employment under an assumed name or on any false pretence is
+liable to a penalty. It is enacted, too, (Factory and Workshop Act,
+1891, sections 9 and 11) that the rules shall be kept posted up in
+conspicuous places in the factory, so that they can be conveniently
+read by the persons employed. Any person who is bound to observe the
+rules and fails to do so, or acts in contravention of them, is liable
+to a penalty. In such cases the occupier also is liable to a penalty
+unless he proves that he has taken all reasonable means by publishing,
+and to the best of his power, enforcing the rules, to prevent
+contravention or non-compliance. To extreme temperance in the use of
+alcohol, and to a weekly or fortnightly alternation of employment for
+the workpeople in the factory, I attach great importance as preventive
+agents.
+
+A sanitary drink has to be provided for the workers by the employers.
+It is usually composed of Epsom salts and lemon juice, or some other
+acid, dissolved in water. The provision of an acidulated drink for
+persons employed in white lead works is a subject to which the members
+of the White Lead Commission gave considerable attention, but I
+candidly confess that the Committee never attached any great importance
+to it as a means of preventing plumbism. The theory upon which its
+administration is based is that the sanitary drink converts any lead
+which may have been swallowed into the rather insoluble sulphate,
+and that thereby the risk of plumbism is diminished. When the drink
+contains a slight excess of acid, then instead of being a safeguard
+it may become the reverse. Besides, after all, lead sulphate is not
+very much less insoluble in gastric juice than lead carbonate, and
+the men who go to the barrel to obtain the sanitary drink are not
+careful enough to rub their moustache clean before drinking. Within
+limits, when carefully prepared and not too acid, the sanitary drink
+possesses certain advantages on account of its being a mild aperient,
+but beyond this it is only doubtfully a preventive. The workpeople
+should be given to understand that there is no real antidote to lead
+poisoning, and that they must be constantly on their guard against it.
+Personal cleanliness is, I repeat, of the greatest importance. Such
+drinks as the acid lemonade just described, milk and coffee, etc.,
+however useful they may be of themselves, cannot altogether prevent
+lead poisoning, and it is unwise therefore to allow the workpeople to
+shelter themselves under this belief.
+
+_Curative._--During the attack of colic, warm applications to the
+abdomen, and the administration of a mild aperient, such as magnesium
+sulphate or castor oil, especially if there is constipation, and
+there is the prospect of the medicine being retained on the stomach.
+Occasionally a warm bath may be called for, or if pain is severe, the
+administration of a hypodermic injection of morphia. In milder cases,
+or when the immediate urgency of the colic has passed away, iodide of
+potassium is a good eliminant, but the internal administration of this
+drug in plumbism requires caution, since it may dissolve out lead that
+has been deposited in the tissues, flush the blood with a soluble lead
+salt, and thereby aggravate, and often dangerously too, the symptoms of
+lead poisoning. For paralysis the internal administration of iodide of
+potassium with nux vomica, and the use of massage will, in most cases,
+succeed, but recovery is usually slow and often incomplete. Electricity
+gives encouraging results, and as practised in the manner suggested
+by Dr Lewis Jones (see p. 375), has been productive of a great amount
+of good. For acute lead encephalopathy the subcutaneous injection of
+pilocarpine and the inhalation of nitrite of amyl have in my hands
+answered well. Bleeding, and the injection of large quantities (about
+500 centimetres) of an artificial serum made from sulphate of soda, 5
+grammes; common salt, 1 gramme; corrosive sublimate, 0.05 gramme; and
+distilled water, 200 centimetres, under the skin of the abdomen, is
+a line of treatment that finds favour with many French physicians. I
+need scarcely add that lead poisoning is too serious a malady for its
+treatment to be undertaken by the laity without the advice of a doctor.
+
+
+ _Chromate of Lead; Dye Works._
+
+The use of chrome dyes has been followed by lead poisoning which in
+a few instances has ended fatally. Chrome dyeing by means of lead
+compounds was one of the unhealthy occupations relegated by the Home
+Secretary to the Dangerous Trades Committee for its opinion. The dye
+is obtained by mixing a solution of bichromate of soda or potass with
+sugar of lead, or by acting upon lead carbonate with a solution of
+bichromate of soda or potass. In the Final Report of the Dangerous
+Trades Committee, p. 26, it is stated how the different colours may
+be got. To obtain _deep orange colour_, hanks of yarn are dipped
+first in a solution of lime, and then in a solution of brown sugar of
+lead; the dip is again repeated, and after this the hanks are dipped
+in bichromate of potass or soda, and finally they are boiled in lime
+water. For _yellow chrome_ colour the treatment is similar, with
+the exception that the goods are not boiled in lime water, but washed
+in dilute hydrochloric acid. To obtain _chrome lemon_ colour, the
+yarn is dipped first in an alkaline lead solution, then in bichromate
+of soda, and subsequently washed in cold water. _Green chrome_
+is got by dipping the lemon-stained yarn in an indigo bath. In all of
+these processes the bichromate of soda acts upon the lead and produces
+a chromate. This forms not so much a dye as a coloured coating on the
+surface of the fibre of the yarn. In the process of dyeing no risk to
+health is incurred by the workpeople. The danger commences when the
+goods have become dried and the coloured dust of chromate of lead is
+given off, as may be seen in the noddling and bundling departments of
+a factory. In several large dye works, both in England and Scotland, I
+have seen the girls who handle and pull the yarn covered with yellow
+dust, found them anæmic, complaining of headache, and showing a
+well-marked blue line on their gums, while several of them complained
+that they had suffered from colic, and been off work through it for
+a time. In some instances more serious symptoms developed. A fatal
+termination is not unknown. The contents of the stomach when vomited
+often exhibit the same colour as the yarn the girls handle. In one mill
+there was quite an epidemic of lead poisoning among the women owing
+to some of them, on account of the cold weather, having stopped the
+running of the fan. As a consequence the atmosphere of the carding-room
+became impregnated with yellow dust, and many of the girls became
+ill, one of them dying from unmistakable lead poisoning. When the fan
+was re-started all the illness disappeared. Improved ventilation puts
+an end to poisoning in chrome dye works. The dust-laden air ought to
+be drawn down and away from the workers. In the dyeing of cotton,
+lead compounds are similarly used, but an effort is being made to
+supplant these by aniline and vegetable dyes. Whether aniline colours
+are capable of entirely taking the place of lead chromate under all
+circumstances of climate, etc., still remains to be seen. The opinions
+of manufacturers are divided upon the point of aniline dyed goods
+standing exposure to the sun like those coloured by lead chromate.
+Some maintain that the colours are not so permanent. The subject is
+therefore not yet ripe for the expression of an absolute opinion.
+Another danger to which workers in chrome dyeing works are exposed, is
+the occurrence of chrome holes or scars on the hands of the men who
+work with the bichromate solution. Perforation of the septum of the
+nose does not occur.
+
+
+ _Calico Printing._
+
+This subject may be conveniently discussed with that immediately
+preceding. The pattern is printed on the cotton cloth in lead salts.
+The cloth is then passed through a solution of bichromate of soda. Only
+the letters or portions of the pattern that have been printed in lead
+retain the chrome colour. There is no risk to the operative in the
+process of printing. The danger resides rather in the dust given off in
+the drying-room, to which the cloth is taken. Here, owing to the heat
+of the room and the handling of the calico, a certain amount of dust
+may be present. The question of aniline substitutes for lead has been
+discussed by manufacturers, but among them there is no unanimity upon
+the matter, especially in those engaged in the export trade. In indigo
+blue dye works where the calico is printed with copper sulphate and
+lead acetate, the men may suffer as much from the copper as the lead.
+
+
+ _Enamelling of Iron Plates and Hollow Ware._
+
+The enamelling of iron plates is an industry which is mostly confined
+to Birmingham and Wolverhampton and their immediate neighbourhood.
+Enamelled iron plates are used for advertising purposes, for announcing
+the names of railway stations, etc. The process of manufacture consists
+in first cleansing the iron plate, smearing it with gum-water, and
+sifting a fine dust on to it, or in allowing to trickle over it powder
+suspended in water. The powder may contain as much as 25 per cent. of
+lead, or in some instances no lead at all. The plate having been coated
+in one of these ways is placed in a furnace and exposed to an intense
+heat. On removal it is seen on cooling to have received its first
+coat of enamel. In order to obtain the required red, blue, or brown
+colours the plate is subsequently swilled. The colours are put on at
+first roughly with a broad brush, and then a finer one so as to get
+an even surface, after which it is smoothed by a camel’s hair brush.
+The plate thus swilled is allowed to dry on hot pipes at a moderate
+temperature. The process up to this stage is wet, and therefore not
+dangerous, besides the lead compounds used are often fritted, and these
+are known to be very insoluble. It is in the subsequent treatment
+known as stencilling that the danger commences. This part of the work
+is generally done by women, who by means of a nail-brush rub off
+the colour on the surface of the plate which is exposed through the
+openings cut in the stencil, and which correspond to the alphabetical
+letters, etc., of the advertisement. This is a very dusty process. The
+atmosphere of the workroom becomes thick from the coloured particles
+of dust given off from the plate, and these fall upon the hair and
+clothing of the workpeople. There is often a large percentage of
+lead in the dust, so that when this is inhaled for several hours,
+during each working day in the week, it becomes a cause of plumbism
+occasionally of a severe character, and running to a fatal termination.
+
+Brushing-off through the stencil is usually performed over perforated
+tables down which there is a strong draught, but if the aspirating
+force is weak the dust rises and impregnates the atmosphere, so that it
+is almost impossible to see across the workroom. After the plate has
+been stencilled it is again placed in the furnace, and the processes
+of swilling, drying, stencilling, and firing are repeated according to
+the kind of colours required in the advertisement. These processes may
+be repeated as many as eight or nine times. Red and other compounds of
+lead are largely used for enamelling, and may be present to the extent
+of from 25 to 33 per cent. Formerly arsenic was also used, but such
+serious consequences followed that its employment has been discontinued.
+
+In this industry, as in white lead works, it is the young female
+operatives who are the most susceptible to plumbism. A few years
+ago there was a great amount of ill-health among the hands owing to
+imperfect ventilation of the workrooms. The White Lead Committee
+recommended that there should be a medical inspection of all the
+workers once a month, and that no girl under 20 years of age should
+be employed as a brusher-off in the stencilling process; that no
+female should be employed without medical testimony as to her fitness
+for the work, experience having shown that anæmic, scrofulous, and
+ill-nourished persons are more predisposed to plumbism than those that
+are healthy; that after an illness of any kind a medical certificate
+should be furnished. The Committee would have been glad if the
+employers could have seen their way to give half a pint of milk every
+forenoon to each of the workers, for experience has shown, both in this
+country and abroad, that milk is to some extent a prophylactic against
+plumbism. Dr Morison Legge,[62] in his report upon the enamelling of
+iron plates, says that for last year only 10 cases of lead poisoning
+occurred in 689 persons engaged in the dangerous processes. He
+attributes the fact of the cases being few to the periodic medical
+examination, the removal of dust by fans, and the encouraging efforts
+which are being made by large firms to substitute other things for lead.
+
+_Tinning and enamelling of the hollow ware_ used for culinary
+and domestic purposes is an industry confined for the most part to
+Wolverhampton, Bilston, and Dudley. The iron kettle or saucepan about
+to be tinned is first cleaned or prepared by being swilled in a mixture
+of dilute hydrochloric acid and chloride of zinc. The process of
+_tinning_ consists in dipping the utensil into a trough containing
+molten tin and lead in the proportion sometimes of 60 per cent. of
+metallic lead and 40 of tin. Owing to tin being the more expensive
+metal, the cheaper ware is often dipped in a composition of 70 per
+cent. of lead and 30 of tin. The dangers incidental to tinned hollow
+ware are twofold: first, if the workman who dips the utensil in the
+molten lead is not careful, cleanly, and temperate as regards the use
+of alcohol, he may suffer from lead poisoning; and secondly, the poorer
+working classes, who buy the cheaper ware, which has been nominally
+tinned but is in reality leaded, also run the risk of becoming poisoned
+by the food either having become contaminated by lead in the act of
+cooking or subsequently. When the cauldrons containing the molten
+metal, into which the workman plunges the pans, etc., are hooded, the
+fumes are not so readily inhaled. It is a common belief among these men
+that the poison enters the system when they are wiping off the metal
+from the hot sauce-pans, etc., by means of tow. In the white enamelling
+of iron hollow ware many manufacturers are now using a leadless glaze
+with every promise of success.
+
+The enamelling of copper letters or tablets is shown by Dr Legge to be
+a source of plumbism. Four cases were reported to the Home Office in
+1900. The danger occurs during the “brushing on” and “wooling off” of
+a black enamel powder, which was found to contain as much as 67.0 per
+cent. of lead.
+
+
+ _Electric Accumulator Works and Lead Poisoning._
+
+The manufacture of electric accumulators for telegraph and telephone
+purposes and for motor cars has become a very important industry, and
+is likely to become still more important as time goes on. There is one
+process in the manufacture which is distinctly dangerous. The workmen
+who rub the red lead, made into a paste by means of dilute sulphuric
+acid, on to embossed or perforated plates occasionally suffer from
+plumbism. When the plate leaves the workman its interstices look as
+if they were filled with red clay. Both sides of the plate have to
+be treated by the workman, whose hands are generally covered with
+indiarubber gloves. During the mixing of the dry red lead or litharge
+with the dilute sulphuric acid a considerable amount of dust is
+created. The indiarubber gloves which are worn by the men who fill the
+perforations in the plates with the lead paste become in time thin and
+worn, or they get torn, and as a result certain parts of the hands
+of the men become coated with the red composition. By this means, as
+the work entails a considerable amount of friction, lead poisoning
+may readily occur. In visiting electric accumulator works, I found
+several of the workmen, especially the younger men, extremely pale, and
+suffering from headache; some of them had been laid off with colic, and
+they presented a well-marked blue line on their gums.
+
+The colic of electricians is not a new disease. In one electric
+accumulator works in La Hague in 1894, there occurred 37 cases of
+plumbism in 252 male workers; and in another factory in Wiesbaden
+12 cases of lead poisoning occurred in 90 workers. Of 30 patients
+suffering from lead colic admitted into the Hospital Bichât, Paris,
+during 1899, Talamon says more than one-half were electricians, the
+remainder being made up of painters, plumbers, and typographers. So
+prevalent had lead poisoning become in Germany that the Imperial
+Health Office directed an inquiry[63] to be made into the conditions
+of labour in electric accumulator works. In consequence of this,
+special rules were issued, and as these now govern the industry in
+Germany, it will not be out of place if I quote at some length from the
+Report, a translation of which has been kindly placed in my hands by Dr
+Morison Legge. The information embodied in the Report was collected
+by a circular letter of the Chancellor, and deals with the extent of
+the manufacture of accumulators and the dangers of working. From one
+factory alone the following particulars were received as to the special
+incidence of plumbism in particular processes.
+
+ +------------------+-----------+---------------+-----------+
+ | | Number | Number of | |
+ | Occupation. | Employed. | Cases of Lead | Per cent. |
+ | | | Poisoning. | |
+ +------------------+-----------+---------------+-----------+
+ | Casting | 30 | 3 | 10.0 |
+ | Pasting | 30 | 9 | 30.0 |
+ | Soldering | 16 | 6 | 37.5 |
+ | Trimming | 30 | 4 | 13.3 |
+ | Plumbing | 30 | 9 | 30.0 |
+ | Section Building | 60 | 5 | 8.3 |
+ +------------------+-----------+---------------+-----------+
+
+As regards remedial measures, special attention was directed to: (1)
+casting and preparation of the plate; (2) mixing the paste; (3) actual
+pasting; (4) the drying and building into batteries of the various
+segments; (5) forming and changing plates. As regards these various
+headings the information gathered is as follows:--
+
+(1) Ordinary lead, often containing a trace of antimony, is used for
+casting the plates. From the surface of the lead in the melting pots
+fume rises (oxide of lead), so that it is recommended to have the
+melting pots arranged that they can be provided with an efficient hood
+and shaft leading either into the open air or into a chimney. The need
+for these precautions lies in the fact that not only are the fumes
+of lead and antimony harmful when inhaled, but commercial lead often
+contains traces of arsenic, varying from 0.1 to 7.9 per cent.
+
+(2) Litharge and red lead are used for making the paste, and as these
+come to the works in casks, the dry material is transferred from the
+cask to the worker’s bench by means of a shovel or trowel. Dust thus
+becomes scattered about in all directions. It is, therefore, desirable
+to have the floor of the workrooms moistened and swept daily. The
+mixing of the red lead and sulphuric acid should be done in a closed
+chamber or under an exhaust shaft.
+
+(3) As regards the wearing of gloves by the men who paste the plates,
+reference is made to the difficulty of keeping the gloves in good
+repair. The same difficulty, as I have already mentioned, occurs in
+Britain. In some of the electric accumulator works the gloves worn are
+too short. The dry red lead occasionally gets inside the gloves, and as
+these tend to keep the hands hot and cause them to perspire, plumbism
+is rather encouraged than prevented, or skin eruptions develop. In
+order to avoid, therefore, as far as possible absorption of lead by
+the skin, two alternatives are put forward by the German Committee of
+Enquiry: (_a_) the work is not to exceed eight hours a day, to be
+broken by a pause of at least one and a half hours; or (_b_) there
+is to be one six-hours’ spell of work in the day. The Committee is in
+favour of the latter. Respirators for the men engaged in pasting are
+not considered necessary.
+
+(4) In building up the batteries by means of solder, ordinary solder is
+not used, but a very pure lead instead, in order that the connections
+made between the plates may not be affected when they are subsequently
+exposed to the acid. To bind these plates together by solder, the heat
+from an oxygen or hydrogen blow-pipe flame is used, but frequently the
+temperature reaches a height sufficient to cause volatilisation of the
+lead, and statistics show that persons engaged in this occupation run a
+considerable risk of lead poisoning.
+
+(5) Opinions were found to differ as to the effect of the dilute
+sulphuric acid vapour in the formation-room upon the workers. There was
+said to be medical testimony as to its good effects upon workpeople,
+who are the subjects of chronic bronchitis. Reference is made to the
+difficulty of providing fans for ventilation of these rooms owing to
+the deleterious action of the acid upon the metal contained in the fan,
+and yet some form of artificial ventilation is necessary.
+
+The method adopted in the factory of determining the presence of lead
+in the air was the simple one of suspending, at the level of the
+worker’s head, a sheet of blotting paper, 100 centimetres square,
+previously moistened. Subsequent treatment with dilute acid and
+exposure to the action of sulphuretted hydrogen showed whether lead was
+present or not.
+
+
+ _Motor Cars._
+
+In Paris, motor cars are much more in evidence than in this country.
+There are very few in London compared with the French capital.
+Dr Proust has reported four cases of lead poisoning in Paris, in
+women aged eighteen, nineteen, twenty-five, and thirty-nine years
+respectively, whose work consisted in coating with oxide of lead small
+leaden rods, and fixing them in position. All of these women entered
+the electrical department of motor car manufactories in good health. At
+the end of six weeks to two months they had colic, loss of appetite,
+constipation, and abdominal pain of such severity that they had to be
+taken to the hospital, and detained there under treatment for more than
+a fortnight. In one patient the symptoms of plumbism returned shortly
+after resuming work. With the dangerous nature of the occupation the
+employers were quite familiar. They not only paid a doctor to visit
+the works once a week to examine the workers, but they were in the
+habit of giving to the female workers honey and sulphur, iron pills,
+and half a litre of milk daily. Ample provision was made for washing;
+tooth-brushes were provided, also sulphur baths once a fortnight, and
+yet, notwithstanding these precautions, four of the women quickly
+developed symptoms of lead poisoning.
+
+
+ _Electric Tramways._
+
+An accident of rather a peculiar character occurred on 8th Oct. 1901,
+on a tramway car in Paris. I state the facts for what they are worth.
+During the course of the evening, nearly a dozen of the travellers were
+suddenly seized with violent pains in the abdomen and by syncope, and
+were obliged to be treated at a chemist’s shop _en route_. On an
+inquiry being instituted, the opinion was expressed that the symptoms
+were due to poisoning caused by fumes given off by sulphuric acid
+acting upon the lead in the electric accumulators.
+
+
+ _Recommendations._
+
+It is evident that as electricity will be the motor power of the
+future and will be turned into numerous channels of application, the
+number of electric accumulator works in Britain is sure to increase.
+The necessity for putting into force several of the recommendations
+mentioned in these pages is almost sure to arise. So far as the hygiene
+of the works is concerned, the same rules ought to apply to them as are
+now in force in red lead works.
+
+
+ _Soldering._
+
+Common solder is an alloy of tin and lead, equal parts. Fine solder is
+composed of 2 parts of tin and 1 of lead; coarse solder, of 2 of lead
+and 1 of tin. The extensive consumption of tinned meats and fruits
+is responsible for some cases of plumbism, owing to the acid juices
+dissolving some of the lead out of the solder, but workmen who solder,
+_e.g._ tinkers, have been known to suffer from paralysis of the
+muscles of the fingers and hands, owing to volatilisation of the lead
+and inhalation of the fume.
+
+
+ _Typefounding_; _Printing_; _Typesetting_; _Linotyping_.
+
+Type metal is an alloy of lead with ⅓ to ¼ of antimony. The antimony
+is added to harden the alloy, for lead is a soft metal. Occasionally
+small quantities of tin and copper are added, so that the alloy may
+be composed of 70 parts of lead, 18 of antimony, 10 of tin, and 2 of
+copper.
+
+We have already dealt with the smelting of lead ore and the melting
+of pig-lead. The smelting of antimony ore is not attended with such
+serious risks to health as is the case with lead. One of the largest
+antimony works in this country is on Tyneside. I have had the privilege
+of visiting the works and of examining the workmen. The raw ore
+or sulphide comes from Japan. It is smelted with iron filings. No
+constitutional bad effects were noticeable in the men who smelt the
+ore. To some extent this freedom from illness may be due to the fact
+that the men are not closely exposed to the fume, and that, owing to
+good ventilation, the fumes were quickly got rid of. The only trouble
+the workmen seemed to experience, and it was more of a complaint than
+an illness, is that as the work is hot they perspire freely, and the
+skin in consequence becomes extremely irritable and itchy. An eruption
+appears on the skin. This at first shows itself as a crop of vesicles,
+which ultimately become pustular. Formerly more than now it was a
+medical practice in the treatment of disease to apply an ointment
+composed of tartrate of antimony to the skin in order to bring out a
+pustular eruption, which acted as a counter irritant. Knowing this to
+be the local action of antimony, it is easy to understand, therefore,
+the development of the skin eruption spoken of as “pox” upon the neck
+and upper part of the abdomen in antimony workers. Eulenburg says that
+exposure to the fumes of oxide of antimony is followed by pains in the
+region of the bladder and urethra, and by impotence in the male. My
+experience does not confirm this statement. Several of the men looked
+rather pale, probably as the result of exposure to the heat, and a
+few of them had suffered from gastro-intestinal pains like colic,
+usually relieved by taking a dose of Epsom salts. A case of industrial
+antimony poisoning is published in the Report of the Chief Inspector
+of Factories for 1900, p. 332. It is that of a man who had worked as
+an extractor of the metal, and who in consequence of having inhaled
+the fumes suffered from paroxysmal attacks of difficulty of breathing
+without any physical signs of disease in his lungs. He complained of
+a sense of constriction in his chest, nausea, a metallic taste in
+his mouth, backache, weakness in the muscles of his legs, profuse
+perspiration, headache, and dimness of vision.
+
+It is, however, not so much with antimony as with the presence of lead
+in the printers’ type that we are here concerned. Printers’ colic was
+a much more common malady two or three decades ago than now. It is due
+to handling the type, and to the dust that is given off. Typefounders
+also suffer from plumbism, but in not a few cases the illness has been
+caused by the workpeople eating their food without previously washing
+their hands. Printers as a class are often pale and unhealthy looking.
+Much of this may be due to the fact that they work in overheated
+rooms for long spells at a time, and have late hours. H.M. Medical
+Inspector of Factories reports that during 1900 there were 17 cases of
+lead poisoning in printers. One of the patients died. Ten of the men
+were compositors, 4 were linotypists, and 2 stereotypers. Dr Stühler,
+of Berlin, taking his statistics from the reports of sick benefit
+societies, states that of 3000 printers in Berlin 313 were annually
+sick from lead colic, _i.e._, about 10.4 per cent. of printers’
+compositors suffer from plumbism, either by absorption through the
+skin, caused by handling the type that has become oxidised during
+wear, or by swallowing the dust through eating with unwashed hands.
+Fromm discusses this subject, and alludes to the analyses of dust of
+printing-houses made by Stumpf, who found that it contained often as
+much as 14.43 per cent. of lead. In a report recently presented to
+the German Board of Health, Faber states that he found in the dust
+collected from the floor 11.51 per cent. of lead: that the dust taken
+from a shelf in the room contained 6.59 per cent. of lead, while dust
+collected in the gangway between the desks in the composing room of a
+newspaper office contained 4.7 per cent. of lead. In analysing the air
+of printing shops Keygi[64] found that the dust contained from 10 to
+15 per cent. of lead, which came from the wear of the type. Inhalation
+of the dust of the oxidised metal in all probability, therefore,
+plays a very important part in the causation of plumbism in printers’
+compositors. During 1900, printing was in Britain responsible for 17
+cases of lead poisoning. In 2 of the cases there were symptoms of lead
+encephalopathy, one of which proved fatal, and in another there was
+paralysis. Ten of the patients were compositors and 4 were linotypists.
+
+It has to be borne in mind that compositors do a great deal of their
+work in an artificial light. As they are obliged to handle type very
+freely, the skin on the inner aspect of the last phalanx of the
+right thumb, forefinger, and midfinger occasionally becomes thick
+and hard, also the skin of the last phalanx of the left thumb, and
+the interdigital eminences of the left hand. According to Choquet,
+typographers suffer from two distinct maladies, one directly due to
+the mechanical nature of their work, and the other attributable to
+the medium in which that work is carried on. Standing on their feet
+for long spells at a time, they run the risk of developing varicose
+veins, and as the rooms are either too brilliantly lighted, or the
+reverse, to affections of eyesight. Older compositors frequently show
+a trembling of the right hand, due to fatigue caused by grasping and
+distributing the type, but in producing this tremor plumbism no doubt
+plays a part. Analogous to writers’ palsy, the tremor is sometimes
+so persistent that it obliges the individual to renounce his work.
+The channels by which lead dust effects an entrance into the system
+are the buccal and nasal mucous membranes, the skin, the respiratory
+passages, and the alimentary canal. So slight are the initial troubles
+of the typographer, that for a time they are unperceived. Acute
+plumbism does not occur among compositors, it is always chronic. By
+degrees the individual begins to look pale; the skin becomes greyish
+and exhibits a slightly jaundiced tint; the appetite, too, fails, and
+digestion becomes weak, and obstinate constipation occurs. A blue line,
+if sought for, will be seen in the gums, and there is complaint of an
+unpleasant metallic taste in the mouth. The breath becomes fetid, and
+motor and sensory troubles develop, especially at those parts that have
+been brought into the closest contact with the type. Often commencing
+with a sense of fatigue in the muscles, the paresis proceeds to motor
+paralysis. In female typographers excessive menstrual losses, such as
+are known to occur in female white lead workers, have been noted.
+
+Whatever tends to interfere with the elimination of lead from the
+system encourages necessarily the development of plumbism. Alcohol
+has this tendency. It is said that if the skin of a compositor gets
+broken, the wound heals slowly and is apt to become erysipelatous,
+but I have not observed this. Some typographers are more susceptible
+to plumbism than others. It is largely a question of well or ill
+ventilated workrooms, and of personal resistance. Tanquerel found in
+France that the ages between thirty and forty years gave the largest
+amount of ill health, and that in the hot seasons of the year most
+cases occurred. Dr Motais, who is a member of the Departmental Council
+of Hygiene of Paris, in an address recently delivered at a conference
+of typographers, recited a story of animal life which had been told
+to him by some of the printers themselves. For twenty years these men
+had tried to keep cats in the workrooms. The animals were well fed;
+they received plenty of milk. For a time all would go well with them,
+and then the same train of symptoms would invariably develop; the eyes
+would lose their healthy lustre, the limbs become paralysed, and the
+animals die, presenting the same cerebral symptoms as are observed in
+the acute lead encephalopathy of man.
+
+_Precautions._--Printing houses should be so situated that
+free currents of air can get to them, and not, as at present is too
+frequently the case, shut in by other buildings. Plenty of daylight
+and, if possible, sunlight are very desirable; daylight if introduced
+by one side should enter preferably on the left of the compositor,
+so that no shadow is thrown upon the case that contains his type.
+Light coming in from the roof obviates all this. So far as artificial
+lighting of the rooms is concerned, there is an opinion that the
+electric light is more hurtful than gas, and gas again more harmful
+than lamps. There should be tinted shades on the gas or lamps, green
+externally, white internally. The workroom should be well ventilated
+and without draughts; any dust generated should as far as possible be
+removed by fans. The type boxes should be kept clean and the floors
+periodically watered. By young compositors long hours ought to be
+avoided. No food should be eaten in the workrooms. Compositors should
+never do any work fasting, and should avoid smoking when at work.
+Excesses of all kinds ought to be avoided, particularly the immoderate
+use of alcohol. Milk should be freely taken. On the occurrence of
+colic, the individual should at once give up his work and be medically
+treated. Washing the hands and rinsing the mouth before eating are
+absolutely required, also a bath once a week, and the wearing of
+overalls when at work.
+
+It is an old opinion attributed to the French physicians Tanquerel
+and Pidoux, that there exists an antagonism between plumbism and
+pulmonary tuberculosis. Facts so far as applied to compositors do not
+support this statement, hence the desirability of printing houses
+receiving plenty of sunlight, and of the undesirability of persons
+who are bronchitic or susceptible to lung diseases being allowed to
+work in printing houses, unless they are careful of how they dispose
+of their expectoration. One of the great foes of the printer is
+pulmonary phthisis. Much of this is undoubtedly preventible, since the
+disease is encouraged by the unhealthy conditions under which the work
+is carried on. Smith[65] found that the mortality from consumption
+was 60 per cent. greater than in most of the other trades. Of 799
+deaths published by the London Society of Compositors for ten years,
+1880–1889 inclusive, Arlidge found phthisis as the cause of death in
+296, bronchitis and asthma in 85, pneumonia and pleurisy together were
+responsible for 67 deaths, paralysis and apoplexy for 61, and Bright’s
+disease for 21. Pulmonary phthisis caused 37 per cent. of the deaths.
+The largest number of deaths occurred between the ages of thirty and
+forty years. Since the statistics given by Dr Arlidge are more than
+ten years old, and as tabulated are not comparable with the general
+death-rate all over the country of persons between twenty to sixty-five
+years of age, I communicated with the Secretaries of the Typographical
+Association, also the London Society of Compositors, for their annual
+reports, from which I am able through the kind assistance of Dr Henry
+Armstrong, the Medical Officer of Health for Newcastle-on-Tyne, and his
+clerk, Mr Gillinder, to supply more recent information, as indicated in
+the following table (pp. 329–330).
+
+These statistics unfortunately are not exactly comparable: the time
+periods are not the same for all three. This is unavoidable, owing to
+the census returns for later periods not having been published while I
+write. They are, however, not without value, for they strengthen the
+suspicion of greater liability of the printer to pulmonary disease.
+
+The figures underlined in column 12 indicate the increased tuberculosis
+mortality rate of the two associations as compared with the whole of
+England and Wales. In column 11 it will be observed that in the Society
+of Compositors there is an increase in tubercular disease, but not
+great, over the corresponding rate for the entire country. It may be
+therefore taken as a fact that printers are more liable to tubercular
+consumption than men engaged in most other trades. In the half-yearly
+Report of the Typographical Association ending December 1900, there
+is a list of 74 deaths for the half-year in the Society, whose members
+number 16,179. Of these 74 deaths, 32 were caused by pulmonary disease,
+and of these 32 deaths, 22 were caused by tubercular disease, mostly
+pulmonary phthisis. There is an opinion, but it is erroneous, that
+smoking tobacco or chewing it is more or less a protection against
+plumbism, because the men expectorate; but apart from the fact of
+spitting being a dirty practice, the habit of expectorating upon a
+printer’s floor is to be discouraged, especially if the workman has a
+cough and is the subject of lung disease, for it is largely by means of
+the sputa thrown upon the floor and becoming dried that the bacilli of
+tubercle disseminate pulmonary consumption.
+
+
+ _MORTALITY TABLES OF TYPOGRAPHICAL ASS0C._
+
+ TYPOGRAPHICAL ASSOCIATION.
+
+KEY to headers:
+
+ A: All Causes.
+ B: Bronchitis.
+ C: Pneumonia.
+ D: Phthisis.
+ E: Consumption.
+ F: Tuberculosis, etc.
+ G: Lung Diseases, including Bronchitis, Pneumonia, Phthisis, etc.
+ H: Tuberculosis, including Phthisis, and all other forms.
+
+ +-----------------------+---------+-----------------------------+---------+----------+
+ | | | |TOTAL |Death-rate|
+ | | | DEATHS FROM |DEATHS | per 1000 |
+ | | | |FROM | Members. |
+ | | +----+----+---------+----+----+---------+----------+
+ | | | | | | | | |Per |Per |
+ | | | | | | | | |col.|col. |
+ | | No. of | | | | | | | 9. | 10. |
+ | ||Members.| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J |
+ +-----------------------+---------+---------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+-----+
+ | 1894. =1= | =2= | =3=| =4=| =5=| =6=| =7=| =8=| =9=|=10=|=11=|=12= |
+ |Half-year ended June 30| 12,417 | 61| 7 | 2 | 21 | ...| 2 | 30 | 23 | ...| ... |
+ | „ „ Dec. 29| 12,544 | 46| 2 | 2 | 11 | ...| 1 | 15 | 12 | ...| ... |
+ | +---------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---- +
+ | Whole year {| 12,480 |}107| 9 | 4 | 32 | ...| 3 | 45 | 35 | 3.6| 2.8 |
+ | {|(average)|} | | | | | | | | | |
+ | +=========+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+=====+
+ | 1895. | | | | | | | | | | |
+ |Half-year ended June 29| 13,378 | 78| 6 | 9 | 23 | ...| 6 | 38 | 29 | ...| ... |
+ | „ „ Dec. 28| 13,593 | 65| 6 | 5 | 16 | ...| 3 | 27 | 19 | ...| ... |
+ | +---------+----+----+----+----+---------+----+----+----+-----+
+ | Whole year {| 13,485 |}143| 12 | 14 | 39 | ...| 9 | 65 | 48 | 4.8| 3.6 |
+ | {|(average)|} | | | | | | | | | |
+ | +=========+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+=====+
+ | 1896. | | | | | | | | | | | |
+ |Half-year ended June 27| 13,673 | 75| 5 | 7 | 17 | ...| 2 | 29 | 19 | ...| ... |
+ | „ „ Dec. 26| 13,906 | 68| 2 | 8 | 26 | ...| 1 | 36 | 27 | ...| ... |
+ | +---------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+-----+
+ | Whole year {| 13,784 |}143| 7 | 15 | 43 | ...| 3 | 65 | 46 | 4.7| 3.3 |
+ | {|(average)|} | | | | | | | | | |
+ | +=========+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+=====+
+ | 1897. | | | | | | | | | | | |
+ |Half-year ended June 26| 13,862 | 82| 6 | 8 | 19 | ...| 4 | 33 | 23 | ...| ... |
+ | „ „ Dec. 25| 14,405 | 54| 4 | 2 | 21 | ...| 1 | 27 | 22 | ...| ... |
+ | +---------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+-----+
+ | Whole year {| 14,133 |}136| 10 | 10 | 40 | ...| 5 | 60 | 45 | 4.2| 3.2 |
+ | {|(average)|} | | | | | | | | | |
+ | +=========+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+=====+
+ | 1898. | | | | | | | | | | | |
+ |Half-year ended June 25| 14,602 | 77| 5 | 3 | 22 | ...| 2 | 30 | 24 | ...| ... |
+ | „ „ Dec. 31| 15,075 | 69| 5 | 1 | 19 | ...| 1 | 25 | 20 | ...| ... |
+ | +---------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+-----+
+ | Whole year {| 14,838 |}146| 10 | 4 | 41 | ...| 3 | 55 | 44 | 3.7| 3.0 |
+ | {|(average)|} | | | | | | | | | |
+ | +=========+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+=====+
+ | 1899. | | | | | | | | | | |
+ |Half-year ended June 24| 15,393 | 78| 7 | 6 | 23 | ...| 3 | 36 | 26 | ...| ... |
+ | „ „ Dec. 30| 15,854 | 99| 2 | 13 | 39 | ...| 4 | 54 | 43 | ...| ... |
+ | +---------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+-----+
+ | Whole year {| 15,623 |}177| 9 | 19 | 62 | ...| 7 | 90 | 69 | 5.8| 4.4 |
+ | {|(average)|} | | | | | | | | | |
+ | +=========+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+=====+
+ +-----------------------+---------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+-----+
+ | Average for 6 years | 4.5| 3.4 |
+ +=========================================================================+====+=====+
+
+
+ LONDON SOCIETY OF COMPOSITORS.
+
+ +----------+--------+-----+----+----+----+-----+----+----+----+-----+-----+
+ |Year 1897 | 10,780 | 126 | 13 | 10 | 33 | ... | 11 | 56 | 44 | 5.2 | 4.0 |
+ | „ 1898 | 11,079 | 141 | 10 | 5 | 40 | 1 | 11 | 56 | 51 | 5.0 | 4.6 |
+ | „ 1899 | 11,415 | 132 | 11 | 9 | 28 | 1 | 7 | 49 | 35 | 4.3 | 3.0 |
+ +----------+--------+-----+----+----+----+-----+----+----+----+-----+-----+
+ | Average for 3 years | 4.8 | 3.9 |
+ | | | === |
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------+-----+-----+
+ | ENGLAND AND WALES.--_Per 1000 Population (1881–90)._ |
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+-----+
+ | Mean Annual Death-rate of male persons, 20–65 years of age 4.5 | 1.8 |
+ | | === |
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+-----+
+
+In thus expounding the subject of lead poisoning in printers, I have
+rather drawn attention to dangers that were more common in the past
+than exist at present, for, fortunately in this country at least,
+plumbism among compositors is very much on the wane. It is seldom that
+we meet with cases of printer’s colic in these days, owing very largely
+to the change in the method of printing newspapers. Until recently
+the printing of newspapers was done by ordinary type, the compositor
+setting the type by touch and not by sight. He quickly picked out the
+required letters, deftly inserting the nail of his thumb into the
+groove on one side of the type. It was through these operations that
+the skin of the fingers became thickened, and lead dust got under his
+finger nails. Having set and printed the paper, he had to take up,
+wash the type in lye, and subsequently distribute it, _i.e._, put
+each type back into its proper place. The distribution of the type
+required even more care than the setting of it, for a type wrongly
+distributed became a source of future trouble. Printing by hand type
+is rapidly on the decline, and is being replaced by stereotyping and
+linotyping. For newspaper printing there are now several fast printing
+machines in existence. Stereotyping has made it possible to print from
+a stamped cylinder without making direct use of the individual type.
+Endless rolls of paper, too, feed the printing machines. As many as
+10,000 thirty-two page periodicals can be thrown off in an hour, but by
+perfecting the apparatus, as in Hoe’s machine, as many as 24,000 are
+capable of being thrown off in an hour. It is in typesetting machines
+with automatic distribution that the greatest progress has been
+made. The Merganthaler linotype machine, which is used for newspaper
+printing, produces and gathers in order successive bars of metal, each
+of the required length and breadth of a line, and bearing on its upper
+surface the type which prints the line. In the machine are small brass
+matrices, representing the different letters, etc. When the operator
+presses a finger-key on the board in front of him a single matrix
+bearing the required letter falls out of the magazine, and is carried
+to the assembling block, where the various matrices are set up, side by
+side, in a line or row. Subsequently these are transported to the face
+of a vertical mould wheel. Into the face of the mould molten type-metal
+is pumped, and thus a slug or linotype is produced. As the formation of
+the slugs is effected automatically, the operator does not handle the
+metal, consequently plumbism is rare, only two cases of lead poisoning
+in linotypists appearing in the Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of
+Factories for 1899, and four in 1900.
+
+The new methods of printing have certainly diminished the numbers
+of cases of lead poisoning among printers, but the introduction of
+linotyping is losing us, as a people, an art. No person contends that,
+for finish, linotyped printing is equal to that obtained by hand-set
+type. Except for book-printing, in which the letters stand out boldly
+and clearly, and which as a trade is being relegated to a few towns,
+stereotyping and linotyping are in our own country rapidly eliminating
+typography. Since this is unavoidable, it is to be hoped that
+linotyping will yet further improve, for badly-printed newspapers are
+trying to the eyes. On the Continent most of the small newspapers are
+still printed by hand-set type, and consequently lead poisoning among
+printers is more prevalent there than here.
+
+Compositors working the linotype machine run little risk of lead
+poisoning if they keep themselves and the workrooms clean. In
+linotypists the danger is not in handling the metal, for the need of
+doing this is rare; it is rather through inhalation of the fumes of
+the molten lead or from oxidation of lead particles that are lying
+about on the machine and floor. I have met with a few cases of colic
+in linotypists, but the attacks of pain have been mild and much more
+quickly got over than in compositors who use the ordinary type. In
+some, too, I have observed some of the milder derangements of the
+nervous system, mostly functional, that are the result of plumbism.
+
+
+ _Plumbing._
+
+Plumbers are not a long-lived class. They suffer from lead poisoning
+in consequence of handling sheet-lead, pipes made from the same metal,
+also from working with white lead. They often complain of a sweet
+metallic taste in the mouth during the beating of the lead and the
+application of solder.
+
+Gasfitters and plumbers run the risk of being poisoned also in another
+manner, to which allusion may be incidentally made here. When making
+the necessary connections between the pipes going into the houses and
+the mains, the gas in the latter is not shut off on account of its
+requirement by consumers. As a consequence of exposure to coal gas
+escaping from the main pipes, the workmen occasionally become dizzy
+and unconscious, lose their eyesight for several minutes, as well as
+the muscular power of their limbs. They have to be removed by their
+fellow-workmen, who often administer an emetic of salt and water when
+consciousness has sufficiently returned to enable them to swallow. The
+vomited matter smells strongly of coal gas. The symptoms are known as
+“gassing” by the workmen. In some of the men who have thus suffered I
+have found that complete muscular power had not returned to the limbs
+three months after the accident, that the knee-jerks were exaggerated,
+and that the patients were nervous and the subject of tremor. Albumen
+or sugar may be temporarily present in the urine.
+
+
+ _House Painting._
+
+House painting is a prolific cause of plumbism. Dr Stühler, of
+Berlin, who obtained his facts from benefit societies, states that
+of 3000 painters in Berlin 313 or 10.4 per cent. were annually off
+work from the effects of lead poisoning. In Paris, Gautier found that
+out of 14,000 painters and varnishers 250 on an average attended the
+hospitals on account of plumbism, and that an equal number was treated
+at home, making a total percentage of 3.5. Of late the admissions
+into the hospitals of cases of lead poisoning have been increasing
+notwithstanding the regulations issued by the French Government, and
+the fact that the patients coming from white lead works have been
+getting fewer. This circumstance is explained by other industries
+sending more patients than formerly, and of these industries house
+painting has contributed the largest number. During the years 1894–98
+this trade alone, and colour-grinding, contributed 223 patients,
+while white lead works only sent 4, and the occupation of plumbing 22.
+Of 86 fatal cases of lead poisoning in Paris during the five years
+mentioned, 43 occurred in painters, 2 in plumbers, and only 1 in a
+white lead worker. In consequence of the large amount of plumbism that
+prevails among house painters in Paris, it is Gautier’s contention that
+the occupation should be brought under closer Government supervision.
+The same remark applies equally to the trade in our own country. Lead
+poisoning among house painters is much more prevalent than people
+imagine. Taking a few monthly reports at random, there were 12 cases of
+plumbism in house painters (with 1 death) reported to the Home Office
+during the month of June 1900; in the month of November 1900 there
+were reported 11 cases of lead poisoning (including 2 deaths) among
+house painters and plumbers, and in the following month 14 cases of
+lead poisoning (including 4 deaths) in house painters and plumbers.
+During 1900 there were 199 cases of lead poisoning in house painters
+and plumbers reported to the Home Office. These figures show that if
+Saturnine poisoning in house painting was notifiable, both it and
+plumbing would be found to be trades that are the cause of a great
+amount of sickness, of which at the present time we hear very little.
+During the year 1899 upwards of 100 cases of lead poisoning were
+notified, while from district registrars information was received of 18
+fatal cases of plumbism attributed to the occupation of house painting.
+Notification of lead poisoning in house painters is not compulsorily
+required by the Home Office. Cases of industrial lead poisoning, also
+arsenic, phosphorus, mercury, and cases of anthrax, are obliged to be
+reported to the Chief Inspector of Factories by the medical men who
+attend the patients, and by employers, but an exception is made in
+regard to house painting, one of the reasons being that as painters
+pursue their avocation largely in the open air and in houses away from
+the employer’s premises, it is difficult to say where the poisoning
+was contracted. Industrial lead poisoning to be notifiable to the Home
+Office must have occurred in places that are controlled by the Factory
+and Workshop Acts. When a painter, who is following his occupation in
+a factory or workshop and is engaged in grinding or mixing colours,
+develops lead poisoning, the illness has to be notified. As the Act
+stands at present, the Home Office cannot deal with certain forms of
+industrial lead poisoning, nor have the factory inspectors power to
+enforce improved conditions of labour. In view of house painting being
+ultimately brought under _Special Rules_, it is very desirable
+that all cases of sickness in house painters and deaths from plumbism
+should be reported. To the ordinary medical practitioner, who has been
+informed that he must report all cases of occupational lead poisoning
+coming under his care, it is embarrassing for him to draw a distinction
+between lead poisoning caught by one man filling a barrel with dry
+lead carbonate in a workroom, and another man who uses this as a paint
+in decorating the interior of a house or shop, and yet while the
+former is notifiable, the latter is not, although the same cause is in
+operation in both. The sphere of Home Office influence ought therefore
+to be extended so as to include house painting, and this might be done
+under the Act that allows the Home Secretary on sufficient evidence to
+schedule a trade as dangerous.
+
+There are several ways in which painters and colour-mixers become
+the victims of lead poisoning. The men who grind or mix the colours
+run the risk of inhaling the dust. Unless this process is carried on
+either in closed spaces or in airy and well-ventilated rooms, the
+atmosphere becomes thick and can only be cleared by means of a fan.
+In this country there are, excluding house painters, upwards of 6000
+persons employed in the manufacture, mixing, and grinding of paints and
+colours. Of 48 cases of plumbism that occurred among these persons in
+1899, 30 were grinders and 7 of them packers.
+
+For the purposes of house painting, the pigments are generally
+mixed with oil and a turpentine body. It has sometimes been thought
+that the lead poisoning of painters is due to the inhalation of the
+terebinthated vapour that rises from the painted surface. That this
+is a possible source is shown by the outbreaks of “belly ache,” or
+_colique sèche_, that occurred a few years ago in the Tropics,
+and played sad havoc with the sailors of the French Navy. For a long
+period the nature of the illness was not recognised. It was thought
+by some to be a neurosis of the abdominal sympathetic nervous system,
+and due to chill, while other physicians regarded it as a form of
+malarial disease. Lefèvre, the Director of the Naval Sanitary Board
+at Brest, ultimately gave it as his opinion that “the _colique
+sèche_ of the French Navy is nothing more than lead poisoning,
+and the reason why colic was more frequent among French sailors than
+those of other countries was due to the fact that lead entered more
+into the construction of their ships of war. It formed the tanks for
+holding the drinking water and the pipes for carrying the water;
+it was present in the paint of the cabins, in the enamel of the
+drinking-cups, and in the cooking utensils.” Out of this number of
+possible causes some of the cases of _colique sèche_ might have
+been due to sleeping in cabins newly painted with lead compounds,
+although drinking contaminated water would be the more probable cause.
+A common cause of lead poisoning in house painters is inhalation of
+the fume evolved during the burning-off of old paint. When engaged for
+long at this kind of work the men complain of headache, nausea, and
+occasionally have colicky pains in the abdomen. There is yet another
+manner in which plumbism may develop, and this occurs in finer work,
+where several coats of paint have to be applied. After what is called
+laying-on of the prime colours and puttying with white lead comes the
+flat colouring. When the coats of paint have become dry the workman
+is obliged to use sandpaper to rub the surface flat. In doing this a
+considerable amount of dust is given off which is rich in white lead.
+It is inhalation of this dust that so frequently induces colic and
+paralysis of the hands in house painters. Carelessness and ignorance
+are frequently contributing causes. Men, while laying-on the white
+paint with a flat knife, have often been observed using the hollow of
+their left hand as a reservoir for the paint. If there is any erosion
+of the skin, absorption of the poison is sure to follow. Layers-on are
+an unhealthy class of men. In Paris alone there occurred 18 deaths
+during the years 1898 and 1899 in a small union of 200 members, the
+greatest age at death being 35 years.
+
+A fresh danger has been recently introduced into house painting. A few
+months ago a house painter, aged 40, was admitted into the Newcastle
+Infirmary suffering from extreme blueness of the face, lips, ears,
+hands and fingers, and from colic. He had also a very blue line on
+his gums. The illness was plumbism, but with something superadded. He
+had been engaged in removing the varnish and paint from old Venetian
+blinds, and had been using a dark brown liquid with a pungent,
+penetrating odour, known in the trade as a special patent. During
+the process of rubbing and swilling the blinds, and subsequently of
+sandpapering them, a strong sickening odour arose, which caused him
+to vomit and to have severe headache. The vapour, too, caused him to
+become so drowsy that he would almost fall asleep. He would feel giddy,
+but had no difficulty in walking, nor was his eyesight affected. The
+man was pale as well as blue, he had a haggard expression, and there
+was the most marked cyanosis possible. He had colic and constipation.
+His internal organs were healthy, including the kidneys. He had marked
+tremor of both hands, but no paralysis. It was quite clear that there
+was an acute intoxication of some kind or another, over and above lead
+poisoning. Several examinations of the urine were made by Dr R. A.
+Bolam, who had charge of the patient, with the view of establishing
+the nature of the poison. The symptoms reminded me of those observed
+in men who are employed in painting ships with quickly-drying spirit
+paints. It was thought at first that the symptoms were due to the
+presence of aniline oil in the “patent,” or of some chemical akin to
+the pyridine group of compounds. The case is an illustration of the
+danger incidental to the use of highly volatile, complex, and unstable
+chemical compounds whose nature is not quite known, whose effects upon
+the human body can only be learnt by experience, and which have for
+their object, from a trade point of view, rapid execution of work.
+
+Painters of ships’ cabins suffer from plumbism as much if not more than
+house painters, since they are often obliged to work in close, confined
+spaces; so, too, do the painters of the back of mirrors, from using red
+lead; also painters of agricultural implements, etc.
+
+It is worthy of mention that shipbuilders have found in the red oxide
+of iron a cheaper and safer pigment for painting the outside of steel
+plates than red lead.
+
+The question as to whether any comparatively harmless substitute for
+white lead can be found for house painting is discussed at p. 293,
+_q.v._
+
+
+ _Coach Painting._
+
+Lead poisoning in coach and carriage painters is far from being rare.
+In the painting of carriages there are often as many as eighteen coats
+of paint and varnish applied. Frequently the work is done in rather
+close and very ordinarily ventilated places. In Newcastle it is the
+practice of large firms of coach makers to give a carriage three coats
+of primary paint, six of filling up, three or four of oil colours, two
+of varnish colour, _i.e._ oil and varnish mixed, and, finally,
+about four coats of varnish. The colours used are white lead, dry and
+ground in oil: lampblack, ultramarine, yellow chromes, zinc white, and
+others known by particular names in the trade. “Driers” are also used,
+such as sugar of lead and terebene. Coach painters become the subjects
+of plumbism chiefly through inhaling the dust when sandpapering to
+get a good surface. They suffer from colic and wrist-drop. Many of
+the cases approach in severity the lead poisoning of file cutters. Dr
+Morison Legge states that the percentage of chronic plumbism among
+coach painters is greater than among file cutters.
+
+Several cases of plumbism have occurred in the painting of new
+carriages, also in the breaking-up and burning of the wood of old
+railway carriages. Thirty-four of the cases of plumbism reported during
+1900 as having taken place in coachbuilders. occurred in men engaged in
+railway shops.
+
+It is almost unnecessary to repeat that in all places where lead paints
+are being handled and used, as in workshops, factories, ships and
+dockyards, there should be adequate washing accommodation, with plenty
+of soap, towels, and nail-brushes, and sufficient time ought to be
+given to the men to wash before leaving work.
+
+
+ _Glass Polishing._
+
+After glass and crystal have been cut they have to be polished. The
+polishing is generally conducted on a revolving wheel or table made
+of wood, and upon which water, containing rouge or putty powder in
+suspension, is allowed to drip. When the article to be polished is a
+plane surface, _e.g._ a mirror, the wheel is a horizontal one
+revolving on a vertical axis. The water containing the rouge or putty
+powder escapes by a narrow opening from a conical vessel placed above
+the wheel. When finer work is required, _e.g._ the polishing of
+wine-glasses, electric-light globes, etc., the water drops on to a hard
+brush, which is attached to the external rim of a vertical wheel, from
+four to six inches in diameter, running at a high speed and revolving
+on a horizontal axis. For this kind of polishing putty powder alone is
+used. In some factories the liquid putty powder is fed on to the brush
+by a boy; in others the supply, as already mentioned, is automatic.
+Several samples of putty powder were sent to the Dangerous Trades
+Committee, and subjoined is the analysis of two of them:--
+
+ A. B.
+
+ Oxide of tin 29.72 per cent. 28.96
+ Oxide of lead 70.28 „ 68.07
+
+In the very free use of this putty powder, rich in lead, the clothes
+and hands of the workers become bespattered by the thick spray thrown
+off from the rapidly-revolving wheels. Putty powder administered to
+animals in their food causes symptoms of Saturnine poisoning almost
+as quickly as white lead. In the evidence given before the Dangerous
+Trades Committee there was abundant proof of the extremely harmful
+effects of the use of putty powder in glass polishing. Many of the
+workers examined had suffered from colic, while others had been obliged
+to give up their employment on account of paralysis of the fingers
+and hands. It was ascertained that several of the male workers had
+died from acute convulsive seizures due to poisoning by lead. Another
+point to which attention was drawn was, that plumbism might develop in
+workmen in a glass-polishing shop who were not engaged in the actual
+process of polishing, and who had therefore not been directly brought
+into contact with the putty powder. This was due to the dried liquid
+on the floor becoming rubbed and trodden upon, rising as dust into the
+atmosphere, and being inhaled by the workmen in the shop.
+
+Putty powder is a frequent cause of lead poisoning. The master
+polishers have for years tried to find a substitute for it. In many
+factories rouge is used. This is considered by many of the employers
+to be innocuous. On analysing rouge powders for the Dangerous Trades
+Committee, Professor Thorpe found that they contained commercial
+oxide of tin: that in one powder 0.13 per cent. of arsenious acid was
+present, and in another a trace of the same substance. Probably not
+much danger would follow the use of rouge powders containing such a
+mere trace of arsenic, but their employment would not be altogether
+free from risk; besides, since it can be shown that the presence of
+arsenic is not essential, then it ought to be eliminated altogether.
+The difficulty in regard to the use of harmless rouge powders is rather
+a technical or industrial question than medical. Do they answer the
+purpose as well as putty powder? The Dangerous Trades Committee found
+that opinions were much divided upon the point. Some of the glass
+polishers stated that rouge did not give such a fine effect, and that
+it took a longer time. On the whole, however, the results obtained have
+been such as to encourage employers to adopt it more freely. Where
+putty powder has been interdicted by the masters and only rouge used,
+the health of the workmen has wonderfully improved.
+
+A few years ago M. Geroult proposed to the French glass polishers and
+crystal manufacturers, metastannic acid as a partial substitute for the
+putty powders that contained a large percentage of lead, and which had
+been the cause of several fatal cases of plumbism. The Academy awarded
+the Montyon prize to Geroult for his discovery. For the last ten years
+the new method has been followed in the glass works of Baccarat, and
+has given the most satisfactory results. Dr Schmitt, the surgeon to
+the works, says, that since 1891, the date of the substitution of the
+new for the old method, there has not been one single case of lead
+poisoning among the crystal cutters and glass polishers, nor an acute
+attack of plumbism in those workers who had previously suffered from
+lead poisoning. Formerly the putty powder contained 62 per cent. of
+lead, but in that recommended by Geroult there is only 20 per cent.,
+and even with a smaller percentage of lead good manufacturing results
+can be obtained.
+
+Glass polishing is one of those trades in which personal cleanliness
+of the worker can do a very great deal to prevent plumbism, and,
+knowing this, employers ought to provide ample washing accommodation
+and appliances; overalls should be worn; no food should be taken into
+or eaten in the workshop. All polishing should be conducted as far as
+possible in semi-enclosed cupboards, with draught tubes and fans, and
+the feeding of the wheels should be done automatically. There ought
+also to be frequent periodical medical examination of the workers,
+with power to suspend in case of signs of plumbism. These were the
+recommendations of the Dangerous Trades Committee, and as one result
+of their being put into practice the Medical Inspector of Factories,
+in his Report for 1899, says he is satisfied that the introduction of
+fans has materially diminished the danger of lead poisoning in the
+process of glass polishing. It has, practically speaking, abolished
+the bespattering of the workmen’s clothes and the splashing formerly
+observed during glass polishing.
+
+
+ _File Cutting._
+
+Hand file cutting, although still giving employment in this country to
+a fairly large number of people, is generally stated to be a decaying
+industry. This is controverted by Dr John Robertson, Medical Officer of
+Health, Sheffield. It is, however, an unhealthy trade. In 1898 there
+were 46 cases of lead poisoning reported in file cutters, in 1899 the
+number was 41, and in 1900 there were 40 cases. The centre of the
+industry is Sheffield, but the manufacture is carried on in London,
+Glasgow, Rainhill, and Birmingham. There are upwards of 2000 hand
+file cutters in Sheffield alone. In the Annual Report on the health of
+the City of Sheffield, 1900, it is stated that there are 2040 persons
+engaged in 546 hand file cutting shops. Files can be cut both by hand
+and by machinery, but as file cutting by machinery is usually carried
+on in modern and well-ventilated factories, this method of manufacture
+need not detain us, for it is a healthy occupation, there being no lead
+used in the process. It is otherwise with hand file cutting. Seated on
+a “stock,” the hand file cutter has in front of him a stone block, into
+the centre of which a small piece of bar steel called a “stiddy” is
+inserted, and on this stiddy is placed a piece of metallic lead, which
+is called the “bed.” The file about to be cut is strapped on to the
+bed. The lines that are seen on a file are made by means of a chisel
+and hammer, each line representing a blow. The reason for using the
+lead bed to strike the file upon is, that while there may be as little
+recoil as possible, there shall yet be sufficient resistance to develop
+the line in its entirety as a result of the blow given by the hammer
+and chisel. As a consequence of constantly striking files of uniform
+size a groove comes to be formed on the lead bed, into which succeeding
+files easily fit. When he has cut one face of the file, the workman
+rubs that side with charcoal, turns it over, and then proceeds to cut
+the other side, after which both faces are briskly rubbed. The file
+cutter grips the chisel between the index finger and thumb of the left
+hand, and in order to get a good grip of the chisel, he often licks
+his finger. A good deal of strain is experienced by the fingers in a
+day’s work. The steel hammer used by a cutter generally weighs from
+7½ to 9 lbs., and as each line on a file represents one stroke of the
+hammer, and there are often on large files as many as 3800 lines, it
+is estimated that in the course of one day a file cutter will lift a
+weight equal to several tons. A Gateshead file cutter, who consulted me
+recently, works with a hammer 7 lbs. in weight; he cuts files 16 inches
+in length. Each file receives 1500 “bats,” and he makes one and a
+quarter dozen of files daily, working eight to eight and a half hours.
+In the course of a day’s work he lifts 157,500 lbs. weight.
+
+File cutting by hand is properly regarded as a dangerous industry.
+Although it claims annually large numbers as the victims of plumbism,
+it is difficult to say exactly in what form lead enters the system.
+In Sheffield the work is for the most part carried on in small,
+badly-ventilated, and overcrowded shops, more like outhouses, often
+situated in backyards or in the rear of dwellings, and not unfrequently
+contiguous to privies. Of 546 hand file cutting shops, in only 48 was
+there any means of ventilation provided, and in many of these “the
+means of ventilation consisted of a brick taken out of the wall.”
+Inside, the floor in nearly all of them is the bare earth, or bricks
+badly placed together. The workers are closely packed together without
+any consideration of the cubic space of the workroom. Hand file
+cutters as a class are anything but cleanly. Possibly their sense of
+indifference to dirt is largely the outcome of the long custom of
+the men taking their meals in shops totally unprovided with washing
+appliances. As a consequence of hammering and brushing the files, a
+considerable amount of dust is created, some of which must be inhaled,
+as the man or woman--for both sexes follow the occupation--bends
+closely over the stock. In several samples of dust removed from
+the stocks and rafters of the shops, lead[66] was found, the other
+constituents of the dust being particles of iron, charcoal, and chalk.
+File cutting is a sedentary occupation. In order to get as much light
+as possible upon their work, the men sit close up to the window, but
+they object to any part of the window being open on account of the cold
+and draughts. Owing to the close and dusty atmosphere in which the work
+is carried on, the general health of the file cutter becomes gradually
+undermined. As a consequence of this diminished vital resistance, and
+the practice of eating his food with unwashed hands, the licking of
+his fingers when at work, and inhalation of dust, the file cutter, in
+course of time, becomes the victim of lead poisoning. It is metallic
+lead dust that is given off during the blows with the hammer and
+chisel upon the file. Lead in this form is certainly much less harmful
+than when in such a soluble combination as the oxide or carbonate,
+but oxidation of the surface of the lead is constantly taking place,
+thereby rendering the metal more or less absorbable.
+
+In addition to the ill-health caused by lead, pulmonary consumption
+carries off a large number of file cutters. The men work in a stooping
+position in overcrowded and ill-ventilated shops for long hours daily,
+with the result that the trade occupies an unenviable position on
+account of its mortality from phthisis. It is not, therefore, lead
+_quâ_ lead that is the sole danger, but the unhealthy conditions
+under which the labour is carried on.
+
+In Sheffield, file cutting has received considerable attention from
+members of the medical profession. Thirty years ago Dr J. C. Hall
+denounced the trade as unhealthy, and demonstrated how, with such
+simple means as the free use of soap and water, much of the suffering
+and ill-health traceable to lead could be averted. Drs Sinclair White,
+Porter, and Harvey Littlejohn have in recent times written upon the
+evils of the trade from different standpoints. Notwithstanding all the
+attention the subject has received, hand file cutting still remains
+a most unhealthy industry. All the workers look anæmic. Many whom I
+examined both in Sheffield and in Rainhill had suffered from colic;
+several were completely disabled on account of paralysis of the
+extensor muscles of the fingers and wrists. It is rather in the chronic
+forms of plumbism, and in those persons in whom the kidneys become
+affected and health breaks down, that the worst effects of file cutting
+as an occupation are seen. Out of 100 file cutters examined by Dr
+Sinclair White, 74 had a blue line on the gums, 28 had had lead colic,
+and 20 paralysis of the wrists and fingers. The trade is characterised
+by a high mortality, the figures being 316 against 123 for occupied
+males in general.
+
+The possibility of finding a substitute for the lead bed upon which the
+file is cut is, although not a new subject, one to which the Dangerous
+Trades Committee gave considerable attention. It was felt that if
+lead could be eliminated, the occupation would be rendered much less
+harmful. It was ascertained that in Germany pads of paper had been
+tried for small files, also that clay and sand encased in canvas, bars
+of wood, copper, vulcanite, and various combinations of indiarubber
+and gutta-percha had been tried, but each in turn discarded, owing to
+its unsuitability as a bed. This is a field of inquiry that would well
+repay any practical file cutter.
+
+File cutters may work at their trade for years without becoming ill.
+Others again early suffer from colic, and the attacks of abdominal
+pain keep recurring every few months. Gradually, or suddenly, in
+those who have been thus afflicted, or even in those who have not had
+colic, paralysis of the fingers and hands develops. The peculiarity
+of file makers’ paralysis is, that while the extensor muscles of the
+fingers and wrists may become affected, so as to constitute a veritable
+“wrist-drop,” there is observed more frequently paralysis with wasting
+of the smaller muscles of the fingers and thumb. The loss of power is
+usually confined to the fingers of the left hand. It is with the left
+forefinger and thumb that the chisel is grasped, and as a consequence
+of the workman holding the chisel in this position during a great
+portion of the day, there is an amount of muscular strain experienced
+which cannot but play a part in determining the paralysis and its
+location. It is not the sole explanation, however, for the paralysis
+also affects at times the muscles of the right hand of the file cutter.
+This is the hammer hand that really does the hardest work, though not
+of the same strained character.
+
+While it is to the fact of the work being conducted upon a lead
+bed, and the want of personal cleanliness on the part of the file
+cutter, that plumbism is mainly due, there are, as seen in Sheffield,
+contributory causes in operation which tend to increase the harmfulness
+of the occupation. One of these is, that file cutting is often a home
+industry. The work is frequently carried on in the living room or
+kitchen of a dwelling-house. Domestic and family duties come to be
+disregarded by the mother, for she, no less than the other members
+of the family, interruptedly lends a hand to increase the income of
+the home. Readers of this paper are prepared to learn that work under
+these circumstances is usually carried on in houses of the poorest
+description, and that, as a consequence of the dangerous character
+of the occupation, the unhealthy atmosphere of the workroom, and the
+constitution of the workers having become undermined through poverty,
+lead poisoning when it occurs is not only extremely severe, but may
+affect those who are simply living in the house and not actually
+engaged in file cutting at all. How to grapple satisfactorily with
+this most unhealthy trade is one of the many difficult labour problems
+that have been presented to the Home Office. Both for it and the
+peculiar tenement conditions under which the industry is carried on in
+Sheffield, fresh legislation is required.
+
+In file cutting shops generally, the air space ought to be extended
+to 450 cubic feet at least for each person (it is 600 feet in cotton
+factories); there should be greater distance between the stocks, say
+4 feet; better ventilation; washing appliances, with plenty of soap,
+water, towels, nail-brushes; wearing of overalls; periodic lime-washing
+of the workshops; concrete, asphalt, or wooden floors, which can be
+damped and swept regularly; prohibition of the taking of food into the
+workshops; and in the event of new buildings being erected, submission
+of the plans to the Home Office. For ventilation purposes Dr John
+Robertson recommends an inlet of the type of a Sherringham valve.
+
+The report on the sickness experience of the Society of File Cutters
+by Hand in Sheffield, by Mr Stuart Uttley, Secretary of the Federated
+Trades Council, and which is published in the Fourth Interim Report of
+the Dangerous Trades Committee, 1899, p. 21, shows the extent to which
+file cutters are thrown off work every year through illness, including
+lead poisoning. This Society does not contribute any sick benefit,
+but during the illness of members their contributions to the Society
+cease. In this way it is readily known how many members are off work.
+The report deals with adult males only, and the dates chosen are 1891
+and 1896, two years when trade was good, when all the members were at
+work, and malingering was practically beyond question. Out of 1092
+members in the Society in 1891, the claims for exemption on account of
+sickness were equivalent to 1109 weeks, or a fraction of over one week
+per man per year. It is not maintained that all the sickness was due
+to plumbism. In 1896, 961 file cutters who were working in Sheffield
+claimed 951 weeks’ exemption from payment of contributions on account
+of sickness, or a fraction under one week each per man per year.
+There were 36 cases of plumbism in file cutters notified in Sheffield
+from July 1898 to June 1899, and of these 35 were men. A glance at Dr
+Tatham’s tables of comparative mortality, in an earlier part of this
+book, will show to what a large extent pulmonary consumption prevails
+in file cutters.
+
+Dr Harvey Littlejohn found that in twelve years there occurred 91
+deaths from plumbism in Sheffield, and that of the 91 people who died,
+56 were file cutters. These statistics, however, do not represent the
+total number of deaths from lead poisoning. Plumbism is sometimes so
+tardily developed, and the constitution of the workman so gradually
+undermined, that as pathological changes are very slowly induced in
+internal organs, such as the kidneys, an individual may die long
+after he has given up working in lead, and the death be registered
+as having been caused by chronic disease of the kidneys, which but
+for lead poisoning would probably not have developed at all. It is
+thus that many fatal cases of lead poisoning fail to be attributed to
+their proper cause, owing to the fact that as death is the result
+of well-defined disease of internal organs, the connection of which
+with plumbism is overlooked, the occupation of the patient is either
+not inquired into or is completely ignored by the medical attendant.
+It was with the view of minimising this error, and of bringing into
+greater prominence the connection of lead poisoning with industrial
+occupation, that the Dangerous Trades Committee suggested in its final
+Report, 1899, p. 6, that if all deaths among workpeople who had been
+employed at any time within three months immediately preceding death
+in a trade in which Special Rules are established were compulsorily
+reported to the coroner, many facts of intrinsic and statistical value
+would be ascertained, and much light shed upon some of the occupations
+that give rise to industrial disease. By this means much injury and
+suffering might be mitigated at an earlier date than at present through
+alteration of the conditions under which the particular industry
+is carried on. Possibly six months would be better than the three
+suggested in the above sentence. Usually lead poisoning is so slowly
+and insidiously developed in file cutters, that the workpeople become
+indifferent to the dangers, and yet when symptoms of plumbism occur
+they can be very severe. Occasionally in female file cutters the malady
+shows itself at an early date after exposure, and the symptoms are
+those rather of the acute than the chronic form of plumbism.
+
+Since, doubtless, the tendency to plumbism in file cutters is favoured
+by the nasty habit indulged in of licking their left thumb in order to
+get a better grip of the chisel, the application of resin to the finger
+has been recommended, but the suggestion does not appear to have met
+with much approval. Allusion has been made at the commencement of this
+article to the fact that it is only hand made file cutters who suffer
+from lead poisoning. In the United States all file cutting is done by
+machinery, and in that country plumbism among file cutters is unknown.
+In Britain machine-made files are slowly supplanting those cut by hand,
+but the customs of a trade die hard.
+
+
+ _Use of Lead in Potteries._
+
+Staffordshire is the home of the pottery industry in this country. In
+Stoke-on-Trent, Burslem, Hanley, Longton, Fenton, and Tunstall, the
+trade is centred. These towns form what is called the “Potteries,”
+a district of about ten miles in length and four in breadth. Here
+nine-tenths of the earthenware produced in the United Kingdom
+are manufactured. The location of the manufacture of pottery in
+Staffordshire is an illustration of how industries cling to particular
+districts. At the present time none of the clay which is used in the
+manufacture of the finer earthenware is found in the neighbourhood.
+Originally there was plenty of coarse clay, and there is still
+abundance of marl, which is used for making saggers and firebricks.
+Coal, however, is abundant, and cheap fuel is an important item in the
+manufacture of pottery. In the early part of the seventeenth century
+there was a good supply of clay and fuel in the locality. The ware
+produced at that time was made from yellow or red marl, glazed with
+galena, or crushed raw lead ore brought from the Derbyshire mines;
+but in 1680, common salt was substituted for galena in the glaze. The
+articles produced were known as Crouch ware. It was in Burslem that
+this ware was first made. In 1759, Wedgwood perfected the white cream
+ware, and introduced many improvements into pottery, especially in
+the manufacture of green, black Egyptian, and jasper wares. Although
+England never outrivalled France and Germany, _e.g._ Sèvres
+or Dresden, in the manufacture of soft china, yet she has produced
+earthenware on a larger scale and supplied more of the world’s markets
+than other pottery districts, and is still doing her utmost to maintain
+her supremacy. In Staffordshire there is plenty of common clay, marl,
+or fireclay which, as already mentioned, is useful for making saggers,
+_i.e._ the large vessels in which earthenware is fired. The clays
+necessary for making the finer earthenware and china are brought from
+Dorset, Devon, and Cornwall. The clay or felspar used is, roughly
+speaking, a silicate of alumina in combination with water, potass,
+soda, lime, or iron. These ingredients act as fluxes on the silicate,
+and therefore help its vitrification. For earthenware, two kinds of
+clay may be used, the blue or ball clay and kaolin, but for porcelain
+only kaolin. It is estimated that upwards of 70,000 tons of ball clay
+are annually imported into the Potteries from the south of England.
+Kaolin, the Chinese word for the clay out of which porcelain is made,
+is in Staffordshire called China or Cornish clay, and is got from
+granite rocks. Workmen mix this Cornish clay with water in a large
+tank. The quartz, mica, and undissolved felspar sink to the bottom,
+while the thick white water in which the fine particles of kaolin are
+suspended is run off into another tank in which the kaolin is allowed
+to become precipitated. The precipitate is subsequently removed, dried,
+and exported from the south of England as a very fine white clay,
+which contains more alumina but less iron than the untreated clay. Of
+this material about 130,000 tons are sent to the Potteries every year.
+In Staffordshire what is called Cornish stone is also used. This is a
+kind of granite in which the felspar retains its alkaline elements, and
+is also useful as a vitrifying agent. Ground flints, too, are employed
+in the manufacture of earthenware. Ball clay forms the foundation of
+earthenware; flint is simply the whitening material. The addition of
+Cornish clay makes the body still whiter and less liable to break under
+a heavy weight and changes of temperature, while Cornish stone renders
+the ware more compact and of a closer texture. A mixture of these
+substances when fired would not produce earthenware of a perfectly
+white colour. The iron contained in them would impart a yellow tinge.
+This is overcome by adding oxide of cobalt, which neutralises this
+tendency so completely that white ware is produced.
+
+It is unnecessary to describe at any length the process of manufacture.
+Once the ware is made it is gently dried by exposure to the ordinary
+air; afterwards it is placed in saggers and fired in large cylindrical
+ovens, slowly at first to prevent too sudden evaporation of moisture
+and to prevent splitting. When the ware has undergone its first firing
+it is known in the trade as _biscuit_. Common terra-cotta and
+stoneware only require one firing, but for all English ware it is
+necessary that it should be placed twice in the oven so as to get a
+denser texture of the ware, also for the purpose of glazing, or that
+process whereby the article is dipped in a liquid in which usually raw
+or ground vitrified lead is suspended. If the ware is to remain white,
+it is, after it has been biscuited, sent to the dipping department to
+be glazed, and if it is to be decorated and sold as an inexpensive
+ware it goes in addition to the printing shop, where by means of thin
+paper transfers it receives the desired coloured impression. The more
+expensive ware is painted by hand in the ordinary way by means of
+small brushes. In underglazed colouring the decorated ware is placed
+in a kiln and brought to a red heat so as to burn off the oil in the
+colouring. The earliest glaze used in Staffordshire contained galena or
+sulphide of lead. The materials used for glazes are the same as those
+for the body, viz., silica as found in flint, and felspar, to which is
+often added Cornish stone. These are called the hard materials, and
+they are vitrified by such fluxes as oxide or carbonate of lead, borax
+or boric acid, potash, soda, carbonate of lime and barytes. In the
+Potteries each manufacturer has his own receipt for glazes, and he
+guards it with a conservatism that to outsiders seems unnecessary in
+these days of advanced chemical research. The ingredients or the glaze
+can be rendered very insoluble by vitrifying them in a reverbatory
+furnace or crucible by exposure to an intense heat, whereby a compound
+like green glass is obtained, which is called a _fritt_. This is
+subsequently ground and mixed with water. Into this liquid the ware is
+dipped, and having been biscuited, the porous ware rapidly absorbs the
+water, leaving the solid particles of the glaze on the surface. Instead
+of fritting the lead, many manufacturers until lately simply added raw
+lead, _i.e._ white lead or carbonate, to the other ingredients in
+the dipping tub, and it is owing to persistence in this practice that
+lead poisoning has been so prevalent in the Potteries. After the ware
+has been dipped in the glaze it is fired for a second time in a manner
+similar to the first, only in smaller ovens, and with greater care, the
+individual pieces being better separated from each other. On removal of
+the ware from the oven it is ready for the market. In most factories
+the ware, after having been dipped, is dried and _cleaned_ by
+women, _i.e._ the borders are scraped with a knife to remove any
+surplus glaze. When this process of cleaning is conducted over a trough
+that is aspirated there is very little dry glaze dust scattered about
+the room, but if performed in a room without proper ventilation the
+atmosphere becomes dusty and dangerous. Ware cleaning ought never to be
+conducted in the same room as the dipping.
+
+What is called _porcelain_ or _china_ differs slightly from
+earthenware. There are three kinds of porcelain: (1) that made from
+kaolin and felspar, with the addition of quartz: this is manufactured
+in Limoges in France; (2) soft porcelain, which was formerly made
+at Sèvres, near Paris; and (3) English porcelain, which, like the
+first, is made from kaolin and Cornish stone, but differs from it in
+containing calcined bones. For hard porcelain, the glaze is made from
+felspar, which contains a variable quantity of quartz, while in the
+glaze used for the other two there is usually some silicate of lead and
+borates, the presence of which allows of a lower temperature being used
+for the biscuited ware. Thirty-five firms in the Potteries make china,
+and 195 earthenware.
+
+The population of the Potteries and of the district immediately
+round about is probably not less than a quarter of a million. It is
+estimated that there are from 46,000 to 50,000 people working in the
+Potteries, of whom 4703--viz., 3123 males and 1580 females--are engaged
+in what might be called lead or dangerous processes. In his Annual
+Reports the Chief Inspector of Factories shows that in 1898 there
+were 457 cases of lead poisoning notified to the Home Office from the
+Potteries, 249 in 1899, and 200 in 1900, whereas for the same periods
+the following numbers were reported from all other trades combined,
+excluding house painters, 1278, 1258, and 1058. The number of persons
+working “in the lead” in the Potteries in July 1898 was 4703, and were
+classified as follows:--
+
+
+ NUMBER OF PERSONS employed in Processes where Lead is used in
+ the manufacture of Earthenware and China, North Stafford
+ District, July 1898.
+
+ +------------------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
+ | Persons Employed. | Under 13. | 13 to 18. | Over 18. |
+ +------------------------+------+--------+------+--------+------+--------+
+ | |Males.|Females.|Males.|Females.|Males.|Females.|
+ |(_a_) Dippers | ... | ... | 9 | 15 | 486 | 66 |
+ |(_b_) Dippers’ | | | | | | |
+ | Assistants | 7 | ... | 408 | 49 | 103 | 58 |
+ |(_c_) Ware Cleaners | ... | ... | 15 | 76 | 90 | 382 |
+ |(_d_) Glost Placers | ... | ... | 58 | 8 | 1747 | 38 |
+ |(_e_) Majolica | | | | | | |
+ | Paintresses | ... | ... | ... | 62 | ... | 233 |
+ |(_f_) Ground Layers | ... | ... | ... | 9 | 89 | 373 |
+ |(_g_) Colour Dusters | ... | ... | ... | 24 | 7 | 118 |
+ |(_h_) Enamel Colour & | | | | | | |
+ | Glaze Blowers | ... | ... | ... | ... | 9 | 12 |
+ |(_i_) Other persons | | | | | | |
+ | coming in contact| | | | | | |
+ | with lead, not | | | | | | |
+ | enumerated in the| | | | | | |
+ | foregoing list | ... | ... | 19 | 13 | 76 | 44 |
+ +------------------------+------+--------+------+--------+------+--------+
+ | Totals | 7 | ... | 509 | 256 | 2607 | 1324 |
+ +------------------------+------+--------+------+--------+------+--------+
+
+ Males 3123
+ Females 1580
+ ----
+ Total 4703
+ ====
+
+At the date of the Report on the Use of Lead in Potteries, presented
+by Professor Thorpe and myself to the Home Secretary (1899), the total
+number of cases of lead poisoning in the Potteries during the previous
+three years, _i.e._ since the Act of 1895, as to compulsory
+notification, came into force, was:--
+
+ Males 478
+ Females 607
+ ----
+ Total 1085
+ ====
+
+These were distributed thus:--
+
+
+ NUMBER OF PERSONS reported as suffering from Lead Poisoning
+ during the years 1896, 1897, and 1898.[67]
+
+ +------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
+ | | 1896. | 1897. | 1898. |
+ | +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
+ | | 13 to | Over | 13 to | Over | 13 to | Over |
+ | | 18. | 18. | 18. | 18. | 18. | 18. |
+ +------------------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
+ | | M.| F.| M.| F.| M.| F.| M.| F.| M.| F.| M.| F.|
+ |Dippers | 3| 1| 50| 14|...|...| 48| 9|...| 1| 41| 6|
+ |Dippers’ Assistants | 9| 6| 3 | 12| 26| 2| 3| 8| 14| 2| 6| 17|
+ |Ware Cleaners |...| 3| 2 | 54|...| 2|...| 66|...| 3| 1| 55|
+ |Glost Placers | 1|...| 57| 1|...|...| 53| 2|...|...| 48| 1|
+ |Majolica Paintresses |...| 1|...| 38|...| 7|...| 41|...| 4|...| 27|
+ |Ground Layers |...|...|16 | 34|...|...| 15| 40|...|...| 10| 45|
+ |Colour Dusters |...| 2|...| 11|...| 9|...| 1|...| 6|...| 9|
+ |Litho. Dusters, or | | | | | | | | | | | | |
+ | Cleaners in making | | | | | | | | | | | | |
+ | Litho. Transfers |...| 10|...| 11|...| 8| 4| 10| 4| 8| 6| 9|
+ |Other persons coming in | | | | | | | | | | | | |
+ | contact with lead, not | | | | | | | | | | | | |
+ | enumerated in the | | | | | | | | | | | | |
+ | foregoing list |...| 1| 10|...|...| 2| 25| 5|...|...| 22| 3|
+ +------------------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
+ | Totals | 13| 24|139|175| 26| 30|148|182| 18| 24|134|172|
+ +------------------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
+
+ Age. 1896. 1897. 1898.
+ 13 to 18 { Males 13 26 18 = 57
+ years. { Females 24 30 24 = 78
+
+ Over 18 { Males 139 148 134 = 421
+ { Females 175 182 172 = 529
+
+ Grand total in 3 years { Males 478
+ { Females 607
+ ----
+ 1085
+ ====
+
+
+ COMPARISON of Number of Persons “Working in Lead” in July
+ 1898, with number of cases of Lead Poisoning reported
+ in year 1898.
+
+ +----------------------------+---------------+---------------------------+
+ | | Workers. | Lead Cases. |
+ | +------+--------+------+-----+--------+-----+
+ | |Males.|Females.|Males.| Per |Females.|Per |
+ | | | | |cent.| |cent.|
+ +----------------------------+------+--------+------+-----+--------+-----+
+ |Dippers | 495 | 81 | 41 | 8.2 | 7 | 8.6 |
+ |Dippers’ Assistants | 518 | 107 | 20 | 3.9 | 19 |17.8 |
+ |Ware Cleaners | 105 | 458 | 1 | 1.0 | 58 |12.7 |
+ |Glost Placers | 1805 | 46 | 48 | 2.6 | 1 | 2.0 |
+ |Majolica Paintresses | ... | 295 | ... | ... | 31 |10.5 |
+ |Ground Layers | 89 | 382 | 10 |11.3 | 45 |11.8 |
+ |Colour Dusters and Litho. | | | | | | |
+ | Dusters | 16 | 154 | 10 |62.5 | 32 |20.8 |
+ |Other persons in contact | | | | | | |
+ | with lead | 95 | 57 | 22 |23.2 | 3 | 5.3 |
+ +----------------------------+------+--------+------+-----+--------+-----+
+ | Totals | 3123 | 1580 | 152 | 4.9 | 196 |12.4 |
+ +----------------------------+------+--------+------+-----+--------+-----+
+
+These statistics were obtained for Professor Thorpe and myself by Mr
+J. H. Walmsley, H.M. Inspector of Factories, Stoke-on-Trent, and are
+reproduced from our Conjoint Report to the Home Secretary on Lead
+Compounds in Pottery. From these figures it is seen that of the total
+male workers 4.9 per cent. become “leaded,” whereas of the female
+workers, who form the smaller body, the proportion is as high as 12.4
+per cent.; and if the official figures for 1897 had been taken, the
+results, it is believed, would have been even higher. Before Professor
+Thorpe and myself commenced our investigation of lead poisoning in the
+Potteries, _Special Rules_ had been issued by the Chief Inspector
+of Factories in 1898, the good effects of which were already being felt
+at the time of our visits to Staffordshire. From the Annual Report of
+the Chief Inspector of Factories it appears that in 1900, 200 cases of
+lead poisoning in the Potteries were reported, as against 249 notified
+in 1899. Dr Morison Legge in alluding to this subject remarks that it
+is natural to attribute the diminution partly to the new _Special
+Rules_ (1898), and to the fact that in some factories the use of
+raw lead has been discontinued. The numbers of cases of both sexes in
+1899 are much fewer than in 1898; but of the total persons, it is to
+be noted that whereas females constituted 55.2 per cent. and males
+45.8 per cent. during 1898, the reverse occurs in 1899, viz., 51.4
+per cent. males and 48.6 females. The alteration in sex distribution
+among persons attacked is attributed by Dr Morison Legge to the medical
+examination, in which adult males did not participate. It would appear,
+too, that there is a diminution in the number of severe cases reported,
+a circumstance which is also attributed to the medical examination. The
+diminution is most observed among ground layers and colour dusters, but
+not in ware cleaning or dipping operations.
+
+What are called the dangerous processes of pottery manufacture are
+those in which the worker is brought into contact with lead. The
+preceding tables show that from lead poisoning a very high percentage
+of colour and litho-dusters suffer, also that dippers’ assistants,
+ground layers, ware cleaners, majolica paintresses, and dippers run
+a considerable risk from plumbism. There are fewer women than men
+working as dippers, and in this department the incidence of plumbism
+is nearly equal in the two sexes. With the exception of glost placing,
+_i.e._ filling the ovens with the ware about to be fired, and
+which is heavy labour and only fit for men, females predominate in
+all the other departments. From these figures it is seen that males
+who are colour dusters suffer in much larger proportion from lead
+poisoning than do females, but in nearly all the other processes it
+will be observed that the percentage of lead poisoning is higher in
+females than males. It is the lead processes that have justly caused
+pottery manufacture to be regarded as one of the dangerous industries,
+and whatever may be said to the contrary, women, especially young women
+from seventeen to thirty years of age, and all _young_ males
+or females, are especially susceptible to plumbism. Lead poisoning
+in pottery manufacture has for long been known, but neither had the
+Home Office, nor employers and the public, any adequate idea of the
+extent to which the evil prevailed until industrial plumbism became
+notifiable. It was with the view of throwing light upon this subject
+that the Secretary of State invited Professor Thorpe and myself, in
+May 1898, to institute a special inquiry into the hygienic questions
+involved in the use of lead in pottery processes, and to ascertain--
+
+ (1) How far the danger may be diminished or removed by
+ substituting for the carbonate of lead ordinarily used, either
+ (_a_) one or other less soluble compound of lead, _e.g._ a
+ silicate; (_b_) leadless glaze.
+
+ (2) How far any substitutes found to be harmless or less
+ dangerous than the carbonate lend themselves to the varied
+ practical requirements of the manufacturer.
+
+ (3) What other preventive measures can be adopted.
+
+Professor Thorpe and myself, either singly or together, visited not
+only the potteries in Staffordshire and in Scotland, but several of
+the leading manufactories on the Continent, _e.g._ at Delft, La
+Louvière, Maastricht, Copenhagen, Charlottenburg, Dresden, Limoges,
+Choisy-le-Roi, etc., and our opinions and recommendations are
+embodied in a Blue Book which was presented to the Home Secretary,
+Sir Matthew White Ridley, in February 1899. These, it is to be hoped,
+will ultimately form the basis of legislation for the trade in this
+country. At present our recommendations have been challenged by the
+manufacturers, and are the cause of considerable dispute between
+the master potters of this country and the Home Office. I therefore
+reproduce our recommendations:--
+
+ (1) That by far the greater amount of earthenware of the class
+ already specified, _i.e. white and cream-coloured ware_, can
+ be glazed without the use of lead in any form. It has been
+ demonstrated, without the slightest doubt, that the ware so made
+ is in no respects inferior to that coated with lead glaze. There
+ seems no reason, therefore, why in the manufacture of this class
+ of goods the operatives should still continue to be exposed to
+ the evils which the use of lead entails.
+
+ (2) There are, however, certain branches of the pottery industry
+ in which it would be more difficult to dispense with the use
+ of lead compounds. But there is no reason why, in these cases,
+ the lead so employed should not be in the form of a fritted[68]
+ double silicate. Such a compound, if properly made, is but
+ slightly attacked by even strong hydrochloric, acetic, or lactic
+ acid. There can be little doubt that if lead must be used, the
+ employment of such a compound silicate--if its use could be
+ insured--would greatly diminish the evil of lead poisoning.
+
+ (3) The use of raw lead as an ingredient of glazing material, or
+ as an ingredient of colours which have to be subsequently fired,
+ should be absolutely prohibited.
+
+ (4) As it would be very difficult to ensure that an innocuous
+ lead glaze shall be employed, we are of opinion that young
+ persons and women should be excluded from employment as
+ dippers, dippers’ assistants, ware cleaners after dippers, and
+ glost placers in factories where lead glaze is used, and that
+ the adult male dippers, dippers’ assistants, ware cleaners,
+ and glost placers should be subjected to systematic medical
+ inspection.
+
+These were our recommendations, and while they received a considerable
+amount of approval throughout the country, some of them, as might be
+expected, have been the subject of hostile criticism on the part of
+the pottery manufacturers. It should be borne in mind that a few years
+previous to our inquiry a Committee appointed by Mr Asquith, then Home
+Secretary, and composed of Mr S. W. May, H.M. Superintending Inspector
+of Factories (Chairman), Dr John T. Arlidge, Mr W. D. Spanton,
+F.R.C.S.E., Mr A. P. Laurie, M.A., Mr J. H. Walmsley, H.M. Inspector
+of Factories, and Mr W. D. Cramp, H.M. Superintending Inspector of
+Factories (Secretary), had reported to the Secretary of State, and
+made certain recommendations, including one specially by Mr Laurie, in
+which it is suggested that the manufacturers should be circularised
+from the Home Office to experiment with and test the uses and the
+effect upon the health of the workpeople of glazes and colours in
+which all the lead had been fritted; also the practicability of making
+a glaze that would be harmless to those employed in the manufacture,
+and at the same time would not injure the ware. It remains a cause
+of disappointment that, considering the assistance rendered by the
+1893 Committee, the pottery manufacturers did so little to introduce
+the improvements that were recommended so as to minimize the evils
+that were yearly increasing. Periodical medical examination of the
+workers, male as well as female, they certainly encouraged, and they
+admit that the result was beneficial. There is a feeling that, had
+the manufacturers bestirred themselves a little more in the direction
+of using properly fritted lead compounds instead of raw lead in the
+glaze, and of again experimenting with leadless glazes to see what they
+could accomplish, plumbism in pottery manufacture would have materially
+diminished, our inquiry might not have been necessary, and certainly
+the recommendations made by Professor Thorpe and myself would not have
+been viewed, as they are by employers, in the light of a menace to the
+industry and a check to its commercial prosperity.
+
+If there is one thing upon which the British public has made up its
+mind in regard to some of the important labour and social questions of
+to-day, it is, that there ought to be fewer cases of lead poisoning
+in the manufacture of pottery generally, and that plumbism should
+be practically abolished in the production of certain kinds of
+earthenware. It would therefore be rather to the advantage of the
+industry than otherwise, were the Staffordshire employers to meet
+the wishes of the public in this respect, by making a greater effort
+to produce ware dipped in leadless glaze. When the Home Secretary
+published our recommendations, and stated to employers that it was his
+intention to give effect to them, the pottery manufacturers assumed
+an attitude partly of agreement and partly of disagreement. They at
+once stated their willingness to discontinue the use of raw lead in
+glazes; they asked for a lengthened period to test and experiment
+with fritted lead, while in regard to leadless glazes they have taken
+up the position which, up to the time of writing, may be regarded as
+one of no compromise. The abolition of raw lead, if carried out,
+would mark a very important stage in the pottery manufacture of this
+country, and of itself would do much to reduce the number of cases of
+lead poisoning. The use of fritted lead compounds would also prove
+helpful; but in order to obviate the risks of plumbism from the use of
+these substances, the fritting of the lead compounds has to be done
+carefully, for although less soluble than raw lead, yet plumbism has
+followed their use. A simple silicate of lead possesses advantages
+over the carbonate, both in its physical and mechanical characters; it
+is, for example, less dusty and clammy than either white or red lead,
+and is more easily removed from the skin by washing. Such an ordinary
+silicate may contain as much as 70 per cent. of lead oxide, and 25 per
+cent. of silica, with small quantities of alumina, lime, magnesia, and
+alkalis, corresponding in fact to a crude mono-silicate, “and this
+compound, which is generally understood as ‘fritted’ lead, is hardly
+less soluble in acids than basic lead carbonate,” besides “glazes in
+which the whole of the lead has been fritted as a properly compound
+lead silicate--that is, fritted directly with the other components of
+the glaze, so as to form a double silicate--have been found to possess
+greater covering power than a glaze containing the same relative amount
+of lead in the ‘raw’ state, with the further advantage of enhancing
+the colour.” When the amount of silica is increased the fritt becomes
+more innocuous, but there is a limit to which silica can be added to
+litharge, so as to produce a homogeneous silicate. Even bisilicate of
+lead is not wholly insoluble in acids. Professor Thorpe found in his
+experiments, conducted in the Government Laboratory, that it was not
+desirable the fritted lead should be a simple silicate, also that a
+properly compounded double silicate could be made that would fulfil all
+the requirements of the potter, and at the same time be practically
+insoluble in acids. He suggested the following as a suitable
+constituent of glaze, and as a compound that would be only slightly
+attacked by hydrochloric acid, viz.--
+
+ Lead Monoxide 22.0
+ Alumina 7.5
+ Lime 8.3
+ Alkalis 3.9
+ Boracic acid 3.5
+ Silica 54.8
+ -----
+ 100.0
+
+This combination can be obtained by “fritting an intimate mixture of
+litharge, flint, felspar, tincal, and chalk, or an intimate mixture of
+litharge, flint glass, borax, china clay, and ground flint; or, as is
+done on the Continent, a portion of the flint may be replaced by white
+sand, the colour if necessary being corrected by cobalt.” There is a
+very strong feeling that in Staffordshire the pottery manufacturers
+have been using more lead than is actually required to make a good
+glaze. Lead has been used without proper discrimination. As to what
+the amount of combined lead, calculated as oxide, which the glaze of
+“glost” ware should contain, the opinion of even practical potters is
+divided. It has been thought by some that 20 per cent. is required,
+while others fix the limit at 10. Professor Thorpe found excellent
+examples of lead-glazed ware in which the monoxide of lead did not
+exceed 12 per cent. of the total weight of the glazing materials,
+while on analysing some of the liquid taken from the dipping tubs in
+the potteries, he found the amount varied from 13 to 24 per cent.,
+and even higher. If, therefore, the use of lead compounds is still to
+be permitted, and, as has been shown, fritted lead in the form of a
+simple silicate is not much less soluble than raw lead, it is apparent
+that, with the view of preventing injurious consequences, their use
+must be restricted and regulated. It was with this object that the Home
+Office insisted upon all fritted lead compounds conforming to a certain
+test of solubility, and it is around this point there is considerable
+disagreement between the master potters and the Home Office. In a
+Report on the “Use of Lead in the Manufacture of Pottery,” presented
+to the Secretary of State by Professor Thorpe (1901), the Government
+chemist deals, among other things, with the relation between the
+composition and solubility of lead silicate, as shown in the following
+table:--
+
+ +-------------------------------------------+------------------+--------------+
+ | | Oxide of Lead | Percentage |
+ | | dissolved by | Composition. |
+ |Fritts arranged in order of Increasing |0.25 per cent. of | ---- |
+ | Solubility. |Hydrochloric Acid.|Oxide of Lead.|
+ +-------------------------------------------+------------------+--------------+
+ | | Per cent. | |
+ |Preparation from Maastricht fritt (Belgium)| None. | 18.04 |
+ |Preparation from Boch’s fritt (Belgium) | Traces. | 21.83 |
+ |Boch’s fritt | 2.6 | 22.44 |
+ |Ålmström’s fritt (Sweden) | 4.8 | 44.06 |
+ |Maastricht fritt | 5.6 | 18.97 |
+ |Owen’s glaze fritt | 6.6 | 16.23 |
+ |Owen’s fritt | 23.8 | 45.77 |
+ |Doulton’s fritt | 60.4 | 37.92 |
+ |Owen’s lead silicate (No. 2 sample) | 99.6 | 70.40 |
+ +-------------------------------------------+------------------+--------------+
+
+I have not reproduced in the table the percentage composition of
+the other ingredients of the fritt, but it is maintained that the
+solubility does not depend upon any of the constituents, nor does any
+single base or acid increase or decrease continuously as the solubility
+of the fritt increases. Although in a general sense the solubility
+increases with the sum of monoxides present in the fritt, yet there is
+no regular progression. The solubility, according to Thorpe, depends
+upon the value of the ratio bases/acids which, judging from the results
+obtained by him, should not exceed 1.45, or thereabouts, if the fritt
+is to be practically insoluble in 0.25 per cent. hydrochloric acid and
+be therefore safe. With the view of coming to some understanding upon
+this question a conference was held between representatives of the
+pottery industry and the Home Office on 31st October 1899. Two months
+afterwards the Secretary of State intimated that it was his intention
+to propose that after a certain interval a standard of insolubility
+for fritted lead employed in glazes should be observed by the
+manufacturers--the standard of insolubility being that the glaze should
+not yield more than 2 per cent. of lead when acted upon by hydrochloric
+acid, under certain conditions. Permission was granted to manufacturers
+to submit specimens of fritted lead to Professor Thorpe, so that they
+might have the necessary chemical assistance if wanted. Several samples
+were received, and on examination it was found that they could contain
+amounts of lead ranging from 24 to 53 per cent., and yet be capable of
+conforming to the standard of solubility required by the Home Office,
+although generally speaking they yielded slightly larger quantities
+of lead oxide to dilute hydrochloric acid than the insoluble silicate
+prepared from Continental fritts. In a short Report by Dr Thorpe,
+dated 20th November 1900, are published directions for the fritting
+of lead. The manufacturer, for example, “may, in the first place,
+fritt together all the materials given in the receipts--that is in one
+operation. If he chooses to take this course it would, as a matter of
+economy, be preferable to substitute litharge, if not for the whole
+of the raw lead, at least for the white lead. It seems absurd to pay
+for the trouble of putting the carbonic acid and water into the white
+lead, when these ingredients are expelled by the heat of the kiln. The
+required alteration in the receipt may easily be calculated from the
+fact that 1 lb. of litharge contains the same amount of lead oxide as
+1.02 lb. of red lead or 1.18 lb. of white lead. Or the manufacturer may
+make up his fritt by commingling two other fritts. Thus he may fritt
+together borax, stone and flint, and fritt also the lead oxide, flint
+and stone, each in such proportions that the two when mixed with the
+whiting and china clay form a composition containing 18 per cent. of
+lead oxide.” It was urged by the manufacturers that the 2 per cent.
+solubility of lead in a glaze would be materially affected by the
+degree of fineness to which the fritt might be ground, but experiments
+showed that while within limits increased solubility of the fritt and
+fineness of grinding were concurrent, yet this question was rather
+of an academic nature, and had no practical bearing upon the use of
+fritted lead compounds in pottery. In our Conjoint Report, dated 1889,
+when discussing the amount of combined lead that might be allowed in
+glazes, we stated as the opinion of practical potters that it should be
+from 10 to 20 per cent. We ourselves suggested 12 per cent. Subsequent
+experience and experiment convinced Professor Thorpe that 12 per cent.
+is higher than is actually necessary in earthenware and china glaze.
+Nor does he regard the limit of 2 per cent. of solubility as too hard
+or stringent a requirement. The manufacturers pressed the Home Office
+to raise the limit to 5 per cent., but to do this in the face of
+existing evils was far from helping the object that the Home Office
+had in view. The stamping out of lead poisoning in pottery manufacture
+is a most desirable object, and one all must wish to see accomplished
+without, if possible, any injury to the trade. “If the limit is raised,
+as suggested, to 5 per cent., it means that the lead in an ordinary
+earthenware or china glaze, as at present used, may be so soluble
+that one-third of it may be extracted by very dilute acid at ordinary
+temperatures in one hour.” More than that, to raise the limit to 5 per
+cent. would be to throw away all the result of the experience that has
+been gained by experiments conducted over a period of three years, and
+would tend to perpetuate the evils that at present exist.[69]
+
+No matter in what form lead is used for glazing pottery, there is
+always a risk of plumbism. The French pottery manufacturers employ
+for enamelling purposes a glaze the principal ingredient of which is
+_calcine_--an alloy of 15 to 20 parts of tin, and 100 parts of
+lead. An ordinary composition for white glaze for table ware is--
+
+ Calcine 44
+ Minium (lead oxide) 2
+ Decize sand 44
+ Sea salt 8
+ Soda 2
+
+Yellow and green coloured enamels are got by adding to the white glaze
+a quantity of antimoniate of lead, but for other colours no lead is
+used. (_Poisons Industriels_, Office du Travail, Paris, 1901, p.
+45.)
+
+Since the publication of the Report on Pottery Manufacture in 1899,
+by Professor Thorpe and myself, in which we recommended the use
+of leadless glazes for cream and white ware, electrical fittings,
+sanitary ware, etc., attempts have been made to place leadless glazed
+earthenware and china on the market. Commercially the thing can be
+done. The Worcester Porcelain Company, also Messrs Mortlock, Maling &
+Sons, and others, are willing to supply china finished with a glaze
+quite free from lead. The Coalport China Company state that they have
+used a leadless glaze for the past eighty years, and that they have
+never had a case of lead poisoning in their works. Messrs Maling &
+Sons, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, regularly produce a large amount of ware
+dipped in leadless glaze, particularly jam-pots.
+
+In France a circular issued by the Minister of the Interior, and
+bearing date 19th June 1878, interdicts the manufacture and sale of
+pottery, either of French or foreign manufacture, glazed by means of
+oxide of lead which has been incompletely fritted, and which gives up
+readily oxide of lead to feeble acids. I am not in a position to say
+how far this has been given effect to.
+
+In potteries where red or brown ware is used plumbism is not unknown.
+It has generally been traced to the use of red lead. Occasionally lead
+poisoning from red earthenware potteries, mostly in the form of wrist
+drop, has come under my notice at the Newcastle Infirmary. Some of
+the cases have been drawn directly from the immediate district, while
+others have come from Sunderland. With the view of diminishing plumbism
+in the manufacture of red and brown earthenware, Professor Thorpe
+suggested that where employers decline to use fritted lead, on the
+ground of expense, there would be no practical hardship in adopting the
+use of ground blue lead or galena, _i.e._ the native ore, instead
+of red or white lead. It is cheap, but it requires to be ground. The
+drawback to it is that it gives off sulphur fumes when fired, but the
+amount of sulphur oxides given off is small to that formed in the
+combustion of the coal in the oven. It gives a faint yellow or brownish
+tinge to the glaze, but this does not seem to be objectionable. In
+visiting potteries in Holland, I found one firm in Gouda which used
+ground galena for glazing this kind of ware. They had not only every
+reason to be satisfied with the results, but in the factory plumbism
+was unknown. Several decades ago galena was similarly used in
+Staffordshire.
+
+I have dwelt at considerable length upon the question of fritting
+lead compounds and the use of leadless glazes, both in defence of the
+attitude which Professor Thorpe and myself have assumed, and to show
+the reasonableness of our recommendations.
+
+If our recommendations were adopted they would certainly make for
+better health of the operatives engaged in pottery manufacture. At
+the time of writing they have not been adopted. Some months ago a
+statement was issued by a joint committee representing 283 of the 579
+manufacturers coming under the Special Rules, challenging our Report.
+The manufacturers say that it is impossible to glaze the greater part
+of their ware without lead, and that serious injury will be done to
+the trade if a radical measure of so sweeping a character is enforced
+without giving sufficient time to test the products so treated.
+Employers maintain that from a trade point of view existing regulations
+are hard enough. They suggest that there should be an extension of the
+medical examination of all operatives engaged in lead processes quite
+irrespective of age or sex. The Home Secretary subsequently indicated
+to the manufacturers the steps he proposed to take with the view of
+protecting workers from lead poisoning in china and earthenware,
+viz.--(1) relaxation of the Special Rules for factories or processes in
+which no lead is used; (2) medical examination of male workers in lead
+processes; (3) use of fritted lead--six months being allowed before
+this becomes compulsory; (4) fixing of standard of safety in fritts as
+regards solubility in acids.
+
+There is everything to show that within the last three or four years
+the conditions of labour in the Potteries have materially improved,
+and that there has been a distinct diminution in the number of cases
+of lead poisoning. The operation of the Special Rules, the periodical
+medical examinations, and a more restricted use of raw lead have
+largely contributed to this satisfactory result. A return of cases
+of lead poisoning reported under the Act 1895, occurring in the
+manufacture of earthenware and china from 1st January 1899 to 31st
+December 1900, and presented to the House of Commons by Mr Jesse
+Collings, 27th February 1901, conveys information upon this particular
+point. During the year 1899 there were in the Potteries 129 persons
+suspended from work on account of lead poisoning, and in the following
+year 95. In 1899, 34 of the 129 persons were ware cleaners, 29 worked
+in the dipping house, 26 were majolica paintresses, ground layers
+formed 14 of the total, and 10 were colour dusters, while for 1900
+the numbers were respectively 20, 42, 8, 6, 13. The districts of
+Hanley, Burslem, Tunstall, and Stoke include practically the whole
+of the North Staffordshire Potteries, where about 46,000 persons are
+at present employed in the manufacture of china and earthenware, and
+of whom 4700 are employed in lead processes. Taking, therefore, the
+cases of lead poisoning in the Potteries for the last four years,
+they run as follows: in 1897, 446; in 1898, 457; in 1899, 249; and in
+1900, 200.[70] Allowing a margin on either side for discrepancies and
+incompleteness in the statistics, these figures at once show how in a
+trade that has hitherto been regarded as dangerous the conditions of
+labour can be materially improved, with a very marked gain in health
+to the workers. These encouraging results are, it is hoped, only a
+forecast of others yet to come.
+
+There is considerable discrepancy in the returns of lead poisoning in
+the Potteries, due to the source from which the statistics have been
+obtained, and the manner in which the cases have been notified. All
+the statistics concur in showing a declension of plumbism. From an
+article in the _Times_, 24th September 1901, the following has been
+taken:--“That lead poisoning has rapidly diminished among potters and
+increased among other trades is proved by the following table of cases
+reported in the last four years, and compiled from the _Labour Gazette_
+and other official sources.”
+
+ Potters. Other Trades.
+ 1897 469 745
+ 1898 463 954
+ 1899 249 1009
+ 1900 200 1057
+
+It will be thus observed that there has been a progressive diminution
+in the number of cases of lead poisoning in the pottery trade, a
+diminution that is still proceeding, judging from the returns of the
+first half of the year 1901. The cases reported for the six months,
+January-June, in the last four years are:--
+
+ 1898 1899 1900 1901
+ 200 165 110 59
+
+“In the course of three years the amount of lead poisoning has been
+reduced to one-fourth of that reported in 1898.” The manufacturers
+attribute this result to the monthly medical examination of women and
+young persons brought into contact with lead.
+
+An accidental delay in the passage of these pages through the
+press allows me to add a further note upon the attitude of the Home
+Office and the pottery manufacturers in regard to the use of fritted
+lead compounds, the suggested standard solubility, and the use of
+leadless glazes, and thus to bring up to date the history of this
+important trade inquiry, probably the last of the large industrial
+conflicts that will be submitted to arbitration. The questions at
+issue between the Home Office and the manufacturers were referred
+to arbitration, Lord James of Hereford being chosen as umpire. The
+Court sat at Stoke-on-Trent on 7th November 1901, and subsequent
+days. Mr Chester Jones acted as arbitrator for the Home Office, and
+Mr Llewellyn for the manufacturers; the counsel being, Mr Cripps,
+K.C., and Mr H. Sutton, for the Home Office; Mr Fletcher Moulton,
+K.C., for the manufacturers; and Mr Colefax for the operatives.
+Evidence was given by Professor Thorpe, Mr Wilton Rix; Dr Wilkin,
+director of large potteries, Dresden; Mr Alström, of the Rorstrand
+Potteries, Stockholm; Dr T. M. Legge; Miss A. M. Anderson, Principal
+Lady Inspector of Factories; and myself, on behalf of the Home Office.
+The principal points urged were: the possibility of using leadless
+glazes for certain kinds of ware; the greater safety of fritted lead
+compounds over raw lead; the greater freedom of Continental potteries
+from plumbism, where most, if not all, of the lead was fritted, than
+is the case in Staffordshire; and, in a general way, the better
+structural arrangements in Continental potteries than in those at home.
+On behalf of the manufacturers, Messrs W. H. Grindley, G. E. Meakin,
+H. J. Johnson, J. L. Whittaker, and J. Sherwin gave evidence. It was
+admitted by the witnesses on both sides that there had been since the
+introduction of the Special Rules 1898 a very notable decline in the
+number of cases of plumbism in Staffordshire, and that towards this
+happy circumstance better ventilation, greater personal cleanliness
+on the part of the workpeople, and systematic medical examination had
+doubtless contributed. The main part of the inquiry centred round
+the subject of fritting the lead for the glaze. It was demonstrated
+by Professor Thorpe that excellent results could be obtained by the
+use of vitrified lead, which was soluble to the extent of only 2 per
+cent. in .25 per cent. of hydrochloric acid. The manufacturers having
+previously intimated to the Home Office their willingness to accept a
+5 per cent. standard solubility as the test of lead in their glazes,
+wished to recede from this position, and at the time the Court was
+sitting, claimed the right not to be bound by this or any other test
+of solubility. In fact, it was admitted that many of the manufacturers
+had returned to the use of 30 to 40 per cent. of raw lead in their
+glazes. As to the greater safety in the use of fritted lead compounds
+of the low solubility insisted upon by Professor Thorpe there can be
+no question. There never will be absolute safety so long as lead in
+any form is used; a 2 per cent. soluble fritted lead compound must
+be much less harmful if swallowed than one containing lead which has
+a solubility of 5 per cent. or more.[71] My contention, like that of
+Professor Thorpe, was that the .25 per cent. of hydrochloric test was
+not at all a hard one; that while this was the amount of hydrochloric
+acid present in the gastric juice, the test proposed was not so severe
+as that which would be carried on in the human stomach, where there was
+a higher temperature, greater agitation, and therefore better admixture
+of the contents.
+
+It is unnecessary here to reproduce the evidence in detail either for
+or against the recommendations of the Home Office, which were based
+upon the Thorpe-Oliver Report; but I may mention one or two additional
+facts. While the Court was sitting, a male dipper of 20 years’
+experience, and who had never been ill, requested permission of Lord
+James to give evidence. This was gladly complied with. The evidence
+tendered was directed against the proposed monthly examination of males
+employed in lead processes. The operative simply wished to assert
+his right to work in lead even if he was the subject of plumbism, to
+express his unwillingness to submit to periodical medical examination,
+and to state that he objected to be bound by the arbitrary order of
+the certifying surgeon either for temporary or permanent suspension.
+In a word, he stated that he and his comrades knew the risks of their
+calling, and they were prepared to take them. He appealed against the
+application of all official restraint, which he regarded as of too
+coercive a character. When working men, in whose interests well-meant
+efforts are being made to render their occupation more healthy,
+prefer to court death and to throw their wives and families upon the
+ratepayers rather than forego the loss of a few weeks’ wages so that
+they may regain their health, the difficulty of bringing into line the
+many conflicting forces is at once apparent.
+
+To the fritting of lead compounds the manufacturers raised many
+objections. It was stated that, quite apart from the expense, their use
+was impracticable. Mr W. H. Grindley of Tunstall stated that he had
+tried fritted lead, but had relinquished it, as its use had involved
+him in a financial loss of some hundreds of pounds in a few weeks. Mr
+Henry J. Johnson and other manufacturers gave similar evidence.
+
+Quite unexpectedly, on the fifth day of the sitting of the Court, Lord
+James announced his intention of not carrying the inquiry further.
+Balancing the various conflicting issues at stake, and influenced
+by the reduction in the number of cases of lead poisoning from 12
+to 3.5 per cent. in the four years’ operation of the Special Rules,
+he postponed the arbitration for eighteen months, during which,
+putting the manufacturers on their honour, he looked to them to
+rigidly give effect to the Special Rules of 1898; to take a lesson
+from Continental manufacturers; to try fresh experiments with fritted
+lead, and to reduce them to the lowest possible solubility consistent
+with a satisfactory production of their ware; also to come to some
+understanding with the workpeople in regard to founding a mutual
+assurance fund. As the whole subject is to be again discussed in
+eighteen months, it would ill become me to do more than simply state
+these facts, and to express the hope that by a loyal adherence to the
+special regulations the amount of lead poisoning in Staffordshire may
+meanwhile still further decrease.
+
+
+ _Chromo-lithographic Works and Transfer Making._
+
+In the printing of coloured trade advertisements and wrappers there
+is frequently used metallochrome powder, known under various names,
+_e.g._ “flake white,” “china white,” etc. Usually the dry powder
+is dusted on the sheets of paper by hand and dusted off again by young
+women or lads, an operation that is extremely dusty, and too often
+carried on in workrooms totally unprovided with any artificial means
+of ventilation. Practically speaking, the manufacture of transfers
+for giving coloured impressions to pottery is a similar operation.
+The coloured impressions are made upon paper which, when applied to
+china and earthenware about to be fired, allow of the floral design and
+pictures being transferred to plates, cups, and saucers, etc. Under
+all circumstances, whether it is the making of transfers for pottery
+work, covers for fancy tins of biscuits, mustard, tobacco, etc., or
+coats-of-arms for railway carriages, the occupation is not only dusty
+but is dangerous, owing to the fact that metallochrome powder often
+contains as much as from 50 to 60 per cent. of white lead. In the
+manufacture of transfers the workers, usually girls, throw the powder
+loosely on the paper and tilt it from side to side, or what is more
+common, they gently rub the powder all over the paper by means of a
+soft cloth or a pad of chamois leather, the superfluous powder being
+removed by shaking. In visiting factories where transfers are made both
+at home and on the Continent, I have been struck by the extreme pallor
+of the workers; frequently they have complained of splitting headache
+and severe abdominal pains. Nearly all the workers presented a deep
+blue line on their gums. In Limoges, where large quantities of coloured
+porcelain are made, the introduction of transfers into the industry
+took place only about twenty years ago, and it was not until several
+fatal cases of lead poisoning had occurred that the plumbism was traced
+to its cause, viz., the making of transfers. Many of the girls had
+succumbed to that extremely severe and often suddenly developed form
+of Saturnine affection of the brain, which is attended by epileptiform
+convulsions, and known as lead encephalopathy. It is when metallochrome
+powder is used in the dry form, and therefore dusty, that there is
+danger. When mixed and moistened as in coloured printers’ ink, and the
+printing is done by machinery, there is no danger. Men, however, have
+suffered from plumbism after mixing “flake white” and varnish. This is
+not a dusty process, but there is considerable danger when spirituous
+materials are used along with lead.
+
+Much of the risk to health in this trade can be overcome by diminishing
+the amount of white lead in the metallochrome powder. Experience shows
+that this is often present in excess of what is necessary. A less
+harmful metal, too, might in several instances be substituted for
+lead. Barium has been suggested, but time and trial alone can tell
+whether even the use of barium is quite free from danger. Animals can
+be fed upon barium salts, and apparently thrive when they would die
+if given the same quantity of lead carbonate. It is a heavier metal
+than lead, and on the whole may be said to be safer. Magnesia has also
+been recommended as a substitute for white lead in the metallochrome
+powders. The trade of transfer making is one in which, fortunately
+in one sense for the workers, employment is irregular. Under any
+circumstance it is an occupation in which the workers should have some
+alternation of employment, and in which no young person should be
+engaged, no food should be eaten in the workroom, overalls ought to be
+worn, and before leaving the factory the hands and face of each worker,
+should be washed. Not only should adequate lavatory accommodation be
+provided, but sufficient time should be given by the masters before
+break, for the workers to wash. In this, as in all trades in which lead
+is used, the individuals should be subjected to periodical medical
+examination--experience in the potteries, for example, having shown
+how very beneficial this has been in preventing plumbism. Such an
+examination often succeeds in eliminating persons who are susceptible
+to lead before they have worked too long at the trade. In Limoges,
+so impressed were several of the large porcelain makers by the great
+susceptibility of young women to plumbism, that they now only employ
+men in the manufacture of transfers. The work, too, is no longer
+conducted on open tables, but in closed glass cases, through openings
+which are guarded by indiarubber, the hands of the workman are thrust,
+so that the operation of “laying on” is conducted under cover, the
+dust created being drawn away by strong aspiration on the distal side
+of the enclosed space. Since the introduction of this method of making
+transfers, plumbism has disappeared from most of the large porcelain
+works in Limoges. In Staffordshire a similar method of transfer making
+has also been adopted, and with equally satisfactory results to the
+workpeople.
+
+Eleven cases of lead poisoning were notified to the Home Office as
+having occurred in litho-transfer works during 1899.
+
+
+ _Tile-making and Manufacture of Porcelain Stoves._
+
+The manufacture of tiles for useful and decorative purposes, such as
+the floor of entrance halls, hearths, sides of fireplaces, and stoves,
+is a large and increasing industry. The pressing of clay into the form
+of tiles is done by machinery, and although it is a dusty process,
+there is usually in operation at the time the pressing is done a strong
+aspirating draught brought into play, whereby the dust is removed
+from the face of the worker. The tiles when dried are subsequently
+dipped in glazes often rich in lead. Usually the lead which enters into
+the composition of the glaze for majolica tiles is fritted; but some
+manufacturers have until recently been in the habit of using only raw
+lead, and it was occasionally in their factories that lead poisoning
+occurred. The opportunities for a worker becoming leaded are during
+the dipping, cleaning, or painting. In some of the factories visited
+by Professor Thorpe and myself, we saw mechanical dippers in use
+which gave promise of superseding hand-dipping and of abolishing the
+necessity for cleaning and trimming the edges of the tile. Employment
+of mechanical dippers and of fritted lead compounds, conforming to the
+solubility standard required by the Home Office, with enforcement of
+the Special Rules, would pretty well abolish plumbism in this industry.
+
+During the manufacture, at Velten in Brandenburg, of glazed tiles for
+making earthenware stoves, there recently occurred a considerable
+amount of lead poisoning among the operatives,[72] due to the glazing
+of tiles with oxide of lead. The outbreak is of sufficient importance
+to be mentioned here. The glazing material is made, first, by firing
+together lead oxide and tin in the proportion of three to one. To
+the compound thus obtained there are added felspar, marine salt, and
+quartz. These are mixed together, and subsequently exposed to a great
+heat so as to form a fritt. The vitrified material thus obtained is
+crushed, finely pulverised and mixed with water, while the thick liquid
+is applied to the surface of the tiles, which are afterwards heated in
+a special furnace. During these operations there are many opportunities
+for the workmen to become poisoned by lead. In the act of crushing,
+a considerable amount of dust rich in lead salts rises into the
+atmosphere. Rasch caused some of the air to pass through cotton-wool,
+and he thus arrested the dust. The lead in this he estimated as
+sulphide. The quantity found by him in 100 litres of air varied between
+0.0012 to 0.0066 gramme, which was equivalent to an amount of lead
+oxide entering into the lungs during the twelve hours’ work in the
+factory of 0.05 to 0.6 gramme. Upon the clothes of the workmen he
+obtained as much as 3 to 4.8 grammes. It was found that all the lead
+in the fritt had not been converted into an insoluble form. There was
+at least one-hundredth part in the form of lead oxide, a circumstance
+which rendered the glaze harmful to those who dipped the tiles, and
+also to those who handled them after dipping. It is needless to say
+that where this industry is carried on, precautions should be taken
+similar to those in use in the potteries, care being taken to have the
+fritting of the lead carried on in well-ventilated places, and the
+grinding of the fritt done in enclosed machinery.
+
+
+ _Washing of Lead-workers’ and Painters’ Clothes._
+
+In my Gulstonian Lectures on Lead Poisoning, I make mention of the fact
+that dogs which had slept on the coats or jackets of their masters,
+who were lead smelters in the vales of Durham, sometimes suffered
+from colic; also that a peculiar epidemic of Saturnine poisoning
+occurred in France in women who had simply washed the clothes of their
+husbands, who were workers in lead factories. One of the main reasons
+for the White Lead Commission recommending the wearing of overalls
+when at work was that the Committee ascertained that the clothes of
+several of the female workers, which were often dust-laden, became
+the bedclothes of the family at night. Lead dust is always a danger,
+so, too, may be the bespattered working clothes of house painters.
+A woman, thirty-six years of age, consulted me at the Newcastle
+Dispensary on account of anæmia, headache, and double wrist drop. In
+addition she had a well-marked blue line on her gums. There was no
+difficulty in diagnosing the case as one of plumbism, the difficulty
+was rather in tracing the lead poisoning to its source. She was a widow
+and had never worked in any factory, nor, so far as she knew, had she
+ever been brought into contact with lead. She simply attended to her
+domestic duties. On inquiry I found that since her husband’s death,
+in order to increase her income, she had taken to reside with her two
+male lodgers--her own brother and a nephew. Both were house painters,
+and they wore the ordinary white jackets and trousers of the artisan.
+The patient was in the habit of washing their clothes once a week,
+which were frequently very much discoloured, especially those of the
+younger man, the nephew. I asked for a bottleful of the water removed
+from the washtub when she washed the clothes. This water was dirty
+brown in colour, and contained a good deal of sediment. I submitted
+it to Dr Bedson, Professor of Chemistry at the College of Science in
+Newcastle, who reported the presence of a very large quantity of lead
+in suspension in the water, and a small quantity in solution. That the
+woman’s ill-health and paralysis of the hands were due to Saturnine
+poisoning there was not the least doubt, for under medicinal and
+electrical treatment and cessation on her part of the weekly washing of
+the painters’ clothes, health was gradually regained and muscular power
+restored. It is known that women who wash the overalls, etc., in white
+lead factories occasionally suffer from plumbism.
+
+
+ _Lead Foil Manufacture._
+
+Makers of lead foil which is to be subsequently used for the tops of
+bottles or for wrapping round tobacco, snuff, and cheese, occasionally
+suffer from plumbism; so, too, do those who handle and fix the lead
+discs over the corks of bottles. On analysis the metallic foil which
+envelops Roquefort cheese has been found to contain 12 parts of tin
+and 85 of lead, among other substances, while in that which envelops
+Angelots cheese there has been found as much as 95 per cent. of lead.
+Tobacco smokers and chewers have suffered from using tobacco kept in
+metallic dishes, and I have had professional experience of the very bad
+effects of the use of snuff wrapped in leaden foil. An attempt is being
+made to substitute parchment for lead discs for bottles.
+
+
+ _Shoe-finishing and Staining by Lead Compounds._
+
+A few months ago, owing to several shoe finishers in Northampton
+having been thrown upon their benefit societies, all suffering from
+the same type of symptoms, ultimately certified to be lead poisoning,
+the circumstance was necessarily brought under the cognisance of the
+Factory Inspector for the district. The men worked in the same factory.
+On investigation it was found that they were in the habit of using, for
+finishing the bottoms of shoes, certain powders, known in the trade
+as Chinese red and yellow chrome. These contained lead compounds. In
+the manipulation of the powders to stain the boots and shoes with,
+a considerable amount of dust arises. The process is thus described
+by Mr Wright, H.M. Inspector. Dry China-red powder is by means of a
+sponge dusted on to the sole of a boot, a piece of fine glass-paper is
+then used to scour the colour into the leather, a small quantity of
+grease is subsequently applied, and the sole is polished with a dry
+cloth. The workman, during the whole of the process, has to bend down
+closely over the boot, and thereby inhales the coloured dust. Sometimes
+chrome-yellow is mixed with the China-red. It was found necessary by
+the Home Office to interdict the use of these powders, less harmful
+substitutes being suggested.
+
+
+ _Lucifer Matches containing Lead._
+
+In order to make matches strike softly, and in other instances with the
+view of making matches free from yellow phosphorus, various compounds
+of lead have been introduced into the paste for heading the lucifers.
+The mixing of the ingredients and the manipulation of the paste were
+attended by such an amount of sickness among the workers that their use
+has been discarded, for it was found that although less painful, lead
+poisoning was just as serious a malady as that caused by phosphorus.
+
+
+ _Buffing of Brass Cocks and Plumbism._
+
+In buffing brass cocks upon rapidly revolving wheels covered with
+leather, the surface of which is kept coated with emery powder, several
+of the men have become ill, and shown signs of lead poisoning. Buffing
+is done so as to smooth the brass cocks after casting. In what is known
+as “gun” and “pot” metal, lead is sometimes present to the extent of 5
+to 6 per cent.
+
+
+ APPENDIX
+
+ NUMBER OF CASES of Lead Poisoning notified to the Home
+ Secretary under Section 29, 1895, during 1898, 1899,
+ and 1900.[73]
+
+ +---------------------------+--------------------------+
+ | | Number of Reported Cases.|
+ | Disease and Industry. +--------+--------+--------+
+ | | 1900. | 1899. | 1898. |
+ +---------------------------+--------+--------+--------+
+ |Lead Poisoning | 1058 | 1258 | 1278 |
+ |China and Earthenware | 200 | 249 | 457 |
+ |Litho.-Transfer Works | 10 | 11 | [73] |
+ |Glass Polishing | 7 | 8 | 19 |
+ |Smelting | 34 | 61 | 82 |
+ |Tinning and Enamelling | 16 | 24 | 24 |
+ |File Cutting | 40 | 41 | 46 |
+ |White Lead | 358 | 399 | 332 |
+ |Paints and Colours | 56 | 75 | 59 |
+ |Coachmaking | 70 | 65 | 45 |
+ |Shipbuilding | 32 | 30 | [74] |
+ |Electric Accumulator Works | 33 | 33 | 11 |
+ |Other Industries | 202 | 290 | 103 |
+ +---------------------------+--------+--------+--------+
+
+ ANALYSIS OF REPORTS on Lead Poisoning by Certifying Surgeon.
+ Factories and Workshops: Annual Reports for 1899 and 1900
+ (Dr T. M. Legge).
+
+ +----------------------------+---------------------------------------+
+ | | Total Cases. |
+ | +-------------------+-------------------+
+ | | 1900. | 1899. |
+ +----------------------------+--------+----------+--------+----------+
+ | | Males. | Females. | Males. | Females. |
+ |Smelting | 34 | ... | 52 | ... |
+ |Brass | 3 | ... | 11 | 1 |
+ |Sheet Lead | 17 | ... | 26 | ... |
+ |Printing | 17 | ... | 25 | 1 |
+ |File Cutting | 35 | 3 | 39 | 1 |
+ |Plumbing | 8 | 1 | 16 | 1 |
+ |Tinning and Enamelling of | | | | |
+ | Iron Hollow Ware | 2 | 3 | 11 | 4 |
+ |White Lead | 288 | 28 | 340 | 22 |
+ |Red Lead | 19 | ... | 19 | 2 |
+ |Earthenware | 92 | 105 | 119 | 111 |
+ |Litho.-Transfers | 7 | 3 | 6 | 4 |
+ |Glass | 7 | ... | 7 | 1 |
+ |Enamelling of Iron Plates | 8 | 3 | 6 | 4 |
+ |Electric Accumulators | 30 | ... | 31 | 1 |
+ |Paints and Colours | 51 | 5 | 47 | 1 |
+ |Coachpainting | 61 | ... | 58 | ... |
+ |Shipbuilding | 31 | ... | 30 | ... |
+ |Paint in other Industries, | | | | |
+ | excluding House Painters | 46 | ... | 47 | 5 |
+ |Other Industries | 58 | 18 | 64 | 17 |
+ +----------------------------+--------+----------+--------+----------+
+
+Dr T. M. Legge deals with the age, distribution, and duration of
+employment in persons brought in contact with metallic lead, and
+with the salts of lead, either in the form of dust or of paint; and
+in the following table, taken from his annual Report for 1900, shows
+that in those who handle metallic lead or use it as paint, symptoms
+of poisoning are more slowly developed than in those employed in
+industries in which the salts of lead are present in the form of dust.
+
+ +--------------------------------+-------------------+-------------------+
+ | | | Duration of |
+ | | Age. | Employment. |
+ | Source of Poisoning. +---------+---------+---------+---------+
+ | | Under |30 Years | 1–5 | 5 Years |
+ | | 30. |and over.| Years. |and over.|
+ +--------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
+ |Metallic Lead per cent.| 43.0 | 57.0 | 37.4 | 62.6 |
+ |Salts of Lead as Paint „ | 43.6 | 57.4 | 45.8 | 55.2 |
+ |Salts of Lead as Dust „ | 65.4 | 34.6 | 76.0 | 24.0 |
+ +--------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
+
+The reports bring out the fact that Saturnine palsy is essentially an
+affection of the male sex, while the symptoms of headache, anæmia, and
+encephalopathy are more common in the female.
+
+ THOMAS OLIVER.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XX
+
+ ELECTRICAL TREATMENT IN CASES OF LEAD POISONING
+
+
+The treatment of lead poisoning by electricity is based upon two
+distinct ideas. First, the use of the electrolytic effects of a current
+to eliminate the metal from the system; and secondly, the treatment
+of its symptoms, especially its nervous symptoms, by electricity,
+in virtue of its usefulness as a remedy for paralytic disorders.
+In any treatment of lead poisoning these two considerations are of
+importance:--
+
+1. _The Elimination of the Metal._--There is no doubt that the
+elimination of the metal is necessary for the recovery of a patient
+from the effects of the poison. In the ordinary course of events
+elimination probably takes place by the sweat glands of the skin,
+by the kidneys, and by the mucous membrane and glands of the bowel;
+whereas the direct effect of an electrolytic elimination would be to
+cause the lead to pass by a process akin to osmosis in some soluble
+form, most probably as a chloride of lead, from the tissues of the
+body to the electrolyte surrounding the body, and so to the plates or
+poles of the electrolytic cell or bath in which the patient is placed.
+Unfortunately, the experimental evidence that lead can be extracted
+from the tissues of the body in this way is not free from possible
+sources of error. The amount of lead existing in the tissues of a
+patient suffering from lead poisoning may not be more than a few grains
+in weight, and the quantity which could be deposited by electrolysis
+in an electric bath of the ordinary strength and duration could not
+amount to more than a few milligrammes. In solutions such as the juices
+of the body, containing but little lead, the lead ions could play but
+an insignificant part in the transport of the current, and therefore
+there are considerable difficulties in depositing at the poles of the
+bath a quantity of lead which could only be a small fraction of the
+total amount contained in the body. Lead compounds also have a somewhat
+special behaviour when submitted to electrolytic treatment, for whereas
+most metals are deposited from their solutions at the negative pole,
+lead compounds when submitted to electrolysis have a tendency to be
+deposited in part upon the positive pole, as lead peroxide, and in part
+upon the negative pole, in a spongy metallic form. In the presence of
+chlorides the lead peroxide does not adhere to the positive pole, but
+tends to undergo changes and decomposition. Statements have frequently
+been made that after the treatment of a patient by electrolysis in a
+bath of water, traces of lead may be found upon the poles of the bath.
+I have been able to detect lead on the plates in one case of my own in
+which the experiment was tried. But there is always some uncertainty
+as to the source of this lead, for in cases of workmen it may very
+well have come from dust and dirt containing lead which has been
+mechanically deposited upon the surface of their skin; or again, it
+may be lead which has actually come from the tissues, but has already
+been eliminated by the sweat glands, and is lying on the surface of the
+skin, so that it could be washed away by ordinary washing with soap and
+water. But at the same time we must not forget that even if the direct
+electrolytic elimination of lead is a thing which can be brought about
+by electricity, it is not the only way in which electrical applications
+may act favourably in removing lead from the system, for by their
+means we can also influence what may be called the natural processes
+of elimination, so that after electrical treatment one might expect to
+find traces of lead in the urine, in addition to that which might be
+found by a careful examination of the poles of the bath. And so far as
+mere opinions go, I certainly take the view that electrical treatment
+favours such an indirect elimination of the poison, and to that extent
+is of service in the treatment of cases.
+
+2. _The Electrical Treatment of the Paralysis caused by the
+Lead._--This is probably as important, or more important, than
+the question of the extraction and elimination of the metal. In
+practical treatment we may say that it is the paralytic symptoms
+which are most readily dealt with by electrical methods. All forms
+of electrical application have been recommended for paralysis due to
+lead, _e.g._, the constant current, the interrupted current of
+the coil, and, more recently, the sinusoidal current of an alternating
+dynamo. These can all be used, and apparently with advantage. As I have
+frequently maintained in other places, the state of contractility in
+a paralysed muscle need not necessarily dictate to us the form that
+the electrical applications are to take. I mean that when a muscle
+paralysed from lead ceases to react to induction coil currents, it
+does not at all follow that induction coil currents are useless in its
+treatment; and, therefore, I consider that the widely held view that
+a coil should be used only for those muscles capable of responding to
+it is not correct. Muscles which show the reaction of degeneration,
+and contract only to direct applications of the constant current,
+will almost certainly derive benefit from a course of induction coil
+currents, and these should in every case be given to them, not to
+the exclusion of constant currents, but in addition thereto. Many of
+the rules laid down for the treatment of paralysis by electricity
+are based upon the view that the therapeutic effect of electricity
+upon a muscle can be measured by the amount of contraction which the
+electrical application can produce in it; but this is quite wrong.
+Even in the absence of all visible contractions in a muscle under
+treatment, electrical applications produce effects--vasomotor, trophic,
+and other--which are of service. Indeed, we may go further, and say
+that treatment by currents purposely made strong, in order to set up
+contractions in paralysed muscles with very feeble contractility,
+may easily be overdone, and that fatigue and injury may be caused
+to muscles through too severe stimulation when strong currents are
+demanded, in order to make them contract visibly.
+
+In the practical treatment of paralysis due to lead, the choice of
+an electrical method will turn upon the supposed relative advantages
+of electrolytic extraction of the metal on the one hand, and of
+electrical stimulation of the paralysed parts on the other. For the
+former the electric bath with constant current is to be used, and for
+the latter induction coil currents or sinusoidal currents, with or
+without a water bath. The advantages of the sinusoidal current over
+that of the induction coil consist mainly in the greater smoothness
+with which the current varies in the former case, and in the greater
+magnitude of the currents which can be borne. The two methods differ
+from each other rather in degree than in essence. When, as is usual,
+the case is one of paralysis of the extensor muscles of the forearm,
+the use of an arm-bath as the medium for applying the electricity
+has very decided advantages, so that I am accustomed to treat most
+of my cases by the arm-bath and sinusoidal current. In cases of
+severe or extensive lead poisoning, or in cases where the muscles
+of the lower limbs are affected, I make use of the full-length
+bath, and at the commencement of the case would advise the use of
+direct and sinusoidal currents on alternate days, in order to secure
+electrolytic effects as well as those of simple stimulation. It is
+probable that hot baths, without electricity, are of very decided
+service in treating symptoms due to lead. In former days the thermal
+waters of Bath enjoyed a very considerable reputation in this disease.
+Thus, by combining a full-length bath with electricity, one is able
+to make use of the increased elimination set up by hot bathing, as
+well as of the increased elimination set up by general electrical
+stimulation. The electrolytic effect also comes in if the current used
+is a continuous one, but not so if it is alternating. In practical
+treatment, the cases of lead poisoning most commonly met with, are
+cases of operatives who handle lead, or some preparation of lead, in
+the course of earning their living. The symptoms of which they commonly
+complain in London, at least, are wrist drop and paralysis of the
+extensors of the wrist and fingers. This is the class of case which I
+have had under treatment during the last ten years; and the opinion
+which I have formed of electrical treatment is decidedly favourable.
+Although in a number of cases the lead has had many years in which to
+poison the patient, yet it is the rule that within a few weeks from
+the commencement of electrical applications the paralytic symptoms
+become very considerably decreased. Unfortunately, recovery is usually
+followed by a return to the old occupation; fresh infection follows,
+and paralytic symptoms sooner or later reappear. The patient returns
+for further treatment under conditions less favourable than before. He
+is older, the system is more seriously damaged, and his recovery is
+apt to be less perfect than on the previous occasion. It is this state
+of things which is chiefly responsible for the fact that brilliant
+results are not often met with in the treatment of lead poisoning due
+to occupation. In districts where lead poisoning is common, I would
+recommend an installation for electrical treatment on the following
+lines: (1) one or more arm-baths; (2) one or more full-length baths for
+the whole body. Both of these sets of baths should be supplied with
+sinusoidal current, generated by a dynamo on the premises, or drawn
+from the mains of an electric light station, if the current supplied
+in the neighbourhood should happen to be alternating. In each case
+some clockwork or other mechanical contrivance for slowly varying the
+current from zero to the maximum might with advantage be installed,
+although good results may be obtained without this. In addition, for
+direct treatment by constant current in special cases, it would be
+necessary to have a battery or other source of constant current, either
+for use with the bath or for local applications by means of pads and
+conductors of the usual class. The induction coil may be used where
+the sinusoidal current cannot be obtained, but wherever possible, the
+latter should be used in preference. A pressure of ten or twelve volts
+is about a suitable one for an arm-bath, and if an average of twelve
+and a half volts per arm-bath is taken, it is sometimes convenient
+to arrange the arm-baths in series, as is done, for example, at St
+Bartholomew’s Hospital, where four arm-baths in a series are fed from
+one source at fifty volts. This, it will be seen, gives twelve and a
+half volts per bath, minus a small loss of one volt or so over the
+whole circuit for the conductors. So if eight or ten baths could be
+employed with advantage, they might be arranged in a single series
+upon mains of a hundred volts pressure. In the fitting up of a new
+establishment, it would be convenient to provide waste pipes and water
+taps fixed over them, to obviate the inconvenience of filling and
+emptying by hand. A very convenient vessel for arm-bath treatment is
+an oblong stoneware picklepan, which can usually be obtained in towns;
+or wooden vessels of the same shape may be made almost anywhere. It
+is advantageous to use narrow oblong vessels of a suitable length and
+width to take the arms and hands, because with round tubs there is
+considerable loss of current, carried by the water without entering
+into the patient. There is also a certain waste of hot water by reason
+of the greater capacity of round tubs. The electrodes for arm-baths may
+conveniently be made of one piece of sheet copper or sheet zinc, shaped
+like a tennis racket, with the handle bent over in a hook, by which to
+suspend it to the end of the tub.
+
+The progress of treatment is slow, and without incident. There is
+a gradual return of power and a gain in thickness of the wasted
+muscles. The duration of the case varies much with the severity of the
+poisoning, and the state of health of the patient. The final results
+are good.
+
+ H. LEWIS JONES.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXI
+
+ ARSENIC
+
+
+Arsenic is employed for colouring purposes in various arts and
+industries, and may produce injurious effects on the workers and on
+others who are exposed to the influence of the poison. A Committee
+of the Medical Society of London, of which I was secretary some
+twenty years ago, compiled from the information collected by them the
+following list of articles in which arsenical pigments, dyes, and
+mordants were used.
+
+Paper, fancy and surface coloured, in sheets for covering cardboard
+boxes; for labels of all kinds; for advertisement cards, playing
+cards, wrappers for sweetmeats, cosaques, etc.; for the ornamentation
+of children’s toys; for covering children’s and other books; for lamp
+shades, paperhangings for walls and other purposes; artificial leaves
+and flowers; wax ornaments for Christmas trees and other purposes;
+printed or woven fabrics intended for use as garments; printed or
+woven fabrics intended for use as curtains or coverings for furniture;
+children’s toys, particularly inflated indiarubber balls with dry
+colour inside, painted indiarubber dolls, stands and rockers of
+rocking-horses and the like, glass balls (hollow); distemper colour
+for decorative purposes; oil paint for the same; lithographers’ colour
+printing; decorated tin plates, including painted labels used by
+butchers and others to advertise the price of provisions; japanned
+goods generally; Venetian and other blinds; American or leather
+cloth; printed table baizes; carpets, floorcloth, linoleum, book
+cloth and fancy bindings. To this list may be added coloured soaps,
+wafers, sweetmeats, and false malachite. Arsenic is also used in the
+preparation of skins for stuffing and of some preservatives used by
+anatomists. Workers employed in the manufacture of any of these things
+may suffer from the effects of the arsenic contained in the materials
+which they handle. The fluid known as “sheep dip,” which is sold for
+the purpose of killing tic on sheep, contains a large quantity of
+arsenic. Occasionally the men who manufacture the liquid or who wash
+the workmen’s clothes have suffered from the effects of arsenic upon
+their extremities and nervous system.
+
+The metal is mostly employed in the form of green arsenites of copper,
+known as Scheele’s green, and Schweinfurt or Vienna green. The poison
+gains admission to the system either by being carried into the mouth on
+the hands and thence taken into the stomach, or by inhalation into the
+lungs.
+
+In the preparation of artificial flowers Scheele’s green is powdered
+over the leaves, and in this process some of the dust is drawn in with
+the breath, while some may lodge in the furrows of the skin and under
+the nails. In the manufacture of green wallpapers Scheele’s green and
+the aceto-arsenite of copper are mainly used; from 1 grain of the
+poisonous substance to 50 or 60 grains per square foot has been found
+in different samples. Arsenic has been found in red, orange, brown,
+and grey papers as well as green. The poisonous material may be dusted
+off the wallpapers and distributed through the atmosphere of the room.
+Bamberg, of Stockholm detected arsenic in the atmosphere of a room that
+had been papered for twenty-five or thirty years. According to Parkes
+and Kenwood,[75] in the case of the smoother papers arseniuretted
+hydrogen is formed by decomposition of the size and paste acting
+chemically on the arsenical salt. The same authors point out that even
+distempered walls must not be assumed to be innocuous, as there is
+frequently arsenic in distemper which is mixed with size to make it
+adhere, thus forming a combination of organic matter and arsenic ready
+for the development of arseniuretted hydrogen.
+
+Persons living in rooms hung with arsenicated wallpapers, and workmen
+who strip walls or hang pictures, are liable to suffer from the
+inhalation of the poisonous dust or vapour. Injurious effects may also
+be caused by the use of green lamp shades, and of gloves, stockings,
+and other articles of clothing coloured with aniline dyes in the
+preparation of which arsenic is largely employed. The use of arsenic
+in many of the arts that have been enumerated, and particularly in
+the manufacture of wallpapers and in the tinting of textile and
+silken fabrics intended for furnishing and clothing purposes, also of
+arsenical colours, has greatly diminished since attention was called to
+the danger of these by the Medical Society and by sanitarians, among
+whom the late Mr Henry Carr[76] deserves special mention. Yet, as is
+proved by cases which are from time to time reported in the papers,
+they are still too much employed.
+
+_Symptoms._--The symptoms are those of chronic arsenical
+poisoning, and may vary in severity from slight inflammation of
+the eyes or conjunctivitis, and running at the nose, or coryza, to
+prostration, or convulsions ending in death. The strong are attacked
+as well as the weak. In the slighter forms of the affection they are
+marked by conjunctivitis, running at the nose, and injection, with
+dryness and soreness of the throat, accompanied by depression. In
+more severe forms there is headache with colicky pain and abdominal
+“cramps,” with vomiting, diarrhœa, and sometimes dysentery; the
+throat and mouth are sore and parched; there is great thirst, with
+distaste for food. The congested condition of the respiratory passages
+manifests itself by cough and bronchial catarrh, sometimes by asthma.
+If the cause is not removed the affection may last indefinitely in
+a stage of more or less troublesome indisposition, or the prolonged
+gastro-intestinal derangement may gradually undermine the health and
+exhaust the patient. In some cases the nervous system suffers most;
+there is increasing depression, with restlessness and insomnia;
+in certain severe cases paralysis of the extremities occurs, with
+convulsions ending in death. This, however, is altogether exceptional,
+and indeed death from arsenical poisoning of what may be called
+industrial origin is decidedly rare.
+
+In certain cases arsenic produces local as well as general effects.
+According to Arlidge[77] workers employed in the manufacture of
+arsenical green often exhibit peculiar symptoms. That product is
+derived from arsenite of soda, which is decomposed by sulphate of
+copper, and the resultant treated with pyroligneous acid.
+
+The workers are liable to the development of boils and pimples, and
+suffer from an itching eruption about the nostrils and in the flexures
+of the arms. In severer cases there is headache with thirst and
+nausea, and an irritating eruption appears on the scrotum. Vomiting,
+quickening of the pulse, and conjunctival injection are observed in
+some persons. In workmen employed in the calcining or “burning” houses
+for arsenical ores the fumes produce sometimes gastric disturbances,
+sometimes bronchial and laryngeal irritation. The commonest effect is
+the production of an eruption about the genitals and on the exposed
+parts of the body, especially at the bends of the limbs. Stockings,
+handkerchiefs, gloves, etc., dyed with aniline colours often cause
+severe irritation, especially on the skin of delicate women and
+children. This ought never to occur, for if the process is rightly
+carried out no arsenic passes into the finished dye.
+
+_Treatment and Prophylaxis._--The first principle of treatment is
+removal of the cause. The symptoms will then, in the great majority of
+cases, spontaneously disappear. Debility or other conditions calling
+for active measures should be treated _secundum artem_.
+
+As regards the prophylaxis, in trades where exposure to the arsenic
+is unavoidable, sanitary precautions on the same lines as those taken
+against lead poisoning should be enforced. For colouring purposes
+arsenical colours are unnecessary. In the dyeing of textile fabrics and
+in the tinting of papers they should be absolutely prohibited.
+
+No paper should be placed on a wall unless it be guaranteed free
+from arsenic, and even with a guarantee from the manufacturer it is
+advisable to test a piece with Marsh’s apparatus to make sure.
+
+ MALCOLM MORRIS.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXII
+
+ CHINA AND EARTHENWARE MANUFACTURE: POTTERS’ ROT
+
+
+In all dusty trades pulmonary disease is the cause of death of large
+numbers of the workpeople. The manufacture of pottery is a dusty
+trade. Potters’ asthma and consumption have for long been known. The
+potteries of Staffordshire formerly had an unenviable notoriety on
+account of the prevalence of ill-health, and the large death-rate among
+the hands employed. For much that we know of the pulmonary diseases
+of potters and of _pneumoconiosis_ in general we are indebted to
+Drs Greenhow, Addison, Peacock, and the late Dr J. T. Arlidge, who, as
+Physician to the North Staffordshire Infirmary, Stoke-upon-Trent, had
+unusual opportunities of observing and recording the prevalent diseases
+of that district.
+
+In the manufacture of china and earthenware the workpeople are exposed
+to two dangers: (1) pulmonary disease due to inhalation of particles
+of clay and flint; and (2) plumbism in consequence of the presence of
+lead used in the glazes and for colouring purposes. In another part
+of the book the dangers incidental to lead poisoning in potteries are
+dealt with. Here we are concerned with mineral dust solely, and its
+effect upon the lungs. Cheap pottery is made from ordinary clay, but
+in the manufacture of the finer ware, Cornish clay and stone are used.
+In firing china, ground flint is largely used as a packing between the
+cups, saucers, and plates, etc., when these are placed in the “saggers”
+or burnt-clay boxes in the ovens. In addition to the ingredients
+mentioned above, ground calcined bone is also one of the constituents
+of china.
+
+Clay and flint both contain very hard, sharp, angular particles of
+silex, which when drawn into the respiratory organs during inhalation
+are not dissolved by the secretions of the bronchi. They become
+deposited in the smallest bronchial tubes and the pulmonary alveoli,
+and set up irritation. The initial process in the manufacture of
+earthenware consists in mixing the clays with ground flints and
+water. This is rather a dusty operation, but fortunately only a few
+men are employed at it. When properly mixed, the compound is known as
+“slip,” and the men are called slip-makers. The mixing of the slip is
+sometimes done by hand by means of long, broad pieces of wood, but
+usually by machinery. The next stage in the manufacture is known as
+“throwing,” where the potter throws moist clay upon a revolving wheel,
+and by means of his hands and fingers shapes the clay into all forms
+of useful dishes, elegant vases, etc. These products are known as
+hollow ware, but other kinds of ware just as useful, _e.g._ plates
+and saucers, can be made by pressing. The clay vessel when removed
+from the potter’s wheel is felt by the fingers when run over it to
+be rough and uneven, and in order to get the required smoothness it
+is necessary later on to turn such hollow ware as cups upon a lathe,
+while flat goods like plates and saucers are made even by being rubbed
+with tow or flannel upon a rapidly revolving table. This process is
+called “towing.” Ware thus smoothed is ready for the oven. The first
+firing is known in the trade as “biscuiting.” After this it is ready
+to be painted or imprinted by coloured transfers, and then glazed. The
+ware to be fired is placed in large thick-walled vessels the size of
+an ordinary cheese, made of very coarse local clay, and known by the
+name of “saggers.” These are capable of withstanding great heat. Into
+these the earthenware and china goods are packed, care being taken
+to separate the individual china pieces from each other by plenty of
+loose ground flint. The men who carry the saggers into the kilns are
+called “placers.” They build up the saggers on the top of one another,
+pile after pile, and when doing this they are naturally exposed to
+alternating heat and cold, to high temperatures in ovens just emptied,
+to the fumes of sulphur in the kilns from the expiring fires, and to a
+considerable amount of dust when emptying the saggers. Coming out of
+the warm kilns covered with perspiration they run the risk of getting
+chilled.
+
+In this description of the manufacture we have simply dealt with ware
+that has not been glazed or in any way brought into contact with
+poisonous compounds, such as lead. The products have only once been
+fired. Should the biscuited ware be subsequently glazed, this is
+done by dipping it into a liquid which contains, among other things,
+“raw” or “fritted” lead. The man who plunges the ware into the glaze
+is called a “dipper,” and he is followed in his work by the dipper’s
+cleaners, who rub the rough edges off the ware, while the person who
+places the dipped ware in the saggers, which go again into the oven
+for a second firing, is called a “glost placer.” The workman who fills
+the unglazed ware in the saggers and carries them into the kilns for
+the first firing is, as already stated, called a “placer.” He only
+incurs such risks to health as might be caused by exposure to varying
+temperatures and to dust, but the “glost placer” runs in addition the
+risk of lead poisoning. About 3 per cent. of them suffer from plumbism.
+
+Since, however, we are only concerned at present with dust and its
+effect upon the respiratory organs, we shall adhere to a description
+of those processes in potteries in which it prevails, and of these
+the two that are the dustiest and the most dangerous are “towing” or
+smoothing of the ware before it has been fired, also what is known as
+the “scouring” or cleaning of china after it has been biscuited. The
+scouring of china is generally done by women, sometimes by hand, by
+brushing the ware over a wooden trough so that the ground flint can be
+collected and used over again. The atmosphere of the workroom is often
+thick with dust, while the hair and clothing of the women are literally
+white with the fine particles of flint. For dust and danger there is no
+comparison between the throwing and turning of unfired clay products
+and the cleaning of china that has been once fired. Unless provision
+is made by fans for the removal of the dust, the air is so thick that
+no person could scour china for even a few weeks or months without
+suffering from bronchial irritation or bronchitis, cough and shortness
+of breath. Dr Prendergast of Hanley, Staffordshire, informs me that
+after two months’ work in scouring china, a healthy woman will often
+present symptoms suggestive of phthisis, but happily the condition of
+the lung is remediable. Potters’ asthma and consumption, as indeed
+all forms of lung disease due to dusty occupations, are becoming
+fortunately fewer and fewer every year in this country, owing to the
+improved appliances in factories for getting rid of dust. The late Dr
+Arlidge told me that the chances of obtaining a good illustration of
+potters’ phthisis as a pathological specimen was becoming increasingly
+difficult, and the same information has been sent to me from Sheffield
+as regards steel grinders’ lung.
+
+In addition to visiting the largest potteries in England and Scotland,
+I have had the opportunity of inspecting many on the Continent, and
+particularly the porcelain works at Limoges, where I saw something of
+the baneful effects upon the French potters of the scouring of china.
+In Limoges the porcelain is made from a very fine white clay or kaolin,
+which is found in the district. The products made from this kaolin are
+dipped in a glaze containing felspar and quartz, and whose composition
+is silica 70, aluminium 17, potash 13.
+
+For more than a century porcelain has been manufactured in Limoges, a
+town containing 80,000 people, of whom, roughly speaking, 15,000 are
+engaged in the potteries in the town and neighbourhood, men and women
+about equally. The kaolin is found at St Yrieix, a village twenty-six
+miles south of Limoges. There is therefore very little expense incurred
+in the railway transport of the raw material. Labour, too, is on the
+whole cheap. In Limoges there are sixteen or seventeen large potteries
+with almost double that number of smaller workshops. The brushing-off
+or époussetage of the fired or biscuited ware is done both by women and
+men by means of soft feather brushes. It is a very dusty operation, and
+where there are no fans for its removal, as in some of the factories
+I visited, the air was thick with dust. The windows were open at the
+time, but currents of air obtained by this means exercised no very
+appreciable influence upon the dust. It is not this kind of ventilation
+that is required under these circumstances. In the matter of the
+provision of artificial means for the removal of dust and the renewal
+of air in the potteries of Limoges, some of the manufacturers seemed to
+me to be rather behind than in advance of the owners of large factories
+in Staffordshire. Accordingly I was not unprepared for the information
+that among the potters, especially the brushers-off or scourers, in
+Limoges, the mortality from pulmonary consumption and chest diseases
+is high. The harmful operations in porcelain works are the emptying
+of the kilns, the removal of the ware from the saggers, and the
+brushing of this ware; while the _hard_ dust that rises during
+the polishing of the all but finished articles is equally dangerous.
+The polishing has for its object the removal of any roughness from the
+edges or surfaces of the ware, and it is generally done on a revolving
+wheel by means of a broken piece of china, the workman using this as
+the smoothing agent. The men and women employed in these operations
+are usually well covered with dust, yet it is seldom that they wear
+respirators. Fans for the removal of the dust were present in only
+very few of the factories. The employés objected to them on the ground
+that they created a strong draught of cold air. Dr Raymondaud, one of
+the Professors in the School of Medicine, Limoges, has made a special
+study of the diseases of porcelain makers, particularly of pulmonary
+consumption and chronic bronchitis. He found that the potteries
+furnished a larger number of patients suffering from lung diseases
+than did the other trades of the district. Of 75 deaths registered
+in Limoges as occurring among china makers, 36 were due to phthisis,
+and of 30 potters whom Raymondaud examined, 20 were suffering from
+pulmonary consumption. Pulmonary phthisis is regarded as the principal
+disease affecting the workers in the Limoges potteries.
+
+The discovery of the tubercle bacillus by Koch has tended to unify
+medical opinion as to the cause of pulmonary phthisis. The bulk
+of pulmonary phthisis is tubercular and is due to the bacillus.
+Other conditions, however, are not without their influence, such
+as hereditary predisposition, constitutional weakness, infection
+at home, and the effect of chills; but admitting all these, there
+is considerable evidence in favour of the view that dust plays an
+important part in producing potters’ phthisis, which, as previously
+remarked, differs in some respects from tubercular consumption. Dr
+Lémaistre, with whom I discussed this subject, had analysed the air
+of the Limoges potteries, and he found that the dust in some of the
+workshops is composed of earthy particles, fragments of granite, flint,
+particles of dried glaze, soot, and wood charcoal. The atmosphere which
+the brushers-off, the finishers, and the porcelain makers generally
+work in, he found contained 640 million particles of dust to the cubic
+metre, while several of the finishers, _i.e._ those persons whose
+duty it is to remove the excess of dried glaze on the ware, often work
+in an atmosphere containing 680 million particles to the cubic metre.
+The particles in the latter instance are smaller than those first
+mentioned, and they therefore remain a longer time suspended in the
+air of the workroom. This large number of particles of dust in the air
+is one explanation of the frequency of bronchitis and of pulmonary
+disease, and also of the small chalk-like masses found after death in
+the lungs of porcelain makers, but which must not be confounded with
+cretaceous tubercles. Whatever may be the influence of the dust-laden
+atmosphere of a pottery in causing pulmonary fibrosis, the accidental
+presence of the tubercle bacillus in addition would go far to aggravate
+existing pulmonary conditions, and tend to transform a non-tubercular
+affection of the lungs into one of a true specific character. It is
+thus that the presence of a tuberculous person in a workroom becomes
+a source of danger to his fellow-workmen. Particles of clay or china
+dust, when inhaled, can only act mechanically upon the lining of the
+small bronchial tubes and pulmonary alveoli, but by making a breach
+upon their epithelial coating they reduce the local vital resistance,
+and pave the way for the entrance of the tubercle bacilli. Dust,
+therefore, weakens the lung, and by altering its structure, induces
+conditions that favour the development of the tubercle bacilli. Apart
+from bacillary infection, dust is itself a cause of danger: it is
+capable of inducing bronchitis, and if long inhaled causes fibrosis of
+the lungs of potters. The pulmonary consumption of porcelain-makers
+differs from tubercular phthisis in the fact that it is of slower
+development, and is of longer duration; that it less seldom attacks
+the young than those of middle life and more advanced age; also that
+there may be found in the lungs after death calculous concretions,
+which on chemical examination are found to be composed of carbonate and
+phosphate of lime, silica, and oxide of iron, with a certain amount of
+organic matter. The average age at death of men from fibroid phthisis
+in the potteries of Limoges is forty-three, and of women thirty-eight
+years. The same symptoms just described as having been observed in
+the Limoges porcelain-makers are also found in workers in pottery
+in this country, viz., cough, shortness of breath, and progressive
+emaciation, but there is a greater tendency to blood-spitting in French
+porcelain-makers than Arlidge found among the potters in Staffordshire.
+
+
+_Symptoms._--It is not until an individual has worked, as a
+rule, some months or years at his trade that he shows signs and
+symptoms of potters’ phthisis. In this, as in other forms of chronic
+pulmonary disease, there is cough on getting up in the morning, but
+this circumstance attracts little or no attention, as the general
+health usually remains good for a lengthened period. At first white
+and frothy, or speckled from the greyish-black dust that has been
+inhaled, the expectoration by degrees becomes purulent, while the
+cough, no longer confined to the morning, becomes more paroxysmal in
+character, and is attended by shortness of breath, which tends to get
+worse with time. On examining the chest it is found that the amount of
+shortness of breath or dyspnœa is out of all proportion to the amount
+of consolidated lung that may be present. It is a fact well known to
+every member of the medical profession that tubercular consumption much
+more frequently affects the apices or uppermost parts of the lungs,
+_i.e._ just below the collar-bones, than the lowest portions, a
+circumstance very largely due to the imperfect inflation or ventilation
+of those particular regions, so that when they become the seat of
+catarrh or of subacute inflammation, the morbid products that are
+secreted and effused are, owing to the limited range of movement of
+this part of the chest wall, and incomplete aëration of this part of
+the lungs, with difficulty expectorated. A catarrh therefore tends
+to linger in the apices of the lungs, and offers opportunities for
+bacillary infection. In dust diseases of the lungs, on the other hand,
+it is not the apices that become affected so much as the lower and
+back parts of the lungs. This is an important distinction between the
+two, for it shows that a different cause must have been in operation.
+Limited areas of dulness, indicating small patches of consolidated
+lung, can be detected here and there in the chest, especially at the
+base behind or close to the shoulder-blades. In the early stages there
+is neither the evening rise of temperature, the feverishness, nor the
+accelerated pulse and rapid loss of flesh which are so pathognomonic
+of tubercle. Arlidge says there is, too, a wonderful immunity from
+blood-spitting. If an afflicted workman, therefore, at this stage were
+to give up his employment and seek for some occupation out-of-doors,
+the chances are that he would still have a good spell of life before
+him; but if, on the other hand, he is contented to remain at his
+occupation, sooner or later he becomes the confirmed victim of
+potters’ phthisis. His vital resistance becomes gradually more and
+more enfeebled. His preference for indoor life, daily exposure to
+infection in the factory, and his overcrowded home, lay the individual
+open to the chances of a tubercular lesion becoming grafted upon a
+fibrotic lung. Dr Arlidge found that the mean age at death of male
+potters aged twenty years and upwards was forty-six and a half years,
+whilst that of non-potters stood at fifty-four. Dr Prendergast tells me
+that potters working in dust generally die at the age of forty-five.
+Among potters Arlidge found as the most frequent causes of death
+pulmonary consumption, diseases of the heart and nervous system. In the
+workpeople of the district other than potters, while the death-rate
+from diseases of the chest was 7.86 per cent., the rate for potters was
+12.29. Taking the male population generally and their entire mortality
+from all causes at the time that Arlidge wrote, we find that the
+deaths of male potters from diseases of the respiratory organs were
+60 instead of 27 per 1000, and that the decennial period from fifty
+to sixty gave the greatest number of deaths, each preceding decennium
+back to twenty giving less and less, while the maximum mortality from
+phthisis as opposed to diseases of the lungs generally was reached
+between the ages of thirty and forty years. Before the age of forty,
+therefore, the bulk of the potters who have contracted lung disease,
+and who have become tubercular, die; whereas in those who contract the
+disease later on they become less liable to the tubercular type of the
+malady. Bronchitis is met with among the male pressers who are exposed
+to the dust of the clay, but in china scourers pulmonary diseases are
+extremely prevalent; as many as 40 per cent. were found suffering from
+phthisis and 25 per cent. from bronchitis. As already stated, the
+phthisis in potters is in the early stages usually not tuberculous.
+So much so is this considered to be the case that Dr John Tatham,[78]
+at page xcvii. of Supplement to the Fifty-fifth Annual Report of the
+Registrar-General of Births, Deaths, etc., Part II., 1897, in speaking
+of potters (earthenware makers) sustaining a mortality from phthisis
+and respiratory diseases together far in excess of that experienced by
+other groups of workers, _e.g._ 453 as against 100 agriculturists,
+says that “potters succumb to non-tubercular disease of the lungs
+more rapidly than they do to phthisis, and it is certain that much
+of the so-called ‘potters’ phthisis’ ought properly to be designated
+non-tubercular cirrhosis of the lung.” Cirrhosis is a medical term
+sometimes used instead of fibrosis.
+
+
+_Prevention._--Ventilation of the workroom should be by means of
+fans and not simply by open windows. Scouring of china by hand over an
+open trough into which the ground flint falls should be discontinued.
+It should be done in semi-closed boxes with a strong down draught on
+the offside of the workers, or by revolving brushes driven by machinery
+in semi-closed spaces similarly aspirated. Overalls and coverings for
+the head should be worn by the workers; and since the form of pulmonary
+disease that affects potters develops slowly and is capable of being at
+least retarded, if not arrested, in the early stages, in the interests
+of the workpeople themselves their chest should be examined by a
+doctor once every three or six months, so that those who show signs of
+commencing lung disease might be pronounced disqualified for further
+employment at towing and scouring.
+
+ THOMAS OLIVER.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXIII
+
+ BASIC SLAG
+
+
+In the manufacture of steel by the Thomas Gilchrist or basic process,
+there is a large percentage of waste product, which is known by the
+name of basic slag. This, notwithstanding its high percentage of
+phosphorus, remained for some years of little or no value, until it was
+found that its fertilising properties could be obtained by reducing
+it to an exceedingly fine powder. Since that was done, it has been in
+great demand as a manure. It is the manufacture of this manure which is
+said to produce deleterious effects upon the workmen engaged, and which
+has brought it within the meaning and regulations of a dangerous trade.
+
+The composition of basic slag is:--
+
+ Lime 41.58 per cent.
+ Magnesia 6.14 „
+ Alumina 2.57 „
+ Peroxide of iron 8.54 „
+ Protoxide of iron 13.62 „
+ Protoxide of manganese 3.79 „
+ Protoxide of vanadium 1.29 „
+ Silica 7.38 „
+ Sulphur 0.23 „
+ Calcium 0.31 „
+ Sulphuric anhydride 0.12 „
+ Phosphoric acid 14.36 „
+
+Before crushing, the slag is in large pieces, and it has to be ground
+into an almost impalpable powder, so that 80 to 85 per cent. of it will
+pass through a mesh of 10,000 to the square inch. There is still a
+more impalpable dust given off which, notwithstanding the utmost care,
+escapes from the machinery during the process of grinding.
+
+The grinding is performed in several ways, sometimes by means of edge
+runners, sometimes by flint pebbles, and sometimes by means of heavy
+balls called the Krupp ball system. The following is a description
+of the process as carried on at the North Eastern Steel Works,
+Middlesborough.
+
+The main building is of three storeys, the ground floor of which is
+used for the various pulleys and driving gear for the mill.
+
+On the first floor are six roller mills, and on the top floor are ten
+Askam separators, three screens, and a main conveyor, into which each
+separator discharges the dust.
+
+Outside the main building, but connected with it, on the ground floor,
+is a shed in which are placed four edge runner mills.
+
+The slag is put into the first edge runner, and crushed until it is
+fine enough to pass through grids at the bottom of the mill, and it
+falls through these on to an elevator, which takes it up to the screen
+on the top floor. That which is not fine enough to pass through this
+screen falls down into the second edge runner, where it is ground in a
+similar manner and again elevated to the top floor.
+
+After the slag has passed through the screen, it is taken into the
+first two separators, where the fine dust is taken out and falls into
+the main conveyor, and is carried by means of this direct to the
+warehouse.
+
+The tailings from the separator fall into the roller mills on the first
+floor, where they are crushed up, after which they fall into the second
+edge runner mill, where they are ground and treated in exactly the
+same way as in the first edge runner mill. This process being repeated
+altogether four times, the slag is then found to be pulverised.
+
+The dust made in the separators is conveyed direct to the warehouse,
+as above described; but that made by the roller mills on the first
+floor is drawn by means of a fan into a long tube, running the whole
+length of the building, and from this it passes into a long dust-tight
+chamber, called the stive room. The floor of this room is cleaned by
+scrapers, which take the dust into the main conveyor above referred
+to. The dust is finally received into a hopper, and from this it falls
+automatically into bags, in quantities of about a hundredweight.
+
+In the early years of its manufacture, the process was conducted in
+such a way that it was undoubtedly a very dusty occupation, and the men
+working at it then suffered constantly from what they called the “slag
+cough.”
+
+Some two or three years after its manufacture was begun, there was an
+outbreak of epidemic pneumonia in Middlesborough, and it was thought
+by many to be in some way caused by the new industry. As the disease
+(in 1888) assumed very serious proportions, it was thought expedient
+by the sanitary authority to invite the co-operation of the Local
+Government Board. Dr Ballard came down, and after a most careful
+inquiry, he reported that “the slag dust to which the epidemic had
+been attributed was not the cause of the pneumonia, but that when from
+any cause pneumonia becomes epidemic, persons largely exposed to the
+inhalation of this dust may and do suffer more than persons not so
+exposed, and that the disease with them is of high fatality.”
+
+In 1893 the attention of the Secretary of State was again called
+to the injurious nature of the trade, and Mr Gould, Her Majesty’s
+Superintending Inspector of Factories, conducted the inquiry, and made
+a report in December of that year, in which he says:--“Being in its
+nature extremely fine, it has a tendency, when inhaled, to settle in
+the farthest ramifications of the air-passages, and to induce in the
+mucous membrane of these a chronic state of irritation, thus rendering
+the larynx and bronchial tubes unduly susceptible of further mischief
+should the subject take cold; and in general creating a distinct
+predisposition to bronchitis and pneumonia. Moreover, it is found that
+when pneumonia does supervene, a fatal result not unfrequently follows,
+with unusual rapidity. But even in a case of complete recovery from an
+acute attack, the patient will be constantly liable to a recurrence of
+the same malady, as his breathing apparatus is continually undergoing
+deterioration, so long as he is subject to the influence of the dust.”
+
+The summaries of these two inquiries may be taken as representing all
+that could be said about the effects of slag dust at that time; and it
+remains for me to state whether more recent observations have tended to
+confirm these conclusions.
+
+In investigating the subject, I have examined a number of men engaged
+in daily occupation at the mill, and I subjoin a short report of some
+of them.
+
+S. R., 54, been in the mill twelve years; well nourished; no complaints
+except occasional cough after starting in the morning; breath sounds
+not very distinct at the base of the lungs, and expansion of chest
+rather deficient.
+
+J. R., 32, worked in the mill thirteen years; chest expansion rather
+deficient; general health good; occasional cough.
+
+E. F., 31, worked eleven years; good appetite and good health; had
+pneumonia fifteen years ago; does not suffer from colds, but coughs
+sometimes in the mornings.
+
+W. J., 44, has worked nine years; always has cough, which is worst
+about an hour after leaving work; expansion of chest diminished.
+
+J. T., 52, worked thirteen years; health equal to the average. Three
+years ago had pneumonia; ten weeks off; colds not common; respiratory
+murmur diminished over the bases of lungs; expansion lessened.
+
+N. R., 44, worked eight years; health good, never ill; colds often.
+
+In measuring the chest, it was found that there was only a difference
+of about one and a half inches between that of inspiration and
+expiration, showing considerable diminution in chest capacity.
+
+With regard to the causation of chest affections there can be little
+doubt that it produces increased action of the bronchial mucous
+membrane, and consequent cough. But unless this is accompanied by such
+influences as wet, cold, exposure, or drink, there is no reason to
+think that it is the cause of acute bronchitis. Indeed, notwithstanding
+excessive carelessness in their habits, I should say that the tendency
+in the great majority of cases is towards a chronic affection of the
+bronchial tubes, followed after some years by emphysema.
+
+The men nearly all suffer more or less from cough and some mucous
+expectoration, which makes them frequently seek relief from cough
+medicines. In the last few years, however, great improvements have
+taken place in the grinding mills, and the men now tell me that their
+discomforts are greatly reduced.
+
+In the cases examined, there was accelerated breathing in three, and
+diminished power of expansion more or less in all of them.
+
+It will be seen from the chemical analysis of the slag that there is
+nothing in it of the nature of a poison such as to produce immediate
+injurious consequences, beyond such effects as may be traced to
+its mechanical action upon the bronchial tubes and air cells. The
+phosphoric acid is in combination with the lime as a tetraphosphate,
+which is not corrosive, nor generally harmful. There is, however, a
+good deal of irritation produced in those unaccustomed to it, for on
+the last occasion when I visited the works, I felt some tightness in
+the chest, with cough and roughness of the voice, which lasted three or
+four hours.
+
+Inquiries have failed to elicit that any undue proportion of
+slag-workers have been attacked by pneumonia. As the medical
+profession in Middlesborough had come to suspect pneumonia in
+slag-workers as infectious, with a view to helping in its investigation
+an arrangement was come to with the Health Department of the Town
+Council to have the cases of pneumonia notified. Of these, 36 were
+labourers, and the other 67 embraced nearly the whole catalogue of
+special workers and trades, such as crane men, gantry men, carters,
+trimmers, blacksmiths, joiners, fitters, and moulders, besides
+printers, barmen, publicans, butchers, teachers, and insurance agents.
+
+During the latter half of 1900, Dr Dingle, the Medical Officer of
+Health, received 103 notifications of pneumonia in adult males, which
+he inquired into. After a very careful inquiry, Dr Dingle failed to fix
+any special degree of susceptibility upon any particular occupation.
+Slag dust does not play any prominent part in causing pneumonia.
+
+In the treatment of the immediate effects of the inhalation of slag
+dust, the remedies for ordinary catarrhal conditions of the bronchial
+tubes answer as well as anything; and as its remote effects are in no
+way different from those produced by other dusty occupations, remedies
+which prove useful in those, such as potassium iodide, carbonate of
+ammonia, digitalis, and strychnine, have, in my hands, proved most
+efficacious.
+
+But our efforts must be directed more to the prevention of the initial
+ailments, and to the amelioration of their causes than to their
+treatment by medicines, for it must not be forgotten that the tendency
+is always towards the production of structural changes in the tissues
+of the bronchi and lungs.
+
+There is a standing order in all of the works that the men should wear
+respirators, and these are provided by their employers. But hitherto
+no form of respirator has been suggested which answers the necessary
+requirements of being porous and comfortable, and at the same time
+impervious to dust. The face bag, which was one of the results of Mr
+Gould’s inquiry, ought to be of great service; but it becomes saturated
+with the moisture of the expired air, the result being that during
+inspiration it is drawn up against the mouth and nose, and a sufficient
+quantity of air not being available, the workmen slip it down
+underneath the chin, where, of course, it is useless. No contrivance
+will ever answer the purpose which does not admit of easy access of air
+into the lungs, and of complete expiration without effort. For this
+purpose a light, soft wire mask might be made to fit the face, which
+should stand out from the mouth and nose. It should contain a shutter,
+by which several layers of open webbing could be enclosed, through
+which the breath could be easily drawn; and there should be an opening
+fitted with a valve, which should open easily for outward, but shut for
+inward breathing.
+
+The finished material is placed in packing bags, in the fitting of
+which the openings are tightly fixed round the hopper, and by means
+of a lever the charge is suddenly dropped into the bag, when a cloud
+of dust immediately rises. There is consequently more dust in this
+department than there ought to be, and, moreover, it is the finest dust
+of all, for it comes through bags of very closely-woven texture. If the
+packing material were dipped in size, or rendered impervious in some
+other way, this source of danger would be largely reduced.
+
+There is another improvement which might be suggested, and that
+is, that the men should be provided with a room, outside the mill
+altogether, in which to take their meals. As it is at present, the
+grinding goes on without stoppage for meals, which renders it necessary
+for the men to be on hand the whole time; consequently there is no
+opportunity for open-air breathing time. By a little arrangement the
+men could probably go in batches, and have their dinner in comfort, and
+for a time be free from the atmosphere of the mill.
+
+ JOHN HEDLEY.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXIV
+
+ GANISTER CRUSHING
+
+
+Workers engaged in crushing basic slag, in the breaking of certain
+rocks, in the manufacture of millstones, in stone-mason’s work and
+kindred occupations, are peculiarly liable to chronic inflammation of
+the air-tubes, caused by the inhalation of dust of an irritant kind.
+This, it is believed, leads to lung fibrosis. Where the operatives form
+part of a large community in which individuals are employed in many
+and varied trades, it is conceivable that fibrosis of the lung may
+be mistaken for tubercular pulmonary consumption, and it may not be
+realised that the cause is due to the occupation of the sufferer. The
+late Dr Arlidge, in a public lecture on “The Sanitation of Industries
+and Occupations,” referring to china clay as a silicious material,
+states that the dust is most destructive to lung function and lung
+integrity, as it sets up chronic inflammation of the air-tubes and of
+the lung tissues, itself accompanied by bronchitis and asthma. The
+disease thus established terminates in fibrosis of the lung, “a lesion
+which symptomatically closely resembles pulmonary consumption.”
+
+The risks referred to have in late years more than ever engaged public
+attention. Already great strides have been made in the provision of
+remedies. To medical men practising in districts where these dusty
+trades form the principal occupation, we may look for information of
+a definite and exact nature as to the health of the workers. A highly
+interesting article, entitled “Ganister Disease,” was published in the
+_Journal of the Sanitary Institute_ for April 1900. The writer, Dr
+C. L. Birmingham, lived for several years in the valley of the Don, the
+principal centre of this mining industry.
+
+To the general reader it may be well to explain that ganister or
+calliard is a hard, close-grained, silicious stone which often forms
+the stratum that underlies the coal seam. A footnote in Dr Percy’s
+_Fuel_ says--“Dinas rock is believed to be a millstone grit of
+the carboniferous system, and the geological equivalent of the bed
+termed ‘Ganister’ at Sheffield.” It is found in Yorkshire, Durham,
+North and South Wales, and elsewhere. When crushed and ground into
+dust it is used as a fire-resistant, chiefly for lining Bessemer and
+other steel-converters, for the manufacture of bricks likely to be
+subjected to great and continuous heat, and it is sometimes mixed with,
+or substituted for, Stannington or other clays, which, together with
+ground cinders and old ground pot, are used for the manufacture of
+crucibles in which certain kinds of steel are made.
+
+The persons liable to suffer are the ganister miners and those who
+manipulate the material in mills known as “breaker-mills.” During
+the mining process much dust is generated in the various stages of
+blasting, and little doubt exists that it is to this that we must
+look for a solution of the very high mortality returns. By many it
+is held that the products of combustion from the blasting charges
+are liable, when inhaled, to cause (or to predispose the worker to)
+chest affections. The ganister, in large lumps, is brought from the
+mines to the mills in small trucks running on metals. Where necessary,
+these lumps are broken by hand with heavy sledge-hammers, the process
+being known as “sledging.” Whilst this is being done a certain amount
+of dust arises. The material is next thrown into breaker-mills of
+various patterns, for crushing. The mills are in the open air, or in
+open sheds. As the lumps are thrown into the mouth of the mill where
+the crushing takes place, clouds of dry dust rise in the face of the
+workers, and to this operation is attributable much of the illness.
+Happily, a remedy generally accepted has been found and is being
+adopted. It is simply a jet of steam playing into the mouth of the
+mill, damping the material and preventing the dust from rising. In some
+works, small fine jets of water, such as would run from an ordinary
+water can, are preferred. Time has not yet allowed practical men to
+say with certainty that this is an absolute remedy, but they are very
+hopeful.
+
+The crushed ganister, in pieces about the size of “metal” used for
+road-making, is carried from the breaker-mills by shoots to edge-runner
+mills, to be pulverised into a fine dust. During the whole of this
+process it is thoroughly saturated with water, rendering the escape
+of dust a practical impossibility. In this state it is ready to be
+converted into bricks, or to be taken away in railway trucks, carts,
+or other conveyances, for use elsewhere. It is sometimes found that
+the ganister mortar is too moist, in which case it is “tempered,” that
+is, dry ganister-dust, to the necessary amount, is mixed with it. In
+this process some dust may here arise, but it is hardly in sufficient
+quantity to affect the health of the workers.
+
+The bricks are made in hand presses. It is not a dusty process until
+just before closing the press, when many operatives take a handful of
+ganister dust and throw it over the surface of the brick, to secure a
+clear and clean impress, showing the name of the maker, etc. This is
+a dangerous and unnecessary step; damp sawdust is equally efficacious
+and is now generally used. The floors of ganister brick-drying sheds,
+as in other brick works where the same method of drying is adopted, are
+more or less dusty. Under these floors there are pipes heated by steam
+or hot air, for the purpose of drying the bricks. Each time a dry brick
+is lifted, dry dust is liberated, but seeing that there is little or
+no traffic on these floors (except in passages, which can easily be
+kept clean), the dust rests on the floor, and does not permeate the
+atmosphere. Mechanical fans have been suggested, but practical men
+would find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to find any fan
+that would carry this dust, and such men certainly would be sceptical
+as to the wisdom of creating draughts where the desire is to keep
+the dust on the floor, and not to cause it to fly about. It will be
+realised that although fans may be, and are, used with the greatest
+advantage in certain dusty occupations, it does not follow that they
+will answer in all.
+
+It has been stated, and probably with some degree of accuracy, that
+the “setter’s” work involves exceptional risk. The process consists
+in placing the bricks in the kilns for baking, after they have been
+dried in the sheds. A man standing in an elevated position catches the
+bricks, which are thrown to him by the man at the mouth of the kiln. As
+they are thrown, dust is liberated, and seeing that this work is done
+in a confined space, it is quite conceivable that injurious results to
+health may follow.
+
+In some works ganister is ground dry in what are known as “sieve
+mills.” These are ordinary edge-runner mills, with a sieve at the
+bottom of the pan. The fine ganister passes through the sieve, and is
+taken by elevators to the sifting machine, where what is fine enough
+is carried away to the receptacle for holding it, the coarser material
+being carried by shoots to be again ground in the mill. In many works
+the ganister, although nominally dry, is damped sufficiently to prevent
+any escape of dust, and it has been stated by experienced manufacturers
+that the damping in no way damages the material, nor does it hinder the
+work. This dry ganister crushing is in most cases a subsidiary process,
+the quantities required being small, it only being used for the purpose
+of making a cement, or mortar, for joining silica bricks or other fire
+resistants.
+
+Ganister workers are peculiarly liable to those ailments incidental
+to occupations exposing the operatives to extremes of heat and cold,
+to damp, and to draughts, but the writer believes that he has, in
+general terms, defined the peculiar and exceptional risks incurred in
+this occupation. Having done so, it seems difficult to account for
+the alarming mortality returns published in Dr Birmingham’s article.
+A possible solution may be found in the fact that where ganister
+works are situated there are also large numbers of fireclay works in
+which are made fire-resisting bricks, tuyeres, pipes, gas-retorts,
+etc. To the uninitiated it might appear that ganister and fire-brick
+workers were engaged in one and the same occupation, nor would this be
+unreasonable when the constitution of the two substances is considered.
+Ganister is stated to contain 95 per cent. of silica, whereas,
+according to _Chambers’s Encyclopedia_, from which the following
+extract is taken, it will be seen that fireclay contains from 54.2 to
+65.1 per cent. of silica.
+
+ “Ordinary fireclay is chiefly found in beds not usually
+ much exceeding two feet in thickness, in the coal measures,
+ interstratified with seams of coal and other rocks. In the
+ British Islands it is most largely worked about Glasgow,
+ Newcastle-on-Tyne, and Stourbridge in Worcestershire, at which
+ last place it is said to have been discovered about 1555 by
+ some wandering glass-makers from Lorraine. But it occurs, more
+ or less, in most places where true coal is found. It is mined
+ in Germany, Belgium, France, the United States, and other
+ countries. Stourbridge fireclay, owing to its excellent quality,
+ is largely exported to foreign countries, as well as bricks and
+ other objects made of it. Refractory clays are found, although
+ more rarely, in other formations besides the coal measures.
+ For example, some of Tertiary age found in Dorsetshire and
+ Devonshire are made into firebricks. The following table shows
+ the principal constituents of fireclay:--
+
+ +----------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+
+ | | No. 1. | No. 2. | No. 3. | No. 4. | No. 5. |
+ +----------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+
+ | Silica | 65.10 | 51.10 | 59.49 | 53.52 | 54.20 |
+ | Alumina | 22.22 | 31.35 | 28.95 | 33.68 | 33.80 |
+ | Potash | 0.18 | ... | ... | Trace | Trace |
+ | Lime | 0.14 | 1.46 | Trace | 0.76 | Trace |
+ | Magnesia | 0.18 | 1.54 | ... | 0.14 | 0.02 |
+ | Oxide of iron | 1.92 | 4.63 | 1.05 | 0.52 | 0.01 |
+ | Water | 9.28} | 10.47 | {11.05 | 11.34 | 10.86 |
+ | Organic matter | 0.58} | | { ... | ... | 0.15 |
+ +----------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+
+
+No. 1, Stourbridge; No. 2, Newcastle-on-Tyne; No. 3, Gartsherrie,
+Scotland; No. 4, Poole, Dorsetshire; No. 5, Morgantown, West Virginia,
+United States.”
+
+Ganister is pulverised in the wet state. Fireclay is not moistened, but
+ground into a fine dry powder, certainly suggesting greater risk to the
+workers.
+
+Into other industries, such as the manufacture of steel-melters’
+composition, the crushing of ganister largely enters. This composition
+is used for the manufacture of heavy castings, and contains large
+proportions of old ganister and fireclay crucibles, bricks, mortar,
+etc., which are ground in open edge-runner mills in the dry state,
+fed, and often sifted by hand. The work is generally done in the open
+air or in open sheds, where the dust is blown about, and where it
+is a practical impossibility for the worker to avoid inhalation of
+this irritant. The use of closed mills, closed cylindrical worm-screw
+conveyers, and mechanical sieves, would largely avoid unnecessary risk,
+and these labour-saving appliances (the writer believes) would soon
+more than repay any original cost.
+
+The sickness and mortality amongst ganister workers engaged the
+attention of the poor-law authorities in the district of Deepcar, near
+Sheffield. Statistics were prepared for them, and a very carefully
+considered report dealing fully with the subject was submitted by Dr
+Robertshaw of Stockbridge, Medical Officer of Health for the division.
+
+The attention of Dr Legge, H.M. Medical Inspector of Factories, was
+called to the subject recently, and he obtained from Dr Robertshaw the
+lung of a ganister miner, who had presumably died from pneumoconiosis.
+The following is an extract from the valuable report by Dr F. W.
+Andrews, Pathologist to St Bartholomew’s Hospital, of the anatomical
+changes in this lung induced by the inhalation of ganister dust,
+published in Dr Legge’s Report to the Chief Inspector of Factories for
+the year 1900.
+
+
+ _Report on Portions of Lung from a Ganister Miner._
+
+The upper lobe is densely indurated, black and fibrotic. The pleura is
+thickened, especially at the apex. The lower lobe shows less advanced
+changes; numerous blackish nodules, about the size of a hemp-seed,
+are scattered throughout its substance with tolerable uniformity.
+Under a lens many of these indurated patches are seen to contain a
+minute cavity, as if they had been formed around minute bronchi or
+blood-vessels. The intervening lung tissue is greyish, scarcely at all
+pigmented, and not indurated; it has the appearance of slight uniform
+emphysema. The large and medium-sized bronchi stand out prominently. To
+the naked eye the lung nowhere shows any evidence of tubercle.
+
+
+_Microscopic Examination._--Seven different blocks of lung tissue
+were selected illustrating as far as possible the different degrees of
+fibrotic change present, from an area almost normal up to the densest
+induration. These were sectioned. The method of staining found most
+suitable was that known as Van Giesson’s--viz., staining in hæmalum,
+followed by a counterstain of acid fuchsin with picric acid. In this
+way the distribution of the fibrous tissue was demonstrated with great
+minuteness. Nuclear staining was not very well marked, because the
+tissue had been lying so long in spirit.
+
+All sections show an abundance of foreign mineral particles of a black
+or brownish colour. The majority of these are minute, irregular,
+sometimes angular in form. Seen singly they are semi-transparent
+and brownish, but they are commonly collected into blackish heaps,
+included in cells, and then appear opaque. Careful focussing, however,
+reveals the presence of the angular semi-transparent particles in these
+accumulations. The pigment masses have not the soft and rounded outline
+of the carbon masses seen in the lungs of town dwellers; nevertheless
+very finely divided jet black particles are present, which are probably
+carbon, but they are less abundant than the brownish semi-transparent
+masses. The pigment masses occur chiefly in connection with the
+fibrotic areas.
+
+A few simple chemical tests were applied to microscopic sections,
+and their effect watched under the microscope. Caustic potash (10%)
+produced no change whatever in the pigment. Glacial acetic acid
+likewise caused no change. Fuming nitric acid caused liberation of gas
+bubbles under the coverglass, but the colour and amount of the pigment
+were in no way altered. From this it may be concluded that the colour
+does not depend upon altered blood or any organic product, but that the
+pigment is purely mineral in character--carbonaceous or siliceous. The
+liberation of gas by nitric acid indicates the presence of traces of
+carbonates.
+
+The characters of the fibrotic change and its localisation and
+development could be traced from its earliest commencement. Sections
+of the least affected portions of the lung present the following
+appearances. The pleura is scarcely thickened over much of the lower
+lobe. There is a slight degree of diffuse emphysema; apart from the
+indurated patches there is a very slight increase in the amount of
+fibrous tissue present in the alveolar walls generally, but in some
+places this is barely perceptible. Careful search in the alveolar
+walls reveals the presence of scanty mineral particles scattered in
+the tissue. In places these form larger clumps. Some few detached
+epithelial cells, laden with pigment, are seen here and there in the
+alveoli; but on the whole, except around the fibroid nodules, the
+pulmonary epithelium shows no sign of proliferation or catarrh. There
+is no evidence of general broncho-pneumonia and none of vascular
+congestion.
+
+The development of the fibroid nodules appears to take place in the
+first instance around the small arteries, veins, and bronchi. Where a
+vessel chances to be cut longitudinally, the perivascular thickening
+is seen to be irregular and patchy, whence arises the appearance
+of discrete fibroid nodules. When cut transversely, nearly all the
+blood-vessels display some degree of perivascular fibrosis. This is
+true also of the bronchi; but these have undergone so much loss of
+mucous membrane that it is not always easy to say which are bronchi and
+which blood-vessels. It is not possible to be sure that all the young
+fibroid nodules have this perivascular or peri-bronchial origin. Some
+appear to be independent of vessels or bronchi, but it is possible
+that they are tangential sections of such thickenings. It seems clear,
+however, that most own such an origin. In any case the relation between
+the accumulation of mineral particles and the production of new fibrous
+tissue is obvious and beyond dispute.
+
+Older and denser nodules, such as are visible to the naked eye, as
+the hemp-seed structures above described, illustrate the further
+development of the process. In those the vessel or bronchus around
+which they have presumably arisen has usually disappeared, and they
+present concentric zones which represent different stages in their
+formation, and illustrate the manner in which they increase in size.
+The outermost zone shows the earliest stage: large black pigment-laden
+cells accumulate; they may be in part leucocytes, in part pulmonary
+epithelial cells or fixed connective tissue corpuscles. The pulmonary
+epithelium is here often in a condition of catarrhal proliferation--a
+localised broncho-pneumonia--each cell full of mineral particles.
+The next zone consists of a loose connective tissue, the meshes of
+which contain the large pigment-laden cells previously mentioned. The
+mineral matter is almost entirely intracellular. The central mass is
+composed of a dense fibrous tissue in which the cells have almost
+entirely disappeared, the mineral particles now becoming free and less
+conspicuous because they are no longer aggregated into dense black
+clumps. It is easy to realise from the structure of such nodules how
+they increase in size at the expense of the lung tissue. Beneath the
+pleura a similar development of new pigmented fibrous tissue similarly
+occurs. It is to be observed that all this fibrotic change corresponds
+in its localisation with the distribution of the lymphatic system of
+the lungs. The lymphatics, originating by stomata between the pulmonary
+epithelium, fall into two sets--(1) the sub-pleural network, and (2)
+those which closely accompany the blood-vessels and bronchi, forming a
+perivascular and peri-bronchial network.
+
+The final stages in the process are shown by sections taken from the
+upper lobe of the lung, in which the fibrosis is much more dense and
+complete. Here the individual nodules have so encroached upon the
+lung tissue that they have more or less completely coalesced. In the
+most advanced portions, little or no normal lung tissue can be seen,
+although the focal character of the fibrosis is still perceptible,
+since islands of dense fibrous tissue are connected by areas in which
+the pigmental cells are enclosed in a looser connective tissue. The
+mineral particles are here even more abundant and conspicuous than in
+the lower lobe of the lung. In one single nodule (in the lower lobe)
+calcification was seen, but this stage is absent elsewhere.
+
+Although to the naked eye there is no evidence of tubercle in the
+lung, yet microscopically such evidence exists in at least one of
+the seven blocks. The process of fibrosis has been traced from its
+earliest stages, and is most positively non-tubercular in its origin.
+The evidence of tuberculosis is present, as a recent and accessory
+phenomenon, only in the most advanced stages of the fibrotic change.
+It consists in the presence of small miliary tubercles embedded in the
+fibrous tissue, and showing the characteristic structure of tubercles,
+with typical giant cells. Even in these no tubercle bacilli can be
+demonstrated.
+
+The conclusions to be drawn from the preceding observations are as
+follows:--
+
+The inhaled mineral particles are, in the first place, deposited
+uniformly in the pulmonary parenchyma. They are at once taken up hence
+by the lymphatics and carried along by the lymph stream. The lymphatics
+have a perivascular, peri-bronchial, and sub-pleural distribution, and
+in these situations the mineral matter specially accumulates, because
+the amount is greater than can be got rid of by the lymphatics. It is
+here chiefly found enclosed in cells (phagocytes), and exercises an
+irritant action leading to the production of new fibrous tissue in
+these situations. The fibroid areas increase at the expense of the
+adjacent lung, in part at least by the development of a localised
+broncho-pneumonia, and in part by thickening and induration of the
+alveolar walls. When the fibrous tissue is fully formed the cells
+containing the mineral particles break up and degenerate, and the
+particles again lie free amongst the fibrous tissue. By the spread and
+coalescence of the fibroid areas, the lung tissue in the most advanced
+areas completely disappears. A secondary tubercular infection has now
+taken place, and miliary tubercles appear in scanty numbers in the
+fibroid areas.
+
+_Chemical Analysis._--Portions of the lung were handed to Mr H. A.
+Schölberg, M.B., who furnishes the following analyses.
+
+The material supplied was dried at 100°C. on a water bath for three
+hours. The dry lung tissue thus obtained was used for analysis.
+
+ (1) _Analysis for total Ash._
+ Grammes of dry lung taken 2.2675
+ Loss of weight on combustion in muffle furnace 1.1900
+ Residue of ash 1.0775
+ ∴ Percentage of ash in dried lung = 47.519
+
+ (2) _Estimation of Silica._
+ Grammes of dried lung taken 0.1505
+ Silica in the same 0.0100
+ ∴ Percentage of silica in dried lung = 6.644
+
+ HAMILTON P. SMITH.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXV
+
+ MILLSTONE BUILDING: FRENCH BUHRSTONE
+
+
+In the Final Report of the Dangerous Trades Committee of the Home
+Office,[79] the subject of the building or making of millstones by a
+hard, flint-like stone known in the trade as French buhrstone, and
+which is imported into this country from Epernon in the Valley of the
+Seine, and from Fierté-sous-Jouarre, is fully discussed and the dangers
+exemplified. Buhrstone is one of the hardest stones in nature. It is a
+variety of quartz, and is so hard and destructive to the steel tools
+used by the workmen that in ten minutes a workman will knock off the
+points of as many chisels. The stone has to be shaped into wedges of
+varying size. These wedges are placed together in the form of a circle
+cemented together, and subsequently surrounded by one or more strong
+iron hoops. The millstones are used for grinding flour, cement, feeding
+stuffs, etc. The chiselling of the buhrstone is generally conducted in
+the open air or in a shed open at the sides, the rough stone resting
+meanwhile upon a tub filled with sand, or upon some other solid
+support. Fortunately French millstone building is a small industry,
+for it is one that is most destructive to human life. Millstone masons
+are a short-lived body of men. Their work is hard, most of it is
+done practically in the open, without adequate protection from cold,
+wind, and rain; the wages earned are good, often as much as fifty or
+sixty shillings a week, but as a class the workmen are intemperate
+and careless. No doubt alcoholism and indiscretion play their part in
+shortening the lives of the men. As the stone is very hard, and the
+point of the steel tools with which the men chisel is readily knocked
+off, the workmen are exposed to two dangers: (1) splinters of steel
+and stone striking the eye; and (2) inhalation of the dust given off
+with each stroke of the hammer. Considering the compactness and the
+great weight of the stone, it is astonishing that the dust evolved in
+chiselling ever reaches the lungs at all. In dealing with the question
+of dust generated in any trade, it is to be remembered that while the
+dust that is seen lying about in a factory may seem to be heavy and
+the particles large, yet there is a finer and more impalpable dust
+created at the time the particular work is being done, and it is very
+largely this which is inhaled and inflicts the damage. When a workman
+is chiselling a piece of buhrstone, two different kinds of particles
+are given off, mineral particles from the stone, and metallic from
+the chisels. These mingle together and form the dust that is inhaled.
+That steel particles are present in the dust rising from the stone was
+indicated to my colleagues on the Departmental Committee and myself
+by a workman who, having magnetised the blade of a pocket knife,
+placed the same in his waistcoat pocket, and “after moving it about
+a few moments withdrew it, when it was found to be covered along its
+edge with a fern-like coating consisting entirely of minute particles
+of steel.” It is to the presence of very small fragments of steel
+imbedded in the skin of the arms of the men, who frequently chisel with
+their sleeves rolled up, that is due the bluish-black mottling of the
+forearms of millstone builders.
+
+The men, as already stated, are short-lived. Several whom I examined in
+the stoneyards on the banks of the Thames acknowledged the unhealthy
+character of their employment, and said that they and their comrades
+knew they might be able to follow their calling for only ten or
+fifteen years, seldom more, and that probably before the tenth year
+was reached, symptoms of pulmonary consumption would show themselves,
+attended by cough and blood-spitting. Hæmoptysis is a very common
+symptom, and in this respect, as also in the rapid course of the
+illness, the pulmonary consumption of millstone builders differs from
+the phthisis of potters in which hæmorrhage from the lung is rather
+infrequent. Once destructive changes have been started in the lungs
+of a buhrstone chiseller, the disease progresses quickly to a fatal
+termination. The Dangerous Trades Committee found that men who began
+this occupation when very young seldom lived beyond thirty-six to forty
+years of age.
+
+
+_Prevention._--It is such a dangerous occupation that if the industry
+were swept out of existence altogether it would be no great loss either
+to the commercial world or to civilisation at large. The number of men
+employed in it is small, and as steel rollers have to a large extent
+replaced French millstones in the grinding of food and other stuffs,
+milling can be just as successfully accomplished without as with these
+stones. The trade will probably die a natural death, but so long as
+the industry continues, the men ought to wear respirators. If this
+were done much illness would probably disappear. The men complain of
+the irksomeness of respirators, and of the heat that they cause. The
+laborious nature of their employment creates a need for free, full,
+and easy respiration. The dust that is given off in chiselling the
+stones is very heavy, and is therefore capable of being readily carried
+downwards and away from the workmen by powerful suction, yet the
+conditions under which the work is carried on, viz., in open places and
+unprotected sheds, makes the use of fans difficult, if not impossible.
+The wearing of goggles or eye-guards should be insisted upon.
+
+ THOMAS OLIVER.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXVI
+
+ STEEL GRINDING
+
+
+The process of grinding cutlery and other steel implements is
+conducted by a class of workmen known as “grinders.” Their trade is a
+highly specialised one, necessitating a long apprentice-ship before
+proficiency is attained; and in the majority of instances the calling
+has been handed down through many generations. The trade is quite free
+from the adulteration of casual labour, and consequently statistical
+data respecting “grinders” possess a relatively high value. For the
+most part they earn good wages, and being keen sportsmen, get a fair
+amount of outdoor recreation. Their hours of work are seldom excessive,
+and their homes and mode of living are up to the average standard of
+comfort obtaining in the artisan class of the population.
+
+Grinding is done on circular stones turned either by steam or water
+power. The stones vary in diameter from an inch up to several feet, and
+are of different degrees of hardness according to the work required of
+them. On the stones, articles of cutlery are reduced to their proper
+shape and thickness, and are given their cutting edge, while many
+other steel implements are ground to remove the roughness of their
+surfaces. For the most part “grinders” sit astride the grinding stone
+on a saddle, leaning forward, more or less according to the size of the
+stone. The position is not an ideally healthy one, but the assertion
+that it interferes with the free expansion of the lungs is only to a
+very slight extent true. The attitude, however, renders the workmen
+peculiarly vulnerable to accident when a stone breaks.
+
+Grinders are divided into two classes, known respectively as “dry
+grinders” and “wet grinders.” The former are engaged in grinding steel
+forks, augers, gimlets, needles, and a few other articles; while the
+latter grind the blades of knives, scissors, razors, and most other
+cutting implements.
+
+Certain articles of cutlery are ground partly on a wet and partly on
+a dry stone. Thus the backs of razors and scissors and the bolsters of
+table-knives are ground dry, while the rest of the blade is wet ground.
+
+Dry grinders form a comparatively small class of workmen, but owing to
+the excessive mortality which formerly obtained among them they have
+long attracted the attention of the trade sanitarian. The attrition
+of the steel against the dry grinding stone gives rise to enormous
+quantities of steel and stone dust, which renders the atmosphere of
+the workshop very irritating to the lungs, and produces a pathological
+condition known as grinders’ phthisis.
+
+The following account of the pathology and symptomatology of the
+disease has been very kindly written for this article by Dr Duncan
+Burgess, Senior Physician to the Sheffield Royal Hospital:--
+
+“Grinders’ Phthisis, Grinders’ Asthma, Grinders’ Rot.--This disease
+is due to the inhalation of dust composed for the most part of gritty
+particles from the grinding-stone, but also containing fine particles
+of steel from the implement ground. It has been asserted that steel
+particles are not found in the grinders’ lung, but a very beautiful
+microscopical section of an affected lung, appropriately stained, in
+the possession of Dr Arthur Hall, shows unmistakably traces of iron.
+Steel dust, however, constitutes only a minute fraction of the foreign
+pigment in the diseased lung, and its effects compared with those of
+stone dust may be neglected.
+
+“The frightful mortality among dry grinders before the introduction
+of fans made the lung diseases of this class of workmen so notorious
+that the name ‘grinders’ phthisis’ still signifies outside Sheffield
+the very severe indurated broncho-pneumonia, which past generations of
+fork grinders were subject to. This extreme form of grinders’ phthisis
+is now practically extinct, but a modified form of the disease is
+still very prevalent among Sheffield grinders and cutlers. The whole
+respiratory tract is exposed to the action of the dust, but its effects
+on the larger passages are comparatively unimportant. The disease
+usually manifests itself in the first instance in the form of chronic
+bronchitis with emphysema. Immunity from symptoms may continue for
+decades, then in the winter or during foggy weather cough with some
+expectoration in the morning may be noticed. The cough gradually gets
+worse, and it may last more or less throughout the winter. Shortness
+of breath is now complained of, and the grinder may have to leave off
+work for weeks together from time to time. Finally his cough persists
+through the summer, and his shortness of breath on exertion forces
+him to leave off work altogether, it may be after the age of sixty,
+or even twenty years earlier. If he be examined now his skin and lips
+will be dusky, and his chest fixed as at the end of inspiration. The
+breathing is mainly diaphragmatic, and though the auxiliary muscles
+of respiration stand out in strong contraction, there is very little
+expansion of the chest. In addition to the ordinary physical signs
+of bronchitis there may be areas in which the breath sounds are very
+feeble or absent, and areas in which they are comparatively loud. The
+grinder is especially liable to have tuberculosis grafted on to his
+bronchial lesion, and this may occur quite early, or be deferred until
+late. Wasting, night sweats, and hæmoptysis mark the onset of the rapid
+change for the worse which follows tubercular infection. The dyspnœa
+is naturally greater than in ordinary phthisis, and the emphysematous
+condition of the lung may mask for a time tubercular infiltration. The
+sputum is at first very scanty, and consists of mucus with dark spots
+and patches. Later it is more abundant and becomes muco-purulent, with
+black spots and patches, and occasionally gritty particles. In the
+terminal stage tubercular bacilli are present, together with other
+pathogenic organisms. Grinders suffer inordinately from pleurisy and
+pneumonia.
+
+“The pathological feature of dry grinders’ phthisis is the presence in
+the cut section of the lung of groups of dark, hard nodules about ⅓
+of an inch in diameter. Under the microscope these nodules are found
+to consist of dense fibrous tissue arranged more or less in layers.
+Black amorphous masses may be conspicuous in or near the centre of
+the nodule. The lung tissue in immediate contact with the nodules is
+converted into less dense but more deeply pigmented fibrous tissue.
+This merges into air-cells with thickened and pigmented walls. The
+apices of the lungs are more frequently the seat of nodules than the
+bases. In an extreme degree of grinders’ phthisis the entire upper lobe
+may be replaced by a solid, hard, black mass, which on section presents
+a mottled appearance from the innumerable nodules, thickened bronchi,
+and pigmented airless lung tissue. The pleura is irregularly thickened,
+in places forming a milky or thick yellow layer, which may be adherent
+to the chest wall. A tubercular cavity of considerable extent may be
+found at the apex or elsewhere.”
+
+At one time dry grinding was perhaps the most unhealthy trade in the
+country. The late Dr J. C. Hall of Sheffield, in a paper read before
+the Social Science Congress in 1865, stated that “excluding boys, the
+average age of dry grinders was only twenty-nine years;” and there
+can be little doubt that comparatively few workmen were to be found
+following their employment after the age of forty years. Of late the
+introduction of fans for carrying away the dust has greatly improved
+the conditions under which dry grinders work, and, as I shall presently
+show, this has been followed by a corresponding improvement in health
+and length of years, but the trade is still an unhealthy one.
+
+Wet grinding is much the more important branch of the grinding trade,
+and in Sheffield alone it gives employment to several thousand
+workmen. In revolving, the grinding-stone passes through a thin layer
+of water placed in a trough beneath the stone, and is always wet,
+so that comparatively little dust is produced; but as certain other
+dust-producing processes are usually conducted in the wet grinding
+workrooms, the atmosphere is not quite free from dust. The processes
+referred to are:--
+
+
+(1) _Glazing._--Most articles of cutlery after having been ground
+are “glazed.” This is done on a wooden wheel covered with leather which
+has received a coating of emery and glue. The rim of the wheel is from
+time to time rubbed with a cake composed of emery, suet, and beeswax.
+The “glazer” is used for the purpose of removing marks on the blade
+left by the grinding-stone. Owing to the greasy nature of its surface
+there is not much dust formed.
+
+
+(2) _Polishing_ is employed to give a highly-finished appearance
+to certain blades. The “polisher” is also made of wood, covered with
+leather, but instead of emery a fine powder containing oxide of
+iron, and known as “crocus,” is used. The process gives rise to a
+considerable amount of dust.
+
+
+(3) _Lapping._--The blades of pen-knives and many razors are
+subject to a process called “lapping,” which is done on a lead-rimmed
+wheel called a “lap.” The process is chiefly interesting as being a
+possible source of lead poisoning, but after careful inquiry I have
+failed to find any one showing evidence of plumbism from this source.
+
+
+(4) _Racing the Stone._--The grinding-stones are received from
+the quarries in a rough condition, and the “grinder,” after mounting
+the stone on its axle, reduces its circumference to the proper shape
+and degree of smoothness by applying a steel bar to it while it is
+revolving slowly. This process, which is known as “racing the stone,”
+gives rise to enormous volumes of dry dust, so that the air in the
+immediate neighbourhood of the stone is almost unbreatheable. All
+stones, whether for wet or dry grinding, require to be “raced” in the
+first instance.
+
+But while wet grinders cannot be said to suffer much from the
+irritation of dust, they show an appalling mortality from phthisis and
+other diseases of the lungs, and there is no room for doubt that the
+damp, stagnant atmosphere in which they work is the principal cause of
+these diseases. The grinding-stones are constantly throwing off water,
+which soddens the floor and saturates the air of the grinding-room
+until, owing to the absence of efficient ventilation, it becomes very
+like that of a damp cave.
+
+Another danger to which grinders are exposed is the breaking of the
+grinding-stone when in motion. These accidents are unfortunately
+common, and often cause frightful injuries and death. They are due to
+a variety of causes, such as departure from the circular shape owing
+to one side of the stone wearing faster than the other; flaws in the
+stone; allowing the lower part of the stone to remain immersed in the
+water trough when not in use; fixing the stone on its axle by means
+of wedges instead of using plates and screws for this purpose; and
+permitting the stone to revolve too rapidly.
+
+In the hafting of certain classes of knives an emery wheel is used
+for shaping the knife handles, and it produces dense volumes of dust
+composed of steel particles from the rivets and tangs, also of emery
+from the wheel, and of bone or other material of which the knife
+handles are made. This emery wheel is known as a “cutler’s glazer,”
+and is a comparatively recent invention, having come into general use
+only during the last twenty-five years, previous to which all handles
+were shaped with a file. It is most injurious when used for shaping the
+handles of knives that have scale tangs.
+
+The cutlery manager of one of the largest firms in Sheffield assures
+me that cutlers as a class have become much more unhealthy since the
+introduction of the glazer. This opinion is endorsed by other competent
+observers, and there is no difficulty in accepting the accuracy of it
+if we reflect that the modern scale tang cutler who uses a glazer is
+virtually a “dry grinder.”
+
+Grinding is carried on either in separate buildings, which are known as
+“grinding wheels,” or on premises where other branches of the cutlery
+trade are conducted. In either case the grinding of heavy articles is
+done on the ground floor. The rooms, or “hulls,” as they are called,
+are sometimes sunk below the level of the ground, and are as a rule
+bounded on three sides by blank walls without adequate provision for
+cross ventilation. The windows and doors are in the fourth wall,
+and the former are usually devoid of glass because the mud from the
+grinding-stones would speedily obstruct the light if glass were used.
+The hulls are provided with fires for drying the blades, but the
+fireplaces are situate in front or in one of the lateral walls, and
+consequently their utility as ventilating agents is not great. Each
+hull contains one, two, or more troughs which run from front to back,
+and in them are placed the grinding, glazing, and polishing wheels in
+the order mentioned. The floors are wet and dirty, and the atmosphere
+damp and stagnant, particularly at the back, where it is further
+defiled by the dust given off from the polishing wheels. The cubical
+space per worker would as a rule be ample if the ventilation was good.
+
+Dry grinding and the lighter branches of wet grinding are carried on
+in rooms in the upper stories. Better ventilation exists here, but on
+the other hand the rooms are often overcrowded, and when dry grinding
+is done there is of course much dust. In the majority of dry grinding
+rooms fans for the removal of dust are to be found, but occasionally
+these are absent. One fan is as a rule sufficient for several workmen.
+Attached to it is a number of tubes, each of which ends in an expansion
+or hood in front of the grinding-stone. The tubes are put down by the
+owner of the factory, who likewise occasionally supplies the fans;
+but as a rule the fans and hoods belong to the workmen, who are known
+as “piece workers.” When properly constructed and looked after, the
+fans act admirably for removing dust, and also aid in ventilating the
+workshops; but as several workmen commonly occupy one room and share
+responsibility for its sanitary condition, there is the usual failure
+to carry out efficiently that which is the duty of one in particular.
+For this reason the tubes are apt to become choked from not being
+periodically cleaned out, or a trivial defect which a few minutes would
+suffice to remedy, is allowed to render the fan inoperative for days
+together. Again, a careless grinder by neglecting to use a hood will
+seriously discount the efforts of his more careful shopmates to keep
+down dust. Hence it happens that in many workshops where dry grinding
+is done the dust accumulates in large quantities on the floor, to rise
+in dense clouds each time it is disturbed.
+
+In the manufacture of scale tang cutlery, in which glazers are
+extensively used, the atmosphere under the most favourable
+circumstances is charged with fine dust. This is especially noticeable
+where bone is employed for hafting. Moreover, manufacturers complain
+bitterly that the workmen will sometimes block up ventilators and
+dispense with the use of fans unless strict vigilance is maintained. It
+is almost incredible that any one should pursue so suicidal a policy,
+yet personal observation compels me to admit that these allegations are
+not altogether groundless.
+
+Another grave defect is the indiscriminate mixing of various classes of
+workers. Thus in a shop where a dozen men work, only two or three may
+be engaged in dust-producing processes, yet all are obliged to inhale
+the dust-laden atmosphere.
+
+The buildings in which grinding and hafting are done vary widely in
+their sanitary aspects. Many of these places are as perfect as it is
+possible to make them, having regard to the nature of the work carried
+on therein; but not a few are just the reverse. Dilapidated buildings,
+constructed in the first instance without regard to the requirements
+of health, are sadly too common. In these overcrowding, defective
+ventilation, and a dust-laden atmosphere are the rule rather than the
+exception. Externally the condition of affairs is often no better, the
+factories being shut in by other buildings which exclude sunlight from
+the lower rooms, and interfere with the circulation of the air.
+
+Trade mortality tables have been carefully compiled by successive
+Medical Officers of Health for the city of Sheffield, showing the
+number of deaths, the principal diseases which cause death, and the
+age at which death took place in a number of trades. The figures have
+reference to males over the age of fifteen years, and when contrasted
+with the corresponding figures of the Registrar-General for the entire
+male population of the country they indicate fairly accurately the
+relative unhealthiness or otherwise of the workmen concerned. An
+examination of the returns for grinders shows an appalling death-rate
+from phthisis and other diseases of the respiratory organs. Thus in
+every thousand deaths among grinders phthisis causes 345, and other
+respiratory diseases 295, or collectively these diseases account for
+64 per cent. of the entire mortality, whereas among the entire adult
+male population of the country phthisis accounts for 144, and other
+respiratory diseases for 182, in every thousand deaths, or collectively
+to 32.6 per cent. If we examine the ages at which deaths occur, a
+similar unsatisfactory contrast obtains. Thus 458 grinders in every
+thousand die between the ages of thirty-five and fifty-five years, as
+compared with 261 in every thousand obtaining among the entire male
+population of the country; while only 140 grinders in every thousand
+have attained the age of fifty-five years and upwards at death, as
+compared with 391 in every thousand for the entire adult male community.
+
+The dusty nature of a dry grinder’s occupation prepares us to accept
+these figures as applied to him; but it must not be lost sight of
+that dry grinders form a very small minority of those engaged in the
+grinding industry. Moreover, my investigations lead me to believe that
+dry grinders, although they still show an enormous mortality from
+phthisis and other respiratory diseases, live to a much greater age
+than formerly. Thus I found the average age of twenty-two unselected
+fork grinders to be forty-three years, which is a marked improvement
+compared with the late Dr Hall’s estimate of twenty-nine years. Again,
+during the four years 1889–92 the average age at which fork grinders in
+Sheffield died was forty-five and a half years.
+
+Owing to the conditions already set forth as existing in many grinding
+rooms, wet grinders are frequently compelled to inhale dust-laden air,
+and this no doubt is a factor in producing the high mortality which
+prevails among them. But important as this evil is, it is altogether
+overshadowed by the baneful influence of the damp, stagnant atmosphere
+of the wet grinding “hulls,” an atmosphere which is peculiarly
+favourable for the propagation of diseases of the lungs.
+
+The legislature of this country has done much to improve the conditions
+under which workmen pursue their various callings, but local
+peculiarities and unforeseen contingencies sometimes frustrate the
+beneficent intentions of our legislators, and this is markedly the case
+in respect of the grinding industry. With few exceptions grinders are
+“piece workers,” and pay rent for their “stalls” and the motive power
+which drives their stones. The grinding wheels and cutlery works are
+frequently owned by individuals or companies who are not themselves
+manufacturers, but are merely the landlords of the premises, letting
+off rooms or portions of rooms to workmen who, in the eyes of the law,
+are the occupiers, and therefore responsible for carrying out the
+requirements of the Factory Acts. It follows that the owners of the
+premises are able to repudiate responsibility for sanitary control and
+that the Factory Inspector, when he wishes to insist on fans or other
+needful appliances being provided, must proceed legally against the
+workmen. The outcome of all this is that it is difficult or impossible
+to apportion responsibility for sanitary requirements; the Inspector’s
+work is enormously increased, and often rendered excessively irksome;
+while the amount of good he can do is proportionally lessened. There
+is but one remedy for this state of things. Sooner or later the
+legislature will have to fix on the individual, or company, who lets
+off rooms and power to workmen, the responsibility for carrying out the
+provisions of the Factory Acts. We shall be told that an enactment of
+this kind would disturb long-established trade usages, and be unfair to
+the manufacturers; but apart from the fact that it is the only feasible
+way out of the difficulty, it would merely place cutlery manufacturers
+on the same footing as that occupied by most other employers of labour
+in the country. Moreover, some of the best cutlery firms already
+recognise their moral responsibility in this respect, and provide
+for the use of their workmen fans and all other contrivances of a
+health-saving nature.
+
+The sanitary condition of the workshops in which grinders, particularly
+wet grinders, work admits of much improvement. These rooms should
+always be above the level of the ground, and so situated in regard to
+surrounding buildings as to allow of free entrance of fresh air and
+sunlight. The floors should have a fall to the front, and be composed
+of concrete or some similar impervious material. Better ventilation is
+urgently required, especially towards the back of the rooms, and the
+fireplaces might with advantage be placed at the back. The polishing
+wheels should be provided with hoods connected with a fan for the
+removal of dust and the better ventilation of the room.
+
+Grinding-stones should not be mounted until they have been inspected by
+some competent person with the view to detecting flaws, and it should
+be obligatory to use plates and bolts instead of wedges for fastening
+the stones on their axles.
+
+Dry grinding should be done in rooms specially set apart for this
+purpose, and not, as is sometimes the case, in rooms where other
+processes are carried on. The “racing” of stones should be conducted
+at a time when there are few workmen present, and those engaged in the
+process should wear some form of respirator.
+
+ SINCLAIR WHITE.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXVII
+
+ PHOSPHORUS AND LUCIFER MATCHES
+
+
+However useful phosphorus has been to man, its manipulation has been
+a constant source of danger. As there are two forms of phosphorus,
+so there are two kinds of matches: the _safety_, which-only
+ignite on the box, and the ordinary _strike-anywhere_. Safety
+matches are made from red or amorphous phosphorus, and the ordinary
+matches from white or yellow. Oldbury, near Birmingham, is the seat
+of the manufacture of yellow phosphorus. Although white phosphorus is
+a dangerous substance, there have been very few cases of ill-health
+among the men who make it, owing very largely to the fact that in its
+production from bone, very few people are employed, and the processes
+of manufacture are such that the workmen are not brought directly into
+contact with the dangerous substance. Sixty tons of the phosphorus
+annually manufactured in Oldbury are consumed in lucifer match works in
+Britain.
+
+The death of a lucifer matchmaker in London five years ago, and the
+announcement in the daily press of the contemporaneous occurrence of
+a large number of cases of ill-health in a Metropolitan match works,
+aroused an amount of feeling, and created such an adverse public
+opinion in regard to this industry in England, that the Home Secretary,
+Sir Matthew White Ridley, appointed a Commission, composed of Professor
+T. E. Thorpe, Dr George Cunningham, and myself, to undertake an
+inquiry into certain important questions which had arisen with regard
+to the effect of work in lucifer match factories on the health of the
+workpeople.
+
+The questions which at the time engaged the attention of the Home
+Office were:--
+
+(1) The nature and extent of the dangers attending the use of yellow
+and white phosphorus.
+
+(2) The means whereby these can be lessened.
+
+(3) The practicability of discontinuing the use of yellow and white
+phosphorus.
+
+Many match works, both at home and abroad, were visited by the members
+of the Commission, whose views and opinions upon these questions are
+embodied in a Report[80] that describes the methods of manufacture, and
+the legislative measures adopted in most of the countries in Europe to
+abolish or diminish the ill-effects of the industry upon the health of
+the workpeople.
+
+The principal malady of the lucifer matchmaker is a localised
+inflammatory affection of the jawbone, followed by suppuration
+and death of the bone, constituting what is known as phosphorus
+necrosis--“phossy jaw,” as it is sometimes called in this country, and
+_mal chimique_ in France. Other diseased conditions are also met
+with, but these and the subject of phosphorus necrosis generally will
+be dealt with further on.
+
+Commercial phosphorus is made from bone-ash by treating it with
+sulphuric acid, filtering and evaporating the product, heating this
+with charcoal, and afterwards distilling it. The substance known as
+white or yellow phosphorus was discovered as far back as 1669, by
+Brandt of Hamburg, and is, when pure, colourless and transparent, but
+when exposed to the light it becomes yellowish. During absorption
+of oxygen from the atmosphere it becomes phosphorescent. The
+greenish-white light thus evolved can at once be checked by such
+essential oils as turpentine and eucalyptus. The glow of phosphorus is
+an indication that oxidation is taking place, and that both phosphorous
+and phosphoric oxides are being formed, ozone being probably present at
+the same time. White phosphorus is extremely inflammable: it ignites
+at a temperature of 34° C., and forms with a plentiful supply of air
+phosphoric oxide P_{4}O_{10}, but if the supply of air is limited,
+phosphorous oxide is formed P_{4}O_{6}. It is with a paste made from
+white phosphorus that the ordinary strike-anywhere matches are headed.
+
+Red or amorphous phosphorus, from which safety matches are made, has
+been known only since 1845. It was discovered by Schröter of Vienna,
+and is obtained by exposing ordinary phosphorus for some time in a
+closed vessel to a temperature of about 250° C. Red or amorphous
+phosphorus differs from yellow both physically and in other respects.
+It can be handled, for example, with impunity, and does not take fire
+when rubbed on any rough surface. It is non-volatile, and since it
+is not acted upon by the digestive juices of the alimentary canal it
+is non-poisonous. As much as an ounce of amorphous phosphorus has
+been given to animals without any bad effects, while one to three
+grains of the ordinary metalloid have caused death. In order to ignite
+red phosphorus, it has to be rubbed upon a surface that contains
+substances rich in oxygen. The heads of safety matches are composed
+of potassium chlorate and chromate, and other compounds that contain
+large quantities of oxygen, while the red phosphorus is present in the
+brownish-red layer that has been pasted on the side of the matchbox. It
+is significant of the habits of our countrymen that while sixty tons
+of white phosphorus are converted into the ordinary strike-anywhere
+matches every year in Britain, only three and a half tons of red
+phosphorus are required to satisfy the public demand for safety-matches.
+
+White phosphorus is volatile at ordinary temperatures, and its vapour
+when pure is said by Schonbein to be odourless; the odour that is
+perceived is a mixture of ozone and phosphorous oxide. On analysing
+the fumes given off by phosphorus eight-tenths are found to consist of
+oxides of phosphorus.
+
+Professor Thorpe found that when decayed human teeth were exposed to
+the fumes of phosphorus for twelve hours they lost 0.37 per cent. of
+their weight, and that carious teeth when crushed and exposed to a
+dilute solution of phosphoric acid (1 per cent.) lost 8.9 per cent.
+of their original weight. When, therefore, the fume of phosphorus
+co-operates with the saliva of the mouth, it must clearly exercise
+a solvent action upon the teeth. In the air of the dipping room of
+a match factory, Thorpe found O.02 milligrammes of phosphorus per
+100 litres of air, while the same quantity of air of the boxing-room
+contained O.12 milligrammes of phosphorus. On analysing the water
+in which twenty-two of the workpeople had washed their hands, after
+working a certain number of hours in the factory, 37.3 milligrammes
+of phosphorus were found, or an equivalent of 4.2 milligrammes of
+phosphorus per person for each ten hours’ work.
+
+The lucifer match industry of Great Britain and Ireland gave employment
+during 1898 to 4270 persons, of whom 1166 were males and 3104 females;
+about 1700 of these were working in phosphorus processes. Of persons
+under eighteen years of age there were 466 males and 1077 females.
+The match works were distributed as follows: in England and Wales 17,
+Scotland 2, and in Ireland 5, making a total of 24. Dr Whitelegge sends
+me the following information regarding the number of lucifer match
+works in January 1901--
+
+ Number in which yellow phosphorus is being used 15
+ Number in which the use of yellow phosphorus has
+ been discontinued 3
+ Number not yet working 1
+ Number closed during past twelve months (one temporarily) 5
+ --
+ Total 24
+
+The Chief Inspector of Factories, in his Annual Report for 1899, p.
+318, states that the total cases of industrial phosphorus poisoning in
+this country within the last twenty years, of which there is a definite
+record, number 102. Before 1898 there were 92 cases of phosphorus
+necrosis, 6 in 1896, and 4 in 1899. Three other cases were reported
+in 1899, and are included in the return, but they did not reach the
+stage of necrosis. It has been urged with reason that such doubtful
+cases, when notified, should be placed on a “suspended” list, and
+judgment deferred until the diagnosis is quite clear. Of the 102 cases
+19 terminated fatally. Dr Whitelegge informs me that three cases of
+phosphorus poisoning were reported during 1900; this brings the total
+number up to 105 in twenty-one years.
+
+The ordinary lucifer match is dipped in a paste composed of glue,
+phosphorus, chlorate of potass, powdered glass, sometimes magnesia
+or lime, and coloured by a magenta dye. On an average there is 5 per
+cent. of phosphorus present in the paste, but sometimes it is double
+this amount. The paste or composition, when about to be used, is spread
+upon an iron slab kept at a moderate temperature. Into this paste the
+dipper, always a male in this country, quickly plunges the tips of
+prepared wooden splints that are projecting at a uniform level from a
+frame, and at once hands them over to a fellow-workman, who removes
+them to the drying chambers, which are ventilated by means of fans to
+renew the air, and to hasten the drying of the matches. At the distal
+end of the slab upon which the dipper heads the lucifers, there is, or
+ought to be, a fan towards which, when in operation, the fumes of the
+phosphorus as they rise from the paste can be seen travelling away from
+the face of the worker. Since the introduction of fans on the far side
+of the slab, the occupation of dipping in match works has become much
+less dangerous.
+
+The boxing of matches, when done by hand, is attended by considerable
+risk to health, especially if the workroom is badly ventilated. In
+addition to the phosphorus fumes which pervade the boxing-room, the
+atmosphere is from time to time rendered more unhealthy by dense clouds
+of smoke given off by the matches that are frequently catching fire.
+
+It was Lorinser of Vienna who first drew the attention of the medical
+profession to phosphorus necrosis, or disease of the jawbone, in
+lucifer matchmakers. This was in 1845, or about eleven years after
+the establishment of the match industry in Austria. Between the years
+1839–1845 he had examined nine cases of phosphorus necrosis. Shortly
+after Lorinser had published his cases, Sir Samuel Wilks in our
+own country reported the occurrence of disease of the jawbone in a
+matchmaker, attended by suppuration, and followed by exfoliation of
+the bone. Since then in every country where ordinary lucifer matches
+have been made, the use of phosphorus has been followed by such an
+amount of ill-health and suffering on the part of matchmakers, that
+almost all the preventive measures which industrial science and
+legislation could suggest, short of total prohibition, have had a
+trial without rendering the industry completely safe. More than twenty
+years ago Denmark interdicted the use of white phosphorus, and the
+importation of ordinary strike-anywhere matches. France, several years
+after having made the manufacture of matches a Government monopoly,
+and having been obliged to pay large sums of money as compensation
+to the diseased matchmakers of Pantin-Aubervilliers, has commenced
+to manufacture matches from a harmless sesquisulphide of phosphorus;
+matches which, while possessing all the freedom from poison claimed
+for _safeties_, have the property of striking anywhere. Belgium
+has not only insisted upon the reduction of phosphorus in the paste
+to 8 per cent., but with the view of stimulating the manufacture of a
+satisfactory non-poisonous strike-anywhere match, has offered a prize
+of 50,000 francs (£2000). Holland[81] insists upon 5 per cent. of
+phosphorus in the paste, and allows no young person under sixteen years
+of age, and no woman to work in a match factory where yellow phosphorus
+is used. In Norway 28 cases of phosphorus necrosis occurred in fourteen
+years out of a total number of 600 workers. The match industry
+of Sweden gives employment to about one-twentieth of the artizan
+population. In the twenty-seven match factories of that country, 5500
+persons find employment, males and females about equally. Although
+a large proportion of Swedish matches are safeties, yet as a matter
+of fact 80 per cent. of the matches produced are made from ordinary
+phosphorus. There is a large home consumption of strike-anywhere
+matches in Sweden. As a consequence of their manufacture, phosphorus
+necrosis is not unknown in that country, and on more than one occasion
+the question of the total prohibition of ordinary phosphorus has been
+discussed in the Rigsdag. Were such a thing to become law the match
+industry of Sweden, in the absence of an international agreement, would
+be seriously crippled. During the year 1891 there were 19 cases of
+phosphorus necrosis reported from thirteen factories. The Commission
+appointed by the Swedish Parliament to consider the prohibition of
+ordinary phosphorus did not feel justified in recommending such a
+sweeping change, believing that in better ventilation of the workrooms,
+repeated medical examination of the workers, and scrupulous attention
+to details in the various processes, the manufacture of matches could
+be robbed of much that had hitherto caused it to be regarded as a
+dangerous industry. Of the ninety match factories in Germany about
+thirty make ordinary lucifers. Several cases of phosphorus necrosis
+have occurred, but since the introduction of stringent regulations
+in 1884, requiring special ventilation, medical examination of the
+workers, personal cleanliness and separation of the workrooms,
+the amount of sickness has, within the last few years, materially
+diminished. In Austria-Hungary there are upwards of ninety match
+works. It is an important industry in Bohemia, Galicia, and Hungary.
+The matches chiefly find their way into Servia, Bulgaria, Roumania,
+and Turkey. In eighteen years 140 cases of phosphorus necrosis were
+reported to the Factory Inspectors; as many as 47 cases of phosphorus
+necrosis having occurred in the year 1888. This unhappy circumstance
+is to be explained by the fact that the manufacture of lucifers at
+this time was extensively but secretly carried on as a home industry.
+Experience has shown that this clandestine practice is always extremely
+dangerous. Fortunately the authorities have practically succeeded in
+abolishing this home industry. The regulations in Austria-Hungary
+resemble those of Germany. Switzerland in 1879 introduced a Bill
+for the prohibition of the use of yellow phosphorus, and two years
+afterwards it became law. Instead of abolishing phosphorus necrosis,
+however, the disease became not only more prevalent, but of a severer
+type, owing to the manufacture of matches as a home industry. As the
+interference of the Government defeated the object it had in view,
+viz., safe-guarding the health of the workers, the Act of 1879 was in a
+sense repealed. Whilst in Switzerland the importation and manufacture
+of matches made with yellow phosphorus is forbidden, the manufacture
+of lucifers is under the control of each canton, the Federal Council
+holding itself responsible for the conditions that are requisite for
+the health and safety of the workers, and also of the public.
+
+
+_Phosphorus Necrosis._--It is difficult to say what is the actual
+cause of necrosis of the jawbone in lucifer matchmakers. As to whether
+it is a primary lesion or one secondary to a general or constitutional
+form of poisoning, medical opinion is still divided. Most writers
+attribute the disease of the bone to the fumes of phosphorus,
+_i.e._ to the oxides of phosphorus, acting upon the decayed teeth
+of the workpeople. The fumes are supposed to penetrate a carious tooth
+and induce a periostitis or inflammation of the covering of the bone.
+The gum becomes swollen and painful. To such an extent has this been
+regarded as the explanation of the cause of necrosis that two of the
+large match works in this country had at their own expense appointed
+dentists to examine and keep in good order the teeth of the workpeople.
+Subsequently the Home Office, as a result of the opinions expressed
+at an Arbitration with the Match Manufacturers, decided to accept
+periodical examination of the teeth of the workpeople by a qualified
+dentist as a substitute for medical inspection. While regarding decayed
+teeth as a necessary preliminary to inflammation of the dental socket,
+Roussel holds that it is phosphoric acid that is the destructive
+agent. Gubler and Lailler,[82] on the other hand, maintain that they
+have met with phosphorus necrosis in the inferior jaw of a matchmaker
+whose teeth were perfectly sound, and that if phosphoric acid were the
+destructive agent the teeth ought to become softened and translucent.
+Gubler holds, but on what grounds we do not know, that it is phosphorus
+itself that penetrates into the soft tissues and destroys the nutrition
+of the covering of the bone. Under all circumstances “phossy jaw” is
+a painful affection, especially in the early stages, and although
+naturally it might be expected to occur with greater readiness in
+workpeople who are ill-nourished, scrofulous, or tubercular, yet I have
+seen it in male and female matchmakers who were physically strong and
+otherwise perfectly healthy. This circumstance, therefore, is rather
+in favour of phosphorus necrosis being in the first instance a local
+affection and primary. Once suppuration occurs, the painful tooth
+removed, and the pus thereby allowed to escape, pain is subsequently
+not a marked feature in the case. As the periosteum is usually
+separated, the affected portion of bone lying underneath dies and is
+exfoliated. A piece of bone varying from half-an-inch to three inches
+is thus thrown off. The process of separation of the bone by ulceration
+is extremely slow. It may extend over months or years if the bone is
+not surgically treated, and all this time there is a constant oozing
+of pus into the mouth of the patient, some of which must be swallowed
+along with the food, thereby undermining the health and causing anæmia
+or cachexia, or during sleep it may trickle down the throat into the
+respiratory passages and set up an unhealthy inflammation of the lining
+membrane, or it indirectly prepares the way for tubercular disease of
+the lungs. Either jaw may become necrosed. If anything, the inferior
+maxilla is more frequently affected than the superior. When the upper
+jaw is diseased there is a tendency for the inflammation to extend
+to the base of the skull and to induce a septic inflammation of the
+membranes of the brain, which is invariably fatal. In France both Dr
+Magitot of Paris and Dr Arnaud of Marseilles described a constitutional
+condition or cachexia in matchmakers to which they gave the name of
+_phosphorisme_, of which pallor, dyspepsia, albuminuria, and
+a tendency to bronchitis are the prominent features. Arnaud, with
+whom I had the opportunity of discussing this subject in Marseilles,
+found that as many as 28 per cent. of lucifer matchmakers, especially
+young women under eighteen years of age, suffered from bronchitis,
+but he did not think that matchmaking _per se_ was a cause of
+tubercular lung disease, nor was it his experience that pregnant
+female matchmakers aborted more frequently than their sisters engaged
+in other occupations. Phosphorisme does not occur to any extent in
+English matchmakers. In visiting the match factories of Belgium,
+particularly of Grammont, where I met Dr Brocoorens, who from his large
+experience of industrial phosphorus poisoning had been invited to give
+evidence before the French Commission, my attention was drawn to the
+interesting fact that men who had been dippers and who had suffered
+from necrosis of the jawbone and recovered, exhibited an unnatural
+tendency to spontaneous fracture of their long bones, especially the
+femur. During twenty-five years in Grammont alone, which is not a
+large town, with six match factories giving employment to 1100 people,
+Dr Brocoorens treated 30 cases of fracture of the long bones, caused by
+muscular effort, in dippers who had previously suffered from necrosis
+of the jaw. This circumstance would rather suggest that in addition
+to the local disease of the maxillæ caused by phosphorus, there was
+also induced a wider spread morbid state, which was capable of showing
+itself long after recovery from the primary lesion. Spontaneous
+fracture of the long bones of matchmakers is not unknown in England. Dr
+Garman of Bow, medical officer to Messrs Bryant & May, informs me that
+he knows of nine cases in which the long bones of the arm and leg of
+matchmakers have become broken without any injury being received, and
+Dr Dearden of Manchester relates[83] the case of two dippers, “each of
+whom has had separately and at different times both thigh bones broken
+in a ridiculously simple fashion.” Dr Kocher of Berne had experience
+of a matchmaker who broke his thigh bone five times. These facts
+indicate that the osseous tissues of the body are in some way or other
+influenced either by phosphorus itself or its compounds, whereby they
+become unable to withstand external violence. Dearden is of opinion
+that the bones of match dippers contain an excess of phosphoric acid,
+which combines with the pre-existing neutral phosphate of lime to form
+a slightly acid salt. In this circumstance may possibly be found an
+explanation of the _fragilitas ossium_ of lucifer matchmakers.
+
+A brief notice of some experiments performed by Wegner may not
+be out of place here. He believes that phosphorus has a specific
+action upon bones, especially those of young animals. Wegner found
+that the administration of very minute doses of yellow phosphorus,
+¹⁄₁₀ to ⅕ mgrm., for several weeks to young rabbits was followed by
+characteristic changes in the growth of the long bones, owing to the
+phosphorus acting as an irritant or stimulant to the bone-forming
+cells. Where loose cancellous bone was being formed from cartilage,
+phosphorus caused the deposition of a layer of dense bone, and if
+the drug was pushed a little longer, the soft, cancellous bone,
+formed before the phosphorus treatment was begun, became gradually
+absorbed. In this way the central or medullary cavity of the bone
+became enlarged, so that in the case of the long bones this cavity
+extended into the epiphyses or ends of the shafts. In other instances
+the newly-formed bone which had developed under the influence of the
+phosphorus, and also that which grows normally from the periosteum,
+became denser, so that in fowls Wegner found the medullary cavity
+obliterated by the deposition of hard bone. When lime salts were
+withheld from the food of the animals treated by phosphorus, the
+activity of the bone-forming cells continued, but no lime was
+deposited, and so there was produced a condition of bone such as is
+found in rickets. Kassowitz by similar means produced appearances
+closely resembling the soft and yielding bones that are met with in
+rickety children. Wegner, by exposing the bared tibia of an animal to
+the influence of phosphorus fumes, induced periosteal irritation and
+the deposit of new layers of bone.
+
+Although it takes a long time for the sequestrum of a diseased jawbone
+to be thrown off in a person the subject of phosphorus necrosis, yet
+once it is expelled and the wound closed, the patient generally feels
+well enough to return to work in a match factory, and is placed in a
+department wherein he runs no further risk. Despite the tediousness
+and the unpleasantness of the malady, most of the patients recover. Dr
+Garman of Bow, treating his cases by the expectant method and allowing
+the sequestrum to be naturally separated, found that 83 per cent. of
+his cases recovered; Kocher of Berne prefers to remove by means of a
+surgical operation the affected portion of bone, and 83.7 per cent. of
+his cases recovered; while Kuiper of Jena, treating his patients on
+similar lines to Kocher, had 89 per cent. of recoveries.
+
+This account of the diseases of bones of matchmakers allows us now
+to return to the original question, viz., the cause of phosphorus
+necrosis. Fume is generally regarded as the cause, but it is probably
+only an incident. In the pus that keeps oozing away from the necrosing
+jaw of an affected matchmaker, I have found numerous pus-forming
+micro-organisms, viz., putrefactive bacilli, streptococci and
+staphylococci pyogenes, and as Professor Stockman of Glasgow detected
+in addition in the pus a few tubercle bacilli, he is disposed to
+regard the “phossy jaw” of lucifer matchmakers as a true tubercular
+process. In several of the specimens of pus taken from the diseased
+jawbone of matchmakers sent to me by Dr Garman of Bow, I could find
+no trace of tubercle bacilli, although these were carefully searched
+for. The presence of the bacilli of tubercle in Professor Stockman’s
+specimens, which by the way I have had the privilege of examining
+and confirming, is an extremely interesting fact, and it certainly
+creates a bias in favour of the lesion being tubercular. On the other
+hand, the human mouth under all circumstances contains large numbers
+of micro-organisms, some of which are capable of becoming extremely
+virulent under altered conditions, and there is no reason why some of
+these might not find their way through a carious tooth to its socket in
+the jawbone or to the periosteum, where phosphorus fumes had previously
+gained entrance and set up irritation. In these tissues thus prepared
+microbes would find a suitable nidus for their multiplication. As the
+same remark applies to tubercle bacilli, it is clear that the final
+answer has not yet been given to the pathological problem of phosphorus
+necrosis. There is something in the causation of phosphorus necrosis
+that is still unknown to us, some peculiar action of phosphorus on the
+human subject that is not yet fully explained.[84] It is an extremely
+difficult thing to produce phosphorus necrosis in animals, either by
+exposing them to the fumes of phosphorus itself, or to clouds of smoke
+from burning matches.
+
+In many instances where “phossy jaw” has occurred, the workpeople were
+at the time following their occupation, and had done so for many years.
+Acute phosphorus poisoning, practically speaking, does not occur in
+matchmakers. The poisoning is always chronic. Phosphorus necrosis was
+not recognised in Vienna until the industry had been established seven
+or eight years. The malady might have existed, and of course not been
+diagnosed. Most of the patients with “phossy jaw” whom I have seen
+had worked from seven to fifteen years at the trade, but the disease
+has been known to occur within twelve months after entering a match
+factory. Dr Garman has kept a register of all the cases of phosphorus
+necrosis that have occurred in Messrs Bryant & May’s for the last
+twenty years. During this period there have occurred 51 cases--31
+females and 20 males. The upper jaw was affected fifteen times, and the
+lower sixteen, in the women: while in the men the numbers were eleven
+and nine. The severer type of the malady formed 70 per cent. of the
+cases in females, while in males, who as dippers are more exposed to
+the fresh fumes of phosphorus, it formed 85 per cent. Of these 51 cases
+of phosphorus necrosis nine ended fatally; 83 per cent. recovered and
+returned to work. On examining the register as to the ages at death, I
+find that these were nineteen, twenty-three, twenty-one, twenty-two,
+twenty-seven, twenty-seven, nineteen, twenty-two, and twenty-two years.
+Clearly, therefore, it is not necessary to have a very lengthened
+exposure to the fumes in order that a fatal result may follow.
+Co-existing pulmonary consumption was present in two of the patients,
+and doubtless contributed to the fatal ending. In Great Britain less
+than 1 per cent. of matchmakers suffer from phosphorus necrosis: in
+Switzerland it used to be 1.6 to 3, and in France formerly 2 to 3 per
+cent. Phosphorus necrosis, it is well to remember, does not always
+develop during the time an individual is following his employment in
+a match work; it has been known to occur two years after leaving the
+factory. The early age at which Garman’s patients died suggests that
+the vital resistance to the malady at this period is less than in later
+years.
+
+
+_Prevention of Phosphorus Necrosis._--Since the manufacture of
+lucifer matches is capable of inducing in the workpeople necrosis
+of the jawbone, which in the early stages is admittedly a painful
+affection, but fortunately one not often followed by any marked
+deformity, it is apparent that to the public must be given by the
+manufacturers some satisfactory assurance, if the use of yellow
+phosphorus is to be continued, that the industry which at present is
+harmful shall be converted into one that is free from danger. Is this
+event possible? Experience of match works, both at home and abroad,
+shows that where the industry is conducted on the best hygienic lines
+possible, phosphorus necrosis is practically unknown. This, so far
+as it goes, is satisfactory. It cannot be said, however, that the
+employment of white or yellow phosphorus can under all circumstances
+be rendered absolutely free from danger. The education of the working
+classes to use only safety matches would of itself very largely
+diminish the danger by reducing the demand for ordinary strike-anywhere
+matches. Dipping of the wooden splints in cold composition instead
+of hot would, as in the case of vestas, in the manufacture of which
+“phossy jaw” does not occur, also tend to diminish the ill-health of
+the workers. It has been demonstrated that certain essential oils
+are capable of checking the oxidation of phosphorus, which is one of
+the possible causes of phosphorus necrosis. It has, therefore, been
+recommended to circulate the vapour of turpentine through the dipping
+and boxing rooms. In some American factories the workpeople wear
+suspended round their necks small vessels containing turpentine. Of
+all hygienic measures full and free ventilation is the best. Years ago
+the scourge of matchmakers in Belgium was “phossy jaw,” but shortly
+after the introduction of hygienic measures and the reduction of
+phosphorus to 8 per cent. in the paste, there was observed a very
+notable declension in the number of cases of necrosis, and in our own
+country the removal of phosphorus fume by powerful aspiration from
+the dipping slab, frequent renewal of the air of the drying chamber,
+and ventilation of each of the benches at which the boxing is done by
+women by hand, have exercised an undoubted influence in preventing
+phosphorus necrosis. Periodical examination of the teeth of matchmakers
+by a dentist, with the necessary local treatment, including temporary
+suspension from work on the detection of disease in the early stages,
+will be beneficial. It is one of the requirements of the Home Office
+that this dental examination shall be periodically made. Whether of
+itself it is sufficient to permanently obviate the necessity for a
+medical examination of the workers by a doctor in addition remains
+yet to be seen. Since the frequent firing of matches is a cause of
+pollution of the atmosphere of the boxing-room, and filling of the
+matchboxes by hand brings the worker into direct contact with dried
+phosphorus paste, it is advisable to discontinue the practice of
+cutting wooden matches once they have been headed, and to substitute
+machinery for all hand labour, which, as in the case of the Diamond
+Match Company, Liverpool, dips, dries, and boxes the matches in large
+and well-ventilated rooms, and has thereby practically made lucifer
+matchmaking a harmless industry. It is absolutely necessary that
+personal cleanliness should be attended to, and that there should be
+adequate provision of washing appliances with hot and cold water,
+plenty of soap and towels, that overalls should be worn, frequent
+change of occupation from one department in the factory to another, and
+that no food should be allowed into the workroom.
+
+Can any substitute be found for yellow phosphorus, capable of producing
+a non-poisonous match that will strike anywhere, and yet conform to the
+same conditions as ordinary phosphorus? France has, within the last
+three years, ceased to manufacture matches from yellow phosphorus. In
+that country the manufacture of matches is a State monopoly. A short
+while ago the Government felt itself obliged to change the method of
+manufacture, partly on humanitarian grounds, but very largely owing
+to the numberless claims for compensation by the workpeople upon the
+Minister of Finance. In the match works at Pantin-Aubervilliers, there
+were, in 1894, 32 cases of phosphorus poisoning, 125 in 1895, and in
+1896 the number rose to 223, or one-third the effective force of the
+factory. Many of these must have been of a mild nature, and probably
+some of them were cases of imposition, for when analysed carefully
+it would appear that between 1888 and 1896 there were eight cases of
+deforming necrosis, 12 of necrosis requiring surgical treatment, 21
+probable cases of phosphorus necrosis, and 18 of phosphorisme, making
+a total of 59. At this time the match paste, in addition to lead,
+contained often as much as from 20 to 30 per cent. of phosphorus.
+From the 1st January to 31st December 1896, the State paid 400,000
+francs as allowances to sick-workers, men and women, employed at
+Pantin-Aubervilliers, or an average of 650 francs per head employed.
+It was in consequence of this experience that in order to encourage
+research, which would lead to the manufacture of a non-poisonous
+match, the State granted financial help. After many experiments--such,
+_e.g._, as the matches of M. Ponteau, made from acetate of amyl,
+during the manufacture of which a splitting headache, a feeling of
+cerebral fulness, and a throbbing of the head were complained of by the
+workers, a circumstance that led to their manufacture being abandoned;
+also the lucifers of M. Miram, which met with a similar fate, since
+they contained lead, and therefore one poison was simply being
+substituted for another,--the French Government at present believes
+that in the substance known as sesquisulphide of phosphorus it has
+found an answer to the question raised at the head of this paragraph.
+
+The toxicity of the sesquisulphide of phosphorus is small. Messrs
+Sevène and Cahen gave repeated doses of 3 centigrammes (⅖ grain) of
+the substance daily to guinea-pigs without these animals appearing
+to suffer, although the ingestion of 3 milligrammes (¹⁄₂₅ grain) of
+white phosphorus caused rapid death. The dose of 3 centigrammes (⅖
+grain) to a guinea-pig would correspond to 3.5 grammes (54 grains)
+for a human adult, that is to say, to the amount of sesquisulphide of
+phosphorus present in 6000 matches. For these and other reasons based
+upon experience, the French inventors maintain that sesquisulphide of
+phosphorus matches are harmless. The following is the composition of
+the paste employed:--
+
+ Sesquisulphide of phosphorus 6
+ Chlorate of potass 24
+ Zinc white 6
+ Red ocre 6
+ Powdered glass 6
+ Glue 18
+ Water 34[85]
+
+The sesquisulphide is almost inodorous as a powder, and is
+non-poisonous. When matches are headed with a paste made from it,
+they are capable of striking anywhere. The only impurity which the
+sesquisulphide can contain is some red or amorphous phosphorus. At
+first manufacturing chemists expressed doubtful opinions as to the
+keeping properties of the matches, also as to their capability of being
+transported across the seas, and of remaining good in all climates. Two
+years’ experience of the manufacture of matches from sesquisulphide
+of phosphorus has demonstrated such fears to have been groundless.
+Dr Courtois-Suffit, the Medical Inspector of the Match Works at
+Pantin-Aubervilliers, says that “since substituting sesquisulphide for
+yellow phosphorus, not only have the workpeople been more healthy,
+but that there has been no complaint on the part of the consumers.”
+No match is superior to the lucifer made from yellow phosphorus.
+French matches have never been regarded as equal to those of English
+manufacture. France is not an exporting country. While, therefore, the
+introduction of what is called a _sans phosphore_ match in France
+has answered satisfactorily, it does not follow that the manufacture
+of this particular kind of lucifer is the best for all countries, and
+especially for such a large exporting country as Britain.
+
+In Italy the same subject has received the attention of scientists. M.
+Bertarelli,[86] in a lecture at the University of Turin, demonstrated
+the properties of a non-poisonous match made by Dr G. Graveri of
+Villanova-Sollaro, the principal ingredient of which is persulphocyanic
+acid, a substance obtained from the residue of gas-works, of a yellow
+colour, crystalline, soluble in alcohol, ether, and boiling water,
+decomposing at a temperature of 220° C., and giving rise to sulphide
+of carbon, ammonia, and sulphur. This is made into a paste with
+sulphur and antimony trisulphate. The matches ignite when rubbed
+briskly upon a rough surface, and no cyanogen is evolved. Bertarelli
+states that he has given to dogs for several days 3 to 4 grammes (46
+to 60 grains) of the paste used for heading the matches, and beyond
+slight vomiting he has not noticed any accident, whilst 0.7 grammes
+(11 grains) of ordinary phosphorus paste caused death. It is claimed
+for his matches that they cost less to produce than ordinary matches,
+they ignite noiselessly, and develop no odorous gases, that they are
+non-hygroscopic and non-poisonous. The only drawback is stated to be
+the escape of hydrochloric acid fume during their manufacture, but this
+can be overcome by efficient ventilation.
+
+Great Britain is not only a consumer but a large exporter of lucifer
+matches, and it is this circumstance that raises a difficulty in
+regard to the total abolition of the use of yellow phosphorus in
+this country. If other matchmaking and large exporting countries,
+such as Belgium, Sweden, the United States, and Japan, could come to
+some satisfactory terms of international agreement with Britain not
+to manufacture lucifer matches from yellow phosphorus, the question
+would be settled, if not permanently, at least for a time. It would be
+useless for Britain with her free trade to abolish yellow phosphorus,
+thereby crippling her own matchmaking industry, and at the same time
+allow matches made from the poisonous phosphorus to be imported from
+other countries wherein Government supervision is perhaps less strict
+than in ours. Such a course would only transfer phosphorus necrosis
+from our own to other countries. English methods of manufacture, like
+national customs, die hard. It is pleasing to observe, however, that
+the objection on the part of British match manufacturers to the use of
+substitutes for yellow phosphorus is gradually disappearing. Messrs
+Bryant & May no longer use yellow phosphorus. Mr Gilbert Bartholomew,
+the Managing Director of the firm, in answer to some queries I
+addressed him (1901), informs me that “we are well satisfied with
+our long trial of the new composition. There has not been, and there
+cannot be, from the nature of the composition, any sickness among the
+workpeople. We have not used an ounce of yellow or poisonous phosphorus
+for nearly ten months.... We do not think there is an increased
+demand for safety matches; the great demand is for strike-anywhere.”
+It is gratifying to know that some of the smaller firms of lucifer
+matchmakers have also undertaken to produce ordinary strike-anywhere
+matches from a non-poisonous substance. How far these non-poisonous
+substances are quite free from danger and as sources of irritation,
+remains to be seen, for conjunctivitis, œdema of eyelids, and eczema
+have been noticed in the workers.[87]
+
+_Treatment of Phosphorus Necrosis._--It is unnecessary to enter
+into this at any length. Such preventive measures as a medical and
+dental examination of the workpeople before entering the factory, and
+from time to time afterwards, combined with suspension when necessary,
+personal cleanliness, and the use of terebinth gargles, wearing of
+overalls, and a change of employment in the factory, also thorough
+ventilation of the workrooms and of the dipping tables by reliable
+artificial means, will, if carefully carried out, do a very great deal
+to make and keep the workpeople healthy.
+
+Once phosphorus necrosis has developed, it may either be treated by
+antiseptic mouth-washes, maintenance of the general health by good
+nourishing food, and a life spent in the open air, thus allowing
+time for exfoliation of the necrosed bone to take place naturally, a
+process which, as we have seen, may extend over many months; or it may
+be treated surgically by removal of the piece of diseased bone. Each
+method has its advocates, but the results are practically the same,
+viz., upwards of 80 per cent. of recoveries.
+
+ THOMAS OLIVER.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+ DANGERS IN THE USE OF MERCURY AND ITS SALTS
+
+
+_Introduction._--The number of industries and the number of persons
+coming into contact with mercury in this country is not large.
+Probably not more than 500 to 1000 persons are exposed to the danger
+of industrial mercurial poisoning in Great Britain, but no matter how
+the metal or its salts are used, those handling it run considerable
+risk. In some industries, indeed, as, for instance, the silvering
+of mirrors with an amalgam of tin and mercury, which was for over a
+century the great source of mercurial poisoning, the matter is now only
+of historical interest, as the process in question has been replaced
+within the last twenty years by an innocuous one in which mercury is
+not used. On the other hand, fresh industries arise in which the metal
+is used, as, for example, the manufacture of electrical meters and
+incandescent electric lamps.
+
+
+_Historical._--As far back as the year 1665, in the _Philosophical
+Transactions_ of that year, a reference is made by Dr Walter Pope to
+the tremor affecting the hands of a worker in some cinnabar mines
+in Italy. In 1721 Antoine de Jussieu[88] described the symptoms of
+salivation, ulceration of the gums, and tremor which affected the
+workers in the quicksilver mines of Almaden, in Spain. In the various
+translations of Bernardino Ramazzini’s work, _De morbis artificum
+diatriba_, originally published in 1702, an account is given of the
+effect of mercury on miners and gilders.
+
+One of the first references to the occurrence of mercurialism in the
+process of silvering of mirrors was made by Bateman[89] in 1812, but
+the great work which still remains the classical work on the subject
+of chronic industrial poisoning, due to mercury, was published in
+1861 by Adolf Kussmaul,[90] Professor of Medicine in Erlangen. The
+splendid use which he and other medical men made of the opportunities
+offered them of studying the clinical symptoms among persons employed
+in the silvering of mirrors in Fürth and Nuremberg, the principal seats
+formerly of the industry on the Continent, and the publication of their
+observations, led up to the introduction of the stringent regulations
+which have since caused the process to be given up.
+
+In 1829, Dr Reitz[91] of St Petersburg published an account of the
+danger to health in hatters furriers’ processes in that city, and
+showed that the solution (regarded then as it still is as a secret),
+contained mercury, arsenious acid, and nitric acid.
+
+He does not particularly refer to the occurrence of tremor, but
+describes the death of three men from acute bronchitis after mixing the
+nitrate of mercury solution.
+
+_Industries in which Poisoning may occur._--The industries in
+which mercurial poisoning may occur are:--
+
+1. Recovery of the metal from the ore.
+
+2. Separation of gold and silver from their ores by means of an amalgam
+with mercury.
+
+3. The manufacture of barometers and thermometers and other
+philosophical instruments.
+
+4. The manufacture of incandescent electric lamps, where mercurial
+pumps are used to create a vacuum.
+
+5. The manufacture of electrical meters.
+
+6. Gilding and silvering, generally known as water-gilding: where an
+amalgam of gold or silver is applied to the objects, and the mercury
+volatilised by heat.
+
+7. Chemical works: where pharmaceutical mercurial preparations are made.
+
+8. Paint and colour works: where anti-fouling paints or vermilion are
+made.
+
+9. In hatters furriers’ workshops: from the brushing of rabbit skins
+with an acid solution of nitrate of mercury.
+
+10. Bronzing with a solution of nitrate of mercury: as in bronzing the
+inside of field-glasses.
+
+In the first six the poisoning takes place almost entirely through
+the inhalation of mercurial vapour, and hardly at all from dust; in
+(7) it may arise either from vapour or from, as is the case in (8),
+contamination of the hands and subsequent ingestion of the salts;
+in (9) it results from the inhalation of fumes or the ingestion of
+particles of fur impregnated with nitrate of mercury.
+
+Other processes which deserve mention as a possible source of
+mercurial poisoning are: electrical engineering, mercury being used in
+amalgamating zinc plates; taxidermy when corrosive sublimate is used;
+the manufacture and use of fulminate of mercury in explosive factories;
+sole-stitching by the “Blake sole-stitching machine,”[92] in which
+mercury is used to prevent the escape of gas.
+
+_Mode in which Poisoning is brought about._--Mercury in the
+liquid form, even when swallowed in large amount, rarely gives rise to
+poisoning. When absorbed in the form of vapour it frequently does, but
+it would be wrong to suppose that the vapour can as such pass through
+the lining walls of the alveoli of the lungs. It must first undergo
+condensation, and the tiny globules so formed become oxidised and then
+dissolved. In view of the fact that expired air is warmer than that
+inspired, it is difficult to see where this condensation takes place.
+Von Renk[93] carried out a series of experiments to see whether the
+mercury that was scattered in rooms where the silvering of mirrors
+was carried on could be swallowed with the dust. He found, however,
+such small quantities of dust in the air (only 7.3 milligrammes in 712
+litres of air) that he concluded absorption of mercury in this way was
+improbable. On the other hand, mercury gives off vapour at ordinary
+temperatures, the amount depending on the vapour tension, and he found
+appreciable quantities (2 milligrammes) in a cubic metre of air in a
+room without special ventilation immediately above a layer of mercury
+half a square metre in area. As in eight hours a worker inhales and
+expires about 3 cubic metres of air, if the air breathed were charged
+only to an extent of 1.5 milligrammes per cubic metre, it would mean
+that 4.5 milligrammes entered the lungs. Were this continued day after
+day, injurious effects would necessarily ensue.
+
+The reactions which enable mercury to enter the circulation are only
+imperfectly understood. It is acted on more readily by salt solution
+than by dilute acids. The presence of both salt solution and free acid
+must favour greatly the solution of the metal. Corrosive sublimate
+forms an albuminate with albumen insoluble in water, but readily
+soluble in the presence of salt solution. In this remarkable reaction
+of the solubility of albuminate of mercury in presence of sodium
+chloride lies the probable explanation of the occurrence of mercurial
+poisoning.[94]
+
+_Symptoms._--Although in industrial mercurial poisoning the
+symptoms occasionally resemble those which result from the internal
+administration of full doses of mercury, such as excessive salivation,
+swelling and ulceration of the gums with fœtor of the breath, followed
+in severe cases by looseness and falling out of the teeth, they are
+as a rule much slower in their onset and more insidious in character.
+For years the only sign may be more or less gastric disturbance, a
+gradually increasing anæmia, a slight increase in the secretion of
+saliva with tendency to ulceration of the gums, and slight tremor of
+the muscles of the face and hands, accompanied by a certain amount of
+nervousness.
+
+Kussmaul, from his wide experience among the silverers of mirrors in
+Fürth, describes three stages in industrial mercurial poisoning: first,
+erythism or psychical changes; secondly, tremor; and thirdly, the final
+or cachectic; and my own experience points to the correctness of his
+description.
+
+The first commences usually in the digestive tract with slight
+stomatitis and salivation. The worker becomes pale and loses his
+appetite. He frequently has headache, giddiness, and transitory pains
+in the limbs. The muscles of the face twitch, the fingers tremble when
+spread out, and the tongue is also tremulous when protruded. The mental
+condition undergoes change. Workers assured of their skill become shy
+and nervous, especially when watched. Sleep is often interfered with
+and broken by nightmare. Sometimes the tonsils and pharynx become
+involved in the inflammatory processes affecting the mouth.
+
+At this stage if the employment be given up, the symptoms disappear
+in about three weeks. If not, the weakness of the muscles increases.
+Palpitation, headache, sleeplessness, and emaciation all become worse.
+
+In the second stage of tremor, disturbance of the muscular system
+preponderates. It is observed principally in the muscles of the face,
+hands, and arms; more rarely in the legs. At first it may amount only
+to slight tremulousness, but gradually it advances until the movements
+become convulsive in character, and the hand cannot be directed with
+certainty to any particular object. The speech, from involvement of the
+muscles of articulation, becomes slow and indistinct. The psychical
+condition changes to one of depression or despondency. There may
+be hallucinations, loss of memory, and dulness of the intellectual
+faculties. In women, menstruation is diminished or ceases. Miscarriage
+is frequent, and the offspring is liable to be the subject of rickets
+or scrofula.
+
+The condition of the teeth of persons exposed to the fumes of nitrate
+of mercury in hatters furriers’ processes deserves separate mention.
+The typical appearance in the teeth of those who are engaged in
+“carotting,” that is, brushing the rabbit skins with the dilute acid
+solution for several years, is loss of the molar teeth in the upper and
+lower jaws. The upper incisor and canine teeth are not infrequently
+absent, and such teeth as remain (generally the lower incisors and
+canines) are characteristically blackened and often loose. They show a
+marked tendency to erosion (a process quite distinct from caries, as
+the enamel and not the dentine suffers most) from the acid fumes, and
+frequently the gums recede, so that the anterior surfaces of the roots
+are exposed.
+
+Chronic mercurial poisoning does not frequently lead directly to death.
+It appears to lower the vitality of the tissues markedly, and Kussmaul
+calls attention to the frequency with which mercurial workers die of
+phthisis.
+
+_Recovery from the Ore._--The principal ore from which the metal
+is obtained is cinnabar, or sulphide of mercury. It occurs principally
+in Idria in Illyria, where the greater part of the male inhabitants are
+concerned with its extraction, in Almaden in Spain, and also in China,
+Peru, California, and in smaller quantity in some of the German States.
+
+The extraction of the metal depends on the principle that by heating
+the ore in the presence of air, oxidation of the sulphur present
+results, while the mercury is liberated in the form of vapour, which is
+condensed in suitable flues kept constantly cool by a stream of water.
+Complete condensation of the vapour is difficult.
+
+In the actual mining of the ore, poisoning does not occur. Danger
+principally attaches to the smelting operation, to the cleaning out of
+the flues, and to the packing of the quicksilver.
+
+The amount of illness caused may be judged from the fact that between
+the years 1879–1884, of 1000 workers, 112 suffered from mercurialism,
+although this figure does not take account of gastric symptoms, which,
+if included, would raise it to 200 or 250 per 1000.[95]
+
+The dangers can be best avoided by suitable arrangement of the furnaces
+so as to prevent the escape of fumes, the wearing of overalls, and
+ample provision of washing and bath accommodation.
+
+_Making of Thermometers._--In the making of thermometers a small
+funnel is blown on the top of a capillary glass tube and filled with
+mercury. Heat from a spirit lamp or gas jet is applied to the bulb,
+and the expanded air partially escapes. On cooling, a portion of the
+mercury passes into the bulb to take the place of the air which has
+escaped. This process is repeated until the bulb and part of the tube
+are full of mercury. The mercury is then heated to boiling, mercury
+vapour escapes, carrying with it the air and moisture which remain
+in the tube. The tube, when full of the expanded mercury and mercury
+vapour, is hermetically sealed at one end.
+
+The number of persons employed in the industry of thermometer and
+barometer making is small. They generally describe themselves as
+experimental glass-blowers. The processes are usually carried on in
+small workrooms, the conditions in which, owing to the wooden benches
+and floors affording lodgment in the crevices for particles of mercury
+and to the gas jets alight at every bench, are not conducive to health.
+Close observation of almost every worker who has been employed for
+a few years (and when once entered on it is rarely exchanged for
+another), reveals the presence of chronic mercurialism either in slight
+tremor of the muscles of the face or hands, or the characteristic
+earthy complexion.[96]
+
+_Incandescent Electric Lamps._--In the manufacture of incandescent
+electric lamps, if mercurial pumps are used to produce the vacuum in
+the glass envelope, the danger from the scattering of mercury, which
+not unfrequently happens through breakage and careless manipulation, is
+considerable.
+
+In Berlin and Buda Pesth[97] several cases of chronic poisoning from
+this source occurred a few years ago. The industry, so far as the
+operations in the pump-room was concerned, was placed under special
+regulations in Berlin, requiring (1) mechanical ventilation; (2)
+overalls and head coverings for the persons employed; (3) provision
+of a meal room and the washing of hands and face with soap, and the
+rinsing out of the mouth with potassium chlorate before meals; (4) a
+warm douche bath three times a week; (5) medical examination of the
+workers once a week. The effect of these regulations was a cessation
+almost at once of mercurial poisoning, and they soon led to the
+introduction of mechanical pumps to replace those of mercury.
+
+In this country no case has been reported in this industry, and the
+evidence I have found so far of mercurialism among the workers is
+slight.
+
+_Electrical Meters._--The same dangers from the free use and
+handling of mercury is to be found in workshops where electrical meters
+are made, and they can only be satisfactorily met by the adoption of
+the precautions mentioned in the last section of this chapter.
+
+_Gold and Silver Extraction._--Both gold and silver are
+occasionally separated from the ores in which they are found by
+amalgamation with mercury, the latter subsequently being removed by
+distillation.
+
+_Water-gilding._--In the gilding and silvering of ornaments, the
+use of mercury has fortunately been almost entirely replaced by the
+much less harmful electroplating. The gilding, however, produced by
+the amalgam with mercury and subsequent firing (water-gilding) is more
+durable than that obtained by electroplating, but such articles as
+military buttons are still prepared in the old dangerous way, although
+greater precautions are taken to see that the fumes are carried away.
+The object to be gilt is treated with a solution of nitrate of mercury,
+and the amalgam (previously prepared by heating an alloy of gold with
+silver and copper to redness, adding an eighth part by weight of
+mercury, subsequently cooling in water and expressing any excess of
+mercury) is applied with a brush. Formerly the article was heated over
+a charcoal fire, with, necessarily, escape of fumes both of carbonic
+oxide and mercury into the room. Now it is done either in a closed
+stove or on a gas jet with a good draught.
+
+_Silvering of Mirrors._--The process of silvering of mirrors,
+which formerly caused so much suffering, was to spread out on a
+perfectly horizontal table of marble or glass a sheet of tinfoil. On to
+this a small quantity of mercury was poured to form an amalgam. A large
+quantity of the metal was then added, and the carefully polished plate
+of glass was slid over it, pushing some of the excess of mercury in
+front, which was collected in small channels, but abundance remained in
+the cracks and crevices of the tables. Heavy weights were placed on the
+glass to press out the mercury, and in a few days the combination of
+mercury and tin was found to have adhered firmly to the glass.
+
+It may be well to refer here to the process which has taken its place.
+The method is a wet one, and consists in pouring over the cleaned
+and dried glass plate a solution of nitrate of silver, containing an
+alkaline reducing agent, such as a tartrate, or more commonly ammonia.
+A reddish or black precipitate at first falls down, and later on a
+shining surface of metallic silver holds close to the glass. The glass
+is then carefully wiped dry and backed with a coat of varnish or red
+lead. Cases of lead poisoning have occurred from the use of red lead in
+this way.
+
+Statistics of Dr Wollner[98] show that in 1885, on an average, 160
+persons were engaged in the silvering of mirrors in Fürth. Among
+these there were 165 illnesses (103 per cent.) for which sickness
+insurance money was paid, and of these 60.6 per cent. were on account
+of mercurial poisoning. The percentage among males and females was
+practically the same, but the number of sick days was greater in the
+case of men than in that of the women--66.7 days as compared with 50.5.
+
+In 21 per cent. symptoms became prominent in from one to two years, in
+61 per cent. in two to six years, in 15 per cent. in six to ten years,
+and in 3 per cent. in ten to seventeen years.
+
+In 1898 the Factory Inspector for the district of Fürth states in his
+report that only seven persons were engaged in the process, and that
+their employment was intermittent. As the process has thus become
+practically extinct, it is hardly necessary to give the regulations
+enforced in Germany since 1889, but they are well worth reading by
+those who are anxious to bring to an end particularly dangerous
+industries, especially when they are carried on in the homes of the
+workers.
+
+
+_Hatters Furriers’ Processes._--Mercury in the form of a dilute
+solution of the nitrate is used in the preliminary process of felt
+hat making to increase the felting properties of the rabbit fur. The
+industry employs in the mercurial process alone between two and three
+hundred men and women. After the longer hairs have been removed by
+fur pullers, the rabbit skins are subjected to a process known as
+“carotting,” in which they are brushed with the above solution. When
+dried they are brushed by machinery to loosen the fur, and then each
+rabbit skin is passed through an ingenious machine with rotating knives
+so arranged as to cause the skin to be shaved off in strips, leaving
+the fur intact.[99]
+
+Few combinations can be imagined more likely to affect detrimentally
+the health and more particularly the teeth of workers than that of
+mercury and nitric acid. As might be expected, those engaged in
+“carotting” show in most marked degree injury to the teeth from the
+nitric acid fumes, the typical condition of which has already been
+described, while tremor and erythism predominate in those engaged in
+the later processes as the result of the inhalation of particles of fur
+impregnated with the nitrate of mercury.
+
+The following figures make this clear, giving the result of an
+examination made by me of 111 persons in eight different factories, who
+had worked for one year and upwards--
+
+ +---------------+---------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-------+-----+
+ | Process. | Number |Teeth|Per |Teeth|Per |Tremor.|Per |
+ | |examined.|Bad. |cent.|Fair.|cent.| |cent.|
+ +---------------+---------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-------+-----+
+ |Carotting | 30 | 20 | 66.6| 10 | 33.3| 1 | 3.3|
+ |Other processes| 81 | 27 | 33.3| 54 | 66.6| 17 | 21.0|
+ +---------------+---------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-------+-----+
+
+A “fur” as received from the cutting machine, analysed in the
+Government Laboratory, was found to contain 1.34 per cent. of nitrate
+of mercury. The mercury forms a very insoluble combination with the
+keratine in the hair which is not removed in the subsequent processes
+of felt hat making. Jungfleish[100] found in a layer of felt which had
+been deposited on the revolving cone used in making hats nearly 0.5 per
+cent of metallic mercury, and in a felt hat which had been worn for
+a long time 0.7 per cent. Nevertheless, mercurial poisoning even of
+slight degree does not occur, or at any rate only very exceptionally,
+in the later processes of felt hat making.[101]
+
+_Preparation of Mercurial Compounds._--In factories where
+mercurial compounds are made, such as calomel, corrosive sublimate,
+the red oxide (largely used as an anti-fouling paint for ships’
+bottoms), and vermilion, there is considerable evidence of mercurial
+poisoning among the workers. For instance, of 27 men so employed, I
+found in four (15 per cent.) more or less salivation, and in ten (37
+per cent.) tremor, besides such other symptoms as anæmia and gastric
+derangement. Danger arises from the volatilisation of the metal in the
+subliming operations, and also to some extent from the dust which,
+though very heavy, can become scattered, if such processes as mixing,
+sifting, and grinding are not carried out with care in closed-in
+vessels.
+
+Calomel, subchloride of mercury (HgCl), is made either by intimately
+mixing corrosive sublimate with metallic mercury and subsequent
+sublimation, or by mixing definite proportions of mercuric sulphate,
+metallic mercury, and common salt. The mixture is then heated so
+that the calomel may pass off as vapour and be condensed in the cool
+subliming chamber. Finally, it is ground wet, dried, and sifted. All
+these later stages in the preparation must be carried on in a closed
+apparatus, and with observance of great care.
+
+Corrosive sublimate, the bichloride of mercury (HgCl_{2}), is made
+by heating two parts by weight of mercury with three parts of strong
+sulphuric acid. To the mercuric sulphate so formed when dry, one
+and a half parts of common salt are added. The corrosive sublimate
+is converted into vapour by heat, and condenses on the upper cooler
+portion of the vessel in lustrous colourless masses, leaving a cake of
+sulphate of soda below. The sublimate is then scraped out, and usually
+undergoes no further treatment such as grinding. The operation of
+sublimation requires very constant attention on the part of the worker
+to prevent the vessels in which the vapour sublimes being overheated,
+and so allowing its escape.
+
+In the preparation of red oxide of mercury, nitrate of mercury is first
+made, in which care has to be taken that the fumes so developed are
+carried away by ventilating shafts in connection with each vessel. The
+crystals formed after evaporation are ground with addition of metallic
+mercury, and then heated in an oven. Nitrous fumes are evolved, and the
+oxide, black when hot, turns to a brilliant red crystalline powder on
+cooling. Finally, it is ground wet, dried, and sifted.
+
+Vermilion, sulphide of mercury (HgS), is made by mixing excess of
+sulphur with metallic mercury in closed rotating wooden drums. Black
+amorphous sulphide of mercury results,[102] which on heating to 150°
+C. becomes converted into a dark violet powder. From this vermilion is
+obtained by sublimation, a process attended with risk from escape of
+vapour. Finally, it is ground wet, and according to the fineness of the
+grinding so is the particular shade of colour obtained.
+
+The manufacture of calomel, corrosive sublimate, and vermilion can be
+made by a wet method throughout without danger, provided reasonable
+care is taken.
+
+_Preventive Measures._--The conditions to be aimed at in places
+where metallic mercury is handled (and for the most part also in places
+where salts of mercury are used), are as follows:--
+
+1. The flooring and benches should be smooth, impermeable, and free
+from cracks or crevices in which mercury can lodge. Preferably the
+floor should be of some kind of asphalt or cement, laid in such a way
+that channels all converge towards a receptacle where the scattered
+mercury may collect. Wood, although at present in common use, is not
+well adapted for the purpose. The receptacles should be covered over,
+leaving only a narrow opening for the mercury to run in.
+
+2. There should be ample light, and the windows of all rooms where
+mercury vapour may be produced should preferably face the north.
+
+3. Mercurial processes should be carried on in rooms separate and
+distinct from the other workrooms.
+
+4. Any unnecessary raising of the temperature above 60° F. is to be
+avoided, and consequently there should be no direct heating of the
+rooms by open fires or stoves.
+
+5. Mechanical ventilation should be provided, and reliance not be
+placed merely on differences of temperature between the outside and
+inside air. Inlets for air should be above the level of the heads of
+the workers, and the draught of the fan should be a downward suction
+one.
+
+6. Workers should wear overalls and head coverings.
+
+7. Shortness of the hair, shortness and cleanliness of the nails, a
+proper hygiene of the mouth, and baths, would do much to protect the
+workers. Ample washing convenience, including soap, nail brushes, and
+towels, should be provided.
+
+8. Meals should be prohibited in any room where mercury is handled.
+
+9. Periodical medical examination, with power to the surgeon appointed
+to suspend temporarily or permanently from work.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+In two of the largest factories in which mercurial preparations are
+made, in addition to the carrying out of all dusty processes such as
+mixing and sieving, as far as possible, in a closed-in apparatus, the
+following measures have been taken:--
+
+ RULES TO BE OBSERVED IN THE MANUFACTURE OF MERCURIAL
+ PREPARATIONS.
+
+ 1. The firm will appoint a surgeon to examine all persons
+ employed in mercurial processes at least once in every month,
+ and he will undertake any necessary medical treatment of illness
+ contracted in consequence of such employment. He will have power
+ to suspend any such person from work in any place or process.
+
+ The surgeon will enter in a register the dates and results of
+ the examination of the person employed as above. No person after
+ suspension can be employed in any mercurial process without
+ written sanction from the surgeon.
+
+ Every person employed in a mercurial process must present
+ himself at the appointed time for examination by the surgeon.
+
+ 2. The firm will provide sufficient and suitable overall suits
+ for the use of persons engaged in the processes of sifting and
+ grinding, and every person when so engaged must wear an overall
+ suit.
+
+ 3. The firm will provide respirators approved by the surgeon for
+ persons engaged in processes where there is unavoidable dust,
+ and every person so employed must wear the respirator.
+
+ 4. The firm will provide and maintain washing conveniences
+ in the proportion of one lavatory basin to each five persons
+ employed, with soap, nail brushes, and towels, and a constant
+ supply of hot and cold water laid on to each basin.
+
+ Every person must, before meals and before leaving the premises,
+ thoroughly wash in the basins provided, and those who have worn
+ overalls and respirators must deposit them before leaving the
+ factory after the day’s work in the place appointed for the
+ purpose by the firm.
+
+ The firm will see that the overalls are washed once a week, and
+ the respirators renewed or washed every day.
+
+ 5. The firm will provide and maintain a bath with hot and cold
+ water laid on, and a sufficient supply of soap and towels. Every
+ person shall have the opportunity of taking a bath at the
+ factory once a week, and those whom the surgeon directs must do
+ so.
+
+ Each person taking a bath must sign his name in a register.
+
+ 6. The firm will provide and maintain a cloak-room in which
+ workers can deposit clothing put off during working hours,
+ separate from any portion of the works where mercurial processes
+ are carried on.
+
+ 7. No food or tobacco are to be taken into, nor is food to be
+ eaten in any part of the factory where mercurial processes are
+ carried on.
+
+ 8. The foreman must report to the manager any instance coming
+ under his notice of a workman neglecting to observe these rules.
+
+ _Note._--The danger against which the rules are directed is
+ that of mercurial poisoning, of which the principal symptoms are
+ soreness of the gums, offensive breath, increase in the amount
+ of spittle, and trembling of the fingers. Workers are warned of
+ the danger arising from the chewing of tobacco, and of eating
+ food with unwashed hands. Mercury has a tendency to destroy the
+ teeth, and this can be best obviated by the use of a tooth-brush
+ once every day.
+
+In hatters furriers’ processes the remedial measures required are
+rather different, although suggestions (6), (8), (9), and part of
+(7) equally apply. It is necessary in this industry to remove the
+fumes arising from the solution of nitrate of mercury in carotting,
+and to secure the absence of dust at the cutting machines, either by
+perfecting the machinery and fittings of the receptacles into which the
+bulk of the dust is carried by the revolving knives, or by increasing
+this draught by means of a fan. This latter mode has been adopted with
+success both as regards removal of dust and economy of work. It is
+desirable, too, that the primitive stoves at present in use for drying
+the “carotted” skins should be replaced by the kind now commonly to be
+found in steam laundries, of “horses” sliding in and out of the heated
+chamber on rails.
+
+By the French law of 13th May 1893, the treatment of the skins and fur
+of hare and rabbit skins with nitrate of mercury is scheduled, with
+others, as an industry in which neither children nor females may be
+employed.
+
+ T. M. LEGGE.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXIX
+
+ THE LESIONS RESULTING FROM THE MANUFACTURE AND
+ USES OF POTASSIUM AND SODIUM BICHROMATE
+
+
+Peculiar lesions--erosion of the septum of the nose and the production
+of ulcers on the skin--are caused by bichromate of potassium or sodium.
+Erosion of the septum is found only among persons engaged in the
+manufacture of the salts, but ulceration of the skin of exposed parts,
+principally the hands, although most severe and most frequently met
+with among the same class of operatives, may be detected among persons
+engaged in the many industries in which the salts are used in solution.
+
+Bichromate of potassium and sodium, commercially known as “bichromes,”
+are used largely--
+
+1. In the manufacture of colours, such as the various chrome yellows,
+by the interaction of lead acetate and bichromate of potassium.
+
+2. In dyeing and calico-printing. In dying cotton yarn the material
+is soaked in lime water, and, after wringing, is transferred to a
+vat containing lead acetate. It then passes through a solution of
+bichromate which develops the yellow colour on the fibre.
+
+In calico printing potassium bichromate is used in the indigo blue
+discharge style, when it may be printed from a paste containing 40 per
+cent. of bichromate, which will discharge the colour from the blue
+material after suitable treatment. Or it may be used for the production
+of chrome lead colours by first printing the desired pattern on the
+calico with a paste containing acetate of lead, and subsequently
+passing this through a 2 to 5 per cent. solution of bichromate.
+
+Potassium bichromate is the most important mordant for wool. The
+mordanting bath is prepared with 2 to 4 per cent. potassium bichromate
+(of the weight of the wool) and the necessary quantity of water,
+amounting to from 50 to 100 times the weight of wool.[103]
+
+3. In photography. The carbon process depends on the fact that gelatine
+and potassium bichromate combine under the influence of light to
+form a compound which is insoluble in hot water. The strength of the
+bichromate solution for this process does not exceed 5 per cent.
+
+4. As an oxidising agent for the manufacture of coal tar colours, for
+the bleaching of oils, etc.
+
+The first full account of the lesions arising in the course of the
+manufacture of bichromate was given by Bécourt and Chevallier in
+1863.[104] In 1854 Heathcote published in the _Lancet_[105] an
+account of obstinate ulceration of the tonsils and pharynx observed in
+a worker in a bichromate factory. No such extensive ulceration as he
+describes has been recorded since.
+
+A very complete description of the processes and of the clinical
+symptoms shown by the persons employed, together with suggestions for
+improving the conditions of working, was given in a joint paper by
+Delpech and Hillairet[106] in the years 1869 and 1876. They believed
+that any part of the skin might become ulcerated if exposed long
+enough to the action of the dust. In no case did they find that the
+ulcers penetrated into the joints, or that the bones of the nose were
+attacked. They believed that the action of the dust set up in some
+cases bronchitis and asthma.
+
+In 1893 the effect of bichromate on the health of the workers was
+referred to in the Report of a Departmental Committee of the Home
+Office on the conditions of labour in chemical works, and, as a result,
+special rules prescribing protection of vessels containing bichromate
+in solution, respirators, due means for the removal of dust, waterproof
+gloves, and lavatory accommodation, were drawn up.[107]
+
+In 1895 the conditions found in the German bichromate factories
+was made the subject of an interesting official report by Dr
+Wutzdorff,[108] assisted in the chemical part by Dr Heise. Following
+upon the recommendations made by Dr Wutzdorff, stringent regulations
+were drawn up to govern the industry in Germany.
+
+In 1899 considerable stir was created in Glasgow by the publication
+by the _Labour Leader_ of a series of pamphlets directed to
+show, among other things, that in certain factories in Scotland the
+conditions of work were still unhealthy. In that year I visited all
+the factories in this country, and a code of special rules printed
+elsewhere in this volume now governs the industry.
+
+Potassium bichromate is made by roasting a mixture of chrome ironstone,
+potash and lime, lixiviating the fused mass with water, and adding
+enough sulphuric acid to convert the neutral chromate into bichromate.
+The reaction may be represented as follows:--
+
+ Cr_{2}O_{3} + 3O = 2CrO_{3}
+ CrO_{3} + K_{2}CO_{3} = K_{2}CrO_{4} + CO_{2}
+ 2K_{2}CrO_{4} + H_{2}SO_{4} = K_{2}SO_{4} + K_{2}Cr_{2}O_{7} + H_{2}O.
+
+Sodium bichromate is made in practically the same way, sodium carbonate
+taking naturally the place of potassium carbonate. In the crushing and
+grinding of the chrome ironstone much dust permeates the air, but this
+mineral dust does not give rise to the peculiar lesions associated with
+the bichromate.
+
+After having been ground to a fine impalpable powder the chrome
+ironstone, mixed with lime and potash, is introduced into a furnace
+and roasted for about three hours. When withdrawn from here the fused
+mass or “batch,” as it is called, consisting of neutral chromate of
+calcium and potassium, after being allowed to cool, is broken up and
+shovelled with evolution of much dust into large vats or “keaves.”
+Water and potassium sulphate in solution are added, and at this stage,
+owing to the slaking of the uncombined lime, much steam, carrying with
+it particles of chromate dust, arises. The solution, when concentrated
+by passing through successive keaves, is pumped into evaporating
+pans, which are almost invariably entirely covered in and communicate
+with the outside air by means of a shaft running through the roof.
+Sulphuric acid is next added, forming potassium sulphate and potassium
+bichromate. The former is withdrawn, and the latter, when sufficiently
+concentrated, is pumped into lead-lined tanks, where crystallisation is
+usually completed within three weeks. The crystals form beautiful large
+adherent masses on the sides and floor of the tanks. They are broken
+up by a pick, removed on barrows to be washed, dried in open stoves by
+hot-air or steam-pipes, and finally packed in barrels.
+
+Sodium bichromate does not usually crystallise, but forms a solid cake
+which requires to be broken up.
+
+The particular lesions associated with the manufacture are found among
+all classes of men employed, from the moment the fused mass is removed
+from the furnace, until the crystals are headed up in the barrels.
+Inasmuch, however, as all the processes are carried out in one large
+common shed, it is a little difficult to determine the relative degree
+of danger attaching to each operation.
+
+The rafters immediately above the keaves are coloured a canary yellow,
+from the neutral potassium chromate carried up by the steam; a sheet
+of cardboard suspended at a height of 2 feet above an evaporating
+pan becomes covered in a short time on its _upper_ surface with
+innumerable small brown specks of bichromate--a precipitation which
+must result from the cooling of the steam; a stranger present for only
+a few minutes while the packing is being done has the mucous membrane
+of his nose acutely inflamed for hours or even days afterwards. These
+facts show how permeated the atmosphere in the shed can become from the
+dust and fumes from the bichromate. Breaking the crystals is the source
+_par excellence_ for the development of chrome sores.
+
+Dr Heise, in the paper already referred to, estimated quantitatively
+the amount of bichromate dust in the air where the different processes
+were carried on. Thus he found 1 cubic metre of air near to the place
+where three men were breaking up a cake of sodium bichromate contained
+6.30 milligrammes. One cubic metre taken during the fifteen minutes
+during which packing was done contained 1.57 milligrammes. As regards
+the steam, he found 1 cubic metre taken at a height of 45 centimetres
+above the level of the evaporating pan contained 0.736 milligrammes of
+sodium bichromate. In general, considerably less bichromate was found
+in the air over the evaporating pan than where the dusty processes were
+carried on.
+
+The following is the result of an examination I made of 176 men exposed
+to work at one time or another in the chrome house:
+
+ +---------+-------+-----------+----------+--------------+-------------+
+ | | | | |Sense of Smell| Number with |
+ | Number |Septum | Septum | Septum | Lost or | Unhealed |
+ |Examined.|Normal.|Perforated.|Ulcerated.| Impaired. |Chrome Sores.|
+ +---------+-------+-----------+----------+--------------+-------------+
+ | 176 | 30 | 126 | 20 | 16 | 39 |
+ | 100 | 17.0 | 71.6 | 11.3 | 9.9 | 22.1 |
+ +---------+-------+-----------+----------+--------------+-------------+
+
+In most of the cases where the septum was found ulcerated but not
+perforated, the duration of employment had not been sufficiently long
+for the ulceration to proceed to perforation.
+
+In none of the 30 men in whom the septum was found to be normal was the
+immunity attributable to shortness of employment. Six were connected
+with the management, 6 were blacksmiths or coopers, 10 were furnacemen,
+4 were engaged at the keaves, and 4 in the crystal house. One-half of
+them had been employed for upwards of ten years.
+
+There can be no doubt that the mucous membrane covering the septum is
+attacked more readily in some persons than in others, and I incline to
+the view that an immunity may be acquired if the first few months are
+passed without ulceration taking place.
+
+The rapidity of its onset is remarkable, as is shown by the following
+table:--
+
+
+ Duration of Employment where the Ulceration had not
+ progressed to Perforation.
+
+ +------------+------------+---------+--------+----------+
+ | 2 Weeks or | 2 Weeks to | 3 to 12 | 1 to 3 | Over |
+ | less. | 3 Months. | Months. | Years. | 3 Years. |
+ +------------+------------+---------+--------+----------+
+ | 3 | 7 | 5 | 4 | 1 |
+ +------------+------------+---------+--------+----------+
+
+Perforation was noted as having already occurred in one instance where
+the duration of employment had been seven weeks, and in two others it
+had been less than three months. Usually, it appears to take place
+between the sixth and twelfth month after commencing work. Most of
+the men examined worked in the crystal house, and all except the
+four mentioned had either ulceration or perforation of the septum.
+The majority of the furnacemen also had perforation, but in them the
+septum was found normal more frequently than was the case with the men
+employed in the crystal house.
+
+_Nature of the Perforation._--The cartilaginous framework of the
+nose consists of five pieces, the two upper and the two lower lateral
+cartilages, and the cartilage of the septum. The two upper and the two
+lower lateral cartilages give the nose much of its shape, and form the
+alæ nasi. The ulcerative process due to bichromate dust never attacks
+them. The cartilage of the septum is somewhat triangular in form, and
+thicker at its margin than at its centre. Its anterior margin, thickest
+above, is connected from above downwards with the nasal bones, the
+front part of the two upper lateral cartilages, and the inner portion
+of the two lower cartilages. Its posterior margin is connected with
+the perpendicular lamella of the ethmoid; its inferior margin with the
+vomer and the palate processes of the superior maxillary bones. The
+seat of election for the ulceration to commence is a point about a
+quarter of an inch from the lower and anterior margin of the septum,
+and it extends in a direction upwards and backwards.
+
+The limitation of the perforation to the cartilage of the septum is
+accounted for by the fact that the mucous membrane covering it is
+adherent, forming the perichondrium, and is far less vascular than the
+mucous membrane lining the rest of the nasal fossa. Once the mucous
+membrane is destroyed, the blood supply to the cartilage is cut off,
+and necrosis ensues. The ulceration having progressed upwards as far
+as the junction of the septum with the ethmoid and backwards to the
+vomer, becomes arrested. Healing then takes place, the bone not being
+attacked, and the cicatrix usually becomes covered with an ecthymatous
+crust of mucus.
+
+In no instance was the anterior or lower border of the septum
+destroyed. Consequently, the rigidity of the parts is maintained, and
+deformity, so prominent in other ulcerative processes attacking the
+nose, absent.
+
+The onset of the morbid process is ushered in by sneezing and the
+ordinary symptoms of nasal catarrh. The pain accompanying the
+ulceration appears to be insignificant. It had never been severe enough
+to necessitate absence from work or to call for medical treatment.
+
+Once the perforation is established, the only inconvenience which
+results is the formation of plugs of mucus in the nasal passages. The
+general health is in no way detrimentally affected by the condition.
+Considering the extent of the lesion, the number found with marked
+impairment of the sense of smell is not large. Mucous deposits and
+white patches were occasionally noted on the pharynx, but definite
+ulceration, such as has been described in bichromate workers, was in
+no case detected. Asthma, noted by the French writers on the subject,
+Delpech and Hillairet, was found in one instance--that of a partner in
+one of the works. In his case there was a family predisposition to it,
+but the first definite attack dated from contact with bichromate.
+
+_Ulceration of the Skin._--In 39 out of the 176 men engaged in
+chrome processes, one or more unhealed ulcers or “chrome holes” were
+observed. In these and in several others, numerous scars marking the
+site of bygone ulcers were noted.
+
+A chrome hole is a sluggish ulcer. It results from a cut or abrasion of
+the skin coming into contact with bichromate in the form of crystals or
+solution. The seat of election is either on the knuckles or at the base
+of the nail, but they may occur on any part of the hands or forearm. In
+two cases they were observed on the neck, once in the groin, and once
+on the foot. The tissues around are raised, thickened, and indurated;
+the centre is filled by a slough, usually covered by a scab, and the
+whole resembles a large boil. When the slough has been removed the
+floor of the ulcer is seen to consist of greenish-yellow granulation
+tissue. In the majority of cases the central scab is not more than ⅛
+inch in diameter, in a few it is ¼ inch, and the largest that I have
+seen measured, ¾ by ½ inch. Chrome holes occur principally among men
+engaged in the crystal house and at the keaves, and only rarely among
+the furnacemen. The amount of pain and inconvenience they cause is
+considerable. Sometimes they necessitate absence from work, but they
+are never a menace to life. At one works six men were absent during
+1898 for periods varying from three to nine weeks, on account of chrome
+holes. Even when their severity is not such as to necessitate absence
+from work, months may elapse before they heal.
+
+The treatment adopted by the men is of the most elementary description,
+and naturally under these circumstances they prove intractable.
+
+The conditions found by Dr Wutzdorff in the German bichromate factories
+were very similar. Ulcers of the external skin were found most
+frequently on the fingers, hands, and arms, then on the feet and legs;
+once an ulcer was found in the external auditory meatus and three times
+on the eyelids. The ulcers penetrated deeply into the soft parts, and
+required, in consequence, a long time to heal. In no case had they
+penetrated as far as the tendons, or into the joints. Ulceration and
+perforation of the septum was found in workers in several factories,
+and ulceration of the gums and pharynx of slight extent was observed
+twice. The general condition of the workpeople was apparently good--at
+all events no worse than that of chemical workers generally.
+
+The preventive measures necessary in the manufacture of potassium or
+sodium bichromate will be found stated in the regulations printed
+elsewhere in this volume. They resolve themselves generally into
+removal of dust and fumes, cleanliness, and medical supervision
+periodically of the workers, and the covering up of cuts and abrasions
+with suitable dressings. When in solution the salt does not attack the
+unbroken skin. Indiarubber gloves are sometimes worn by the men in
+dye-works who are constantly engaged in processes in which bichromate
+is used in dilute solution, but in view of the difficulty of enforcing
+their use, and the fact already stated, that unless there is an
+abrasion of the skin a chrome hole will not be developed, the wearing
+of indiarubber gloves, while a thing to be recommended, can hardly be
+made compulsory. It is advisable that in all dye-works the foreman
+should be made responsible to report all men suffering from abrasions
+of the skin, or from chrome holes, to the manager, in order that they
+may have proper treatment, and be put to other work until such time as
+healing has taken place.
+
+In photographic processes involving the use of bichromate, if there
+is any tendency to the development of eruptions on the hands, careful
+washing and subsequent treatment, when thoroughly dried, with lanolin
+or glycerine should be tried. If this fails, rubber gloves must be worn.
+
+ T. M. LEGGE.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXX
+
+ COPPER AND BRASS
+
+
+The two substances, the dangers to health attendant on the working
+of which form the subject of this chapter, present widely different
+features, both as regards their essential natures, their treatment
+during the processes of manufacture, and the treatment they
+subsequently receive. The one being a metal and the other an alloy,
+the primary processes in the first case are those of mining and of
+reducing the ore; while in the second, the admixture of metals in such
+proportions as the particular alloy requires is the first detail of
+treatment. A similar process of casting into ingots follows with both
+substances, but the malleable and ductile qualities of copper render
+its subsequent treatment, in the various processes of manufacture,
+dissimilar to that of brass and its kindred alloys.
+
+There are, moreover, marked features of dissimilarity in the
+constituents of brass and of copper ore of especial importance in
+any consideration of unhealthy conditions attendant upon working in
+these substances. The form of copper ore which is most largely smelted
+in England is copper pyrites, an ore which is largely composed of
+sulphur, while in various ores arsenic is found. Brass and similar
+alloys, on the other hand, are composed of copper and zinc; and as we
+shall see later in this chapter, it is to the presence of the latter
+ingredient that in our opinion may be attributed the illness known as
+“brassfounders’ ague,” or at all events the abnormal amount of ill
+health found to exist amongst brass mixers and casters.
+
+Although it might be more natural to discuss the metal in the first
+place, and the alloy of which it forms a very important part in the
+second, we will reverse that order, owing to the much greater degree
+of importance, from a sanitary point of view, which attaches to the
+working of brass than to that of copper. Prefacing, therefore, our
+remarks on the dangers attending the working in brass by an outline
+of the processes involved, it will be sufficient for our purpose to
+quote from a Report of a Committee of the Home Office appointed in
+1894 to inquire into the conditions of labour in the manufacture of
+brass and of kindred amalgams, and of which we had the honour of being
+members. It is explained that, in the first instance, an alloy is made
+at a very high temperature in crucibles which are plunged into sunken
+furnaces, the principal components of the alloy being copper and zinc
+(commonly called spelter) mixed in proportions varying in accordance
+with the quality of brass required. An example of a deposit resulting
+from the pouring of common or yellow brass taken by the Committee is as
+follows:--
+
+ Moisture 9.64
+ Organic matter 39.42
+ Silicious residue 9.14
+ Oxide of iron 2.78
+ Copper 1.71
+ Oxide of zinc 28.82
+ Other matter 8.49
+ ------
+ 100.00
+
+Other amalgams, such as gun metal, phosphor bronze, and bell metal,
+yield different proportions, while in some cases it is found that
+old copper and brass scrap, such as discarded locomotive and marine
+boiler tubes, are thrown into the mixture. The alloy thus mixed is
+poured into iron moulds or ingots, to be remelted when required; or
+it is at once poured into moulds which have been already prepared
+by patterns to receive the metal, and in which the formation of the
+castings takes place. Previously to receiving the metal the mould has
+been dusted over with fine dust either of burnt loam, sand, burnt
+red brick, charcoal, French chalk, or bean flour, according to the
+requirements of the work. The moulds are, roughly speaking, iron rims
+clamped together, and filled with very fine sand in which the patterns
+have left impressions for the reception of the metal, hence the name of
+sand-casting possessed by this process. Should the metal be required
+for sheets, tubes, or wire, it is poured into iron moulds or ingots, to
+be subsequently rolled or drawn as required, and this process is called
+sheet or strip casting. Having procured its shape, the brass article
+or casting is subjected to further processes on its way to completion,
+such as (1) that of dipping in aqua fortis and in acid solutions of
+various strengths for the purpose of removing oxidation and impurities;
+(2) that of burnishing or of polishing at a lathe to acquire a smooth
+surface; (3) that of finishing or dressing; and finally (4) that of
+lacquering, which is an application of a solution of shellac and
+other ingredients to the work (specially heated for its reception on a
+stove) with a view of securing the colour desired; also (5) a process
+of bronzing is also undergone when a particular effect is required
+in the appearance of the article. In either of these processes,
+which involves the pouring of the molten alloy, the zinc deflagrates
+during the pouring, and a dense white smoke is formed, which almost
+instantaneously fills the atmosphere of the casting shop. This smoke is
+rapidly converted into snow-white flakes and white powder, consisting
+of the oxide of zinc, which remains for some time diffused through the
+atmosphere of the shop, and in ill-ventilated casting shops collects
+upon the rafters and ceiling in the form of a dense white incrustation.
+The quantity of these fumes depends, firstly, upon the amount of zinc
+employed; secondly, upon the ventilation of the shop; thirdly, upon the
+weather--a dull, foggy day preventing their escape. It may be readily
+imagined that persons exposed to the alternations of heat and cold in
+the casting shop, to the deflagrated zinc inhaled as well as imbibed
+with food and drink, and the intense thirst induced by the nature of
+the work, would suffer in health. That such is the case the evidence
+submitted to the Home Office Committee was ample and conclusive. It
+must not, however, be assumed that nothing was previously known upon
+the subject, or that no steps had been already taken in the endeavour
+to improve the shops or in other ways to ameliorate the condition of
+the workers.
+
+The recognition of working in and making brass as causative of disease
+is due to Dr Headlam Greenhow, who, in 1862, read before the Royal
+Medical and Chirurgical Society a paper on “Brassfounders’ Ague.”
+This was based on his experience while paying a brief holiday visit
+to Birmingham in 1858, in connection with his investigation of trades
+injurious to health. It is curious that he should have selected for
+his title the name of a disorder which undoubtedly occurs, but which,
+as we shall endeavour to show, is only an acute expression of a
+chronic malady, and one which rarely or never comes within the range
+or experience of practising physicians. In the out-patient department
+of the Birmingham hospitals one meets with an enormous number of
+brass-workers complaining of various pulmonary and gastric disorders;
+but an experience of many years has never yet produced to us a case of
+this so-called ague, although questions will very frequently elicit
+the statement of its occurrence. The literature of the subject is
+very scanty, but Greenhow quotes Thackrah’s essay on the “Effects
+of Arts, Trades, and Professions on Health and Longevity,” published
+about 1830, as well as the writings of a few Frenchmen, which have not,
+however, materially advanced our knowledge of the disease. Thackrah’s
+observations were clearly inaccurate and imperfect, for he mentions
+only “ague,” which he speaks of as an intermittent fever, attacking
+brass-workers from once a month to once a year, and leaving them in
+a state of great debility. Dr Hogben, Physician to out-patients at
+the Queen’s Hospital, Birmingham, published a very interesting paper
+on this subject in the _Birmingham Medical Review_ in May 1887.
+Dr Greenhow refers only to ague and bronchial disorders, and very
+cursorily to nervous troubles, as resulting from brass casting; but
+Dr Hogben mentions also colic, constipation, and dyspeptic troubles
+which result from this occupation. Dr Greenhow, on the one hand, refers
+all the symptoms to intoxication by zinc, while Dr Hogben thinks they
+should be rather referred to chronic copper poisoning. These two metals
+are the principal ingredients in the making of brass, as already
+mentioned.
+
+That Thackrah was in error in speaking of brass ague as an intermittent
+affection, occurring once a month or once a year, is clearly proved
+by the following positive observation, which is supported by all
+brass-workers. Ague never occurs among the regular workers, but always
+affects those who are new to the work, or who resume work after an
+absence of even a month or a fortnight. If a man resumes work, that
+is melting or casting, after even so brief an interval, he is sure to
+have an attack of ague, but he will have only one attack, and remain
+free until after his next holiday. There is most certainly no kind
+of regular intermission, and according to brass-workers themselves,
+they only suffer till they are inured to the poison. The following
+are the symptoms of this so-called ague. After working a few hours,
+a man becomes languid, depressed, and feels very cold. He is very
+pale and almost in a state of collapse, his face is covered with a
+cold perspiration, he shivers, his teeth chatter, and he is restless
+and anxious. His head aches, there is much nausea and complaint of
+muscular pains. As a rule he goes or is led home, where he drinks
+freely of milk and goes to bed. The symptoms continue until he has
+vomited, either as the result of taking an emetic or independently of
+it. Vomiting is usually followed by sleep or recovery, with more or
+less of debility and lassitude on waking. Drs Greenhow and Hogben
+speak of a more or less marked hot stage succeeding the cold, while
+following the hot stage they mention profuse sweating. The hot stage
+may be absent, but the sweating, according to these writers, invariably
+occurs. Our own observations, based on inquiry amongst those who have
+suffered from this ague, have never elicited a statement of these hot
+and sweating stages. Even direct questions as to their occurrence
+have always been met with positive negation, though some have spoken
+of free perspiration in the stage of collapse. How to reconcile these
+statements we do not know. The cycle of events as recorded by Greenhow
+is just that of ordinary ague, from which this disease differs,
+otherwise than in the suggested sequence, in toto. The inquiries
+we have made do not support such a sequence, and certainly not a
+relationship to malarial ague. The symptoms are just such as would be
+caused by the ingestion of a quantity of irritant metal, sufficiently
+large to cause vomiting, and its attendant depression. Such, indeed,
+is our opinion of the causation of the symptoms, and therefore the
+name “ague” should not be continued, as being wrongly suggestive and
+misleading. It will be remembered that it is only when fresh to the
+work that brass-workers suffer from “ague,” but, though they do not
+suffer from acute metallic poisoning, they do suffer from its chronic
+effects, and it is extremely probable that, as with arsenic and opium
+eaters, they may become inured to the use of the metals.
+
+As it is not very common for brass-workers to use tooth brushes, the
+accumulating tartar is usually found coloured green. Even when an
+attempt is made to cleanse the teeth, they still show signs of green
+discoloration. This has been proved to be due to the presence of
+copper. The white hair of the workmen is often coloured green, and the
+underclothing is stained green by the perspiration. The gums may be
+slightly blackened at the edges, but there is nothing distinctive as in
+the case of the blue line of lead poisoning; nor, indeed, beyond the
+green colouring of the hair and teeth, do brass-workers present any
+unequivocal evidence of their calling.
+
+Ague is not a disorder for which brass-workers consult a medical man;
+they know how to treat it themselves, and also that it is transitory in
+its effects; but they come to hospitals in large numbers to be treated
+for bronchitis. As regards this there is nothing special. The men
+suffer from it in common with all workers in dusty trades, and so far
+as we can learn from the Secretary of the Brass-workers’ Organisation,
+they usually die from chronic bronchitis or fibroid phthisis, unless
+they succumb to some acute malady. The existence of nervous disorders,
+especially paralysis agitans, has been said to be common among them,
+but we cannot find that a larger percentage of brass-workers than of
+the rest of the community suffers from diseases of the nervous system.
+It is common, however, to meet with complaints of disturbance of the
+digestive function. Brass-casters suffer from dyspepsia, loss of
+appetite, gastro-intestinal catarrh, nausea, vomiting, metallic taste,
+thirst, colic, constipation, and diarrhœa. They are often nervous and
+hypochondriacal, and complain of headache as well as muscular pains.
+There is nothing distinctive about any of these disorders, except the
+obstinacy with which they resist ordinary methods of treatment, and
+the readiness with which they yield to the administration of iodide
+of potassium in combination with the other drugs indicated by the
+various conditions of ill-health. All the symptoms bear a remarkable
+resemblance to those produced by chronic copper poisoning. In Guy and
+Ferrier’s _Forensic Medicine_, an outbreak of copper poisoning
+from the use of copper vessels in cooking is recorded, in which the
+symptoms were almost identical with those here mentioned. The inmates
+of a convent suffered severely from obstinate and severe colic,
+retching, and bilious vomiting, costiveness, and flatulence, burning
+pain in the pit of the stomach and extremities, and paralytic weakness
+in the arm. According to Stephenson it is impossible to distinguish
+between the symptoms produced by zinc and copper poisoning. These
+are just such as brass-workers suffer from, and it is, therefore,
+impossible to say which metal--copper or zinc--is most concerned in the
+production of these symptoms. Dr Greenhow attributes them all to the
+inhalation of the deflagrating zinc. This forms oxide of zinc, which is
+only sparingly if at all soluble, and, therefore, is not likely to be
+freely absorbed into the stomach. Greenhow pays little or no attention
+to the common and chronic gastric and intestinal troubles to which
+brass-workers are liable. These affect all who work in the various
+processes by which, either in vapour or in minute particles, copper and
+zinc--that is, brass--are distributed in the atmosphere. Dr Hogben, on
+the other hand, considers copper alone to be the efficient cause of the
+symptoms, and advances the following arguments:--
+
+1. We have no evidence that the internal administration of zinc ever
+produces the symptoms of brass ague. Enormous doses of the oxide have
+been administered without apparently producing the characteristic
+febrile reaction of brass ague.
+
+2. The malady is observed in individuals whose work is other than
+casting.
+
+3. The malady is not observed in operatives, such as galvanised iron
+workers, who work with zinc, and are exposed to its fumes.
+
+4. Zinc is rapidly excreted, and does not, like lead, mercury, or
+copper, become fixed in the body, and produce chronic affections.
+
+It seems more probable that, accepting Stephenson’s statement of the
+impossibility of distinguishing between the effects of acute copper or
+zinc poisoning, the symptoms of ague are due to an admixture of the two
+metals; whereas, for the chronic complaints, the copper is responsible.
+How the practice of taking milk during an attack of so-called ague has
+arisen is not clear; but its wisdom is proved by the fact that in cases
+of both copper and zinc poisoning milk is one of the best antidotes,
+since it precipitates both these metals into insoluble albuminates.
+It is abundantly evident that brass-workers are especially liable
+to diseases from the use of the metals employed in its manufacture,
+but these are not new disorders; they are either proofs of chronic
+poisoning by zinc or copper, or, as in the so-called ague, are due to
+intoxication by them. If more proof were wanting of the unhealthiness
+of brass-casters, it would be afforded by the fact that a few years
+ago, though there were 1200 casters in Birmingham, there were not
+more than ten over sixty years of age, and in connection with a
+superannuation fund of the Amalgamated Brass-workers’ Association from
+which casters could at the age of fifty-five derive benefit, it is an
+appalling fact that there were only three men--two in Birmingham and
+one in Sheffield--enjoying this benefit.
+
+That such a condition of affairs should be allowed to remain
+unremedied, if remedy was possible, was improbable after special power
+was vested in the Home Secretary by the Factory Act of 1891 to deal
+with processes which he deemed dangerous or even injurious to health.
+
+The desirability of observance of certain general principles, such as
+temperance, cleanliness, and care in the matter of taking food, was
+obvious not less in the case of brass-workers than of other operatives.
+These need not be enlarged upon by us, although their importance
+towards securing health and happiness in a man’s declining years are
+sadly overlooked among the working classes. But it was felt that there
+should be some definite rules officially published for the healthy
+conduct of brass-working.
+
+A series of rules designed to that end were tentatively issued with the
+approval of the Secretary of State by Mr R. E. Sprague Oram, C.B., then
+Chief Inspector of Factories in 1894, but although possessing features
+of stringency which appear not unwarrantable under certain conditions
+of brass-working, they were generally felt to be unnecessary in the
+case of working in alloys in which the percentage of zinc was either
+relatively small, or indeed from which it was entirely absent.
+
+Official attention had, however, been thoroughly aroused to the
+necessity of action, and in November 1894 a Departmental Committee
+was appointed by Mr Asquith, Secretary of State, to report upon
+conditions of work, so far as they affected the health of operatives
+in the various processes connected with the working of brass, gun
+metal, bell metal, and other kindred amalgams. Subsequently too at
+Birmingham, which may be regarded as the home of the brass trade,
+the Committee held sittings and made inquiries in various parts of
+London, in Willenhall, Wolverhampton, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Sheffield,
+and Rotherham, and were assisted by the evidence of a large number of
+manufacturers, artisans, factory inspectors, physicians, and others,
+on which their report to the Home Secretary of State was based. The
+report largely deals with matter already given in this chapter, but
+drawn as it was immediately after the accumulation of the best evidence
+on the subject which could be procured, and for the elicitation of
+which no further opportunity is likely to arise for the present, it
+is desirable that the conclusions arrived at should be given. Having
+stated that during the inquiry the Committee had met with ample
+evidence of the existence of such symptoms as have been described
+above, the report adds that the attention of the Committee had been, by
+personal observation and experience, especially drawn to the causes and
+symptoms of the so-called “ague,” of which the members had no reason
+to doubt zinc fumes were the efficient cause; that it considered the
+danger of working in the several alloys was proportionate to the amount
+of zinc contained; that the danger was increased by the use of such
+ingredients as discarded locomotive and boiler tubes, and such-like
+scrap; also that the symptoms were caused by the inhalation of the
+zinc fumes, and by the introduction of the particles of zinc into
+the digestive tract with such food as might be eaten in the casting
+shop. The conclusion arrived at was that, “Although in brass-casting,
+as in all other occupations, the practice of personal cleanliness may
+serve to reduce the ill effects incident to the workers’ employment,
+yet if a brass-caster is constantly exposed to the influence of these
+fumes, it remains almost an impossibility that he should pass unscathed
+by them. The most serious efforts, therefore, should be directed by
+manufacturers and artisans alike towards the minimising of the ill
+effects which must of necessity be caused in the process of casting
+by these fumes; and the Committee are convinced, both from personal
+experience and from evidence which they have acquired from witnesses
+of all classes, that the direction of these efforts should lie towards
+securing a proper construction of casting shops, supplemented by a
+system of ventilation conducted on scientific principles.”
+
+Shops properly constructed, scientifically ventilated, adequately
+provided with washing arrangements for the casters, and licensed by a
+competent authority, were the requirements suggested by the Committee
+as being absolutely necessary for the casters. The compulsory wearing
+of mouth coverings during the process of pouring the metal was felt,
+owing to hostile evidence given by the workers themselves, to be
+impossible for recommendation. Finding that “a great many witnesses
+considered milk to be a desirable thing to take when ill, but as a rule
+they preferred to take it at night, finding that it did not agree with
+them so well when taken in the shop, and in many cases witnesses did
+not think milk suited them personally,” the Committee did not consider
+it desirable to recommend the retention of the tentative rule requiring
+manufacturers to provide a supply of milk or other sanitary drink.
+The drinking of milk, however, as well as the wearing of a covering
+to the mouth and nostrils, was recommended for the casters. Further
+recommendations were, leaving the shop for the purpose of taking food,
+frequent ablution, care in the avoidance of taking cold, and of a
+regular and moderate diet.
+
+Apart from the recommendations for optional courses of conduct were
+suggestions for specific rules. It was a matter of sincere regret
+to the Committee to learn that these were in some instances--such,
+for example, as the desired requirement that casting shops should be
+licensed--beyond the powers of enforcement vested in the Secretary of
+State. The special rules which were issued subsequently to the report
+of the Committee underwent a slight modification more recently, and are
+now as follows:--
+
+ Form 271.
+
+ FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS, 1878 TO 1895.
+
+ MIXING AND CASTING OF BRASS AND OF CERTAIN OTHER ALLOYS.
+
+
+ _SPECIAL RULES._
+
+ Under Section 8 of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1891, and
+ Section 28 of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1895, for the
+ processes in the mixing and casting of Brass, Gun Metal, Bell
+ Metal, White Metal, Delta Metal, Phosphor Bronze, and Manilla
+ Mixture.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF OCCUPIERS.
+
+ 1. They shall provide adequate means for facilitating, as far as
+ possible, the emission or escape from the shop of any noxious
+ fumes or dust arising from the above-named processes. Such means
+ shall include the provision of traps or of louvre gratings in
+ the roof or ceiling of any shop in which such processes, or
+ either of them, is or are carried on; or in case of a mixing or
+ casting shop which is situated under any other shop, there shall
+ be provided an adequate flue or shaft (other than any flue or
+ shaft in connection with a furnace or fireplace) to carry any
+ fumes from the mixing or casting shop, by or through any such
+ shop that may be situated above it.
+
+ 2. They shall cause all such mixing or casting shops, whether
+ defined as Factories or as Workshops under the Factory and
+ Workshop Act, 1878, to be cleaned down and limewashed once at
+ least within every twelve months, or once within every six
+ months if so required, by notice in writing from H.M. Inspector
+ of Factories and Workshops, dating from the time when these were
+ last thus cleaned down and limewashed; and they shall record the
+ dates of such cleaning down and lime-washing in a prescribed
+ form of register.
+
+ 3. They shall provide a sufficient supply of metal basins,
+ water, and soap, for the use of all persons employed in such
+ mixing or casting shops.
+
+ 4. They shall not employ, or allow within their Factory or
+ Workshop the employment of, any Woman or Female Young Person,
+ in any process whatever, in any such mixing or casting shop,
+ or in any portion thereof which is not entirely separated by a
+ partition extending from the floor to the ceiling.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF PERSONS EMPLOYED.
+
+ 5. They shall not partake of, or cook any food in any such
+ mixing or casting shop, within a period of at least Ten Minutes
+ after the completion of the last pouring of metal in that shop.
+
+ B. A. WHITELEGGE,
+ _July 10, 1896._ _H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories_.
+
+ (_Note._)--WOMEN and PERSONS under 18 YEARS OF AGE are
+ by the 39th section of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1878,
+ expressly FORBIDDEN either to TAKE A MEAL or to REMAIN in
+ any casting shop during the time stated on the Notice
+ affixed in the factory or workshop as being allowed for
+ meals; and the obligation of enforcing this section rests
+ with the occupier.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ These Rules are required to be posted up in conspicuous places
+ in the Factory or Workshop to which they apply, where they may
+ be conveniently read by the persons employed. Any person who
+ wilfully injures or defaces them is liable to a penalty not
+ exceeding five pounds (Factory and Workshop Act, 1891, section
+ 11). Occupiers of factories and workshop, and persons employed
+ therein, who are bound to observe any special rules, are liable
+ to penalties for non-compliance with the same (Factory and
+ Workshop Act, 1891, sections 9 and 11).
+
+These rules will be found to strike at the three principal causes of
+illness in the workers, viz.: (1) shops either structurally unfit for
+the processes of mixing or casting metal, or equally unfit on account
+of their dirty and zinc-coated condition; (2) the want of opportunity
+afforded to the casters of washing themselves before taking meals; and
+(3) the most pernicious habit, too common hitherto with the workers, of
+taking food in an atmosphere of deflagrated zinc. It will be noticed
+also that a prohibition is laid upon the employment of females in
+casting-shops. Their labour in connection with such work is limited
+to the making of cores, small blocks of sand which are used in the
+formation of hollow castings. The evidence of the witnesses examined
+before the Committee was in favour of this prohibition, also of
+core-making being carried on in a separate shop.
+
+With regard to the other processes met with in brass-working, and which
+have been enumerated in an earlier part of this chapter, it cannot
+be said that they present any causes of illness differing from like
+processes in connection with other metals. Workers in the dipping-shop,
+and to a less extent in the bronzing process, are exposed to inhalation
+of acid fumes, and further, in the former occupation to exposure to the
+weather and to being obliged to stand on very wet floors. In a case
+brought to our notice, the powder used in bronzing contained lead to an
+extent of 7 per cent., a condition which might induce plumbism in the
+worker in the absence of due precaution. The dust which is given off
+during polishing is partly metallic in character, partly composed of a
+mixture of sand and lime, and partly textile fluff worn off the calico
+polishing discs by the process of work. Without doubt such dust should,
+as in all factories, be removed by fans or other ventilating methods
+from the shop. The shops used for lacquering should similarly be freed
+from the unpleasant fumes of the lacquer, which cannot, however,
+be considered in any particular degree injurious to health. A most
+interesting paper read before the Midland Medical Society by Dr William
+Murray (subsequently printed in the _British Medical Journal_,
+2nd June 1900) on Chronic Brass Poisoning, draws attention to another
+rather common form of plumbism caused by the process of “putting
+together” gas fittings, it being customary to solder the joints of
+these fittings with white lead, and then having closed one end of the
+bracket, to suck at the other to ascertain that the work is perfectly
+sound. We have recently met with a case of advanced paralysis in a
+man of forty-five apparently induced by this branch of brass-work. Dr
+Murray deals in detail with his method of treatment of cases of chronic
+brass poisoning, of which as Resident Surgeon of the Birmingham General
+Dispensary he has had considerable experience.
+
+We hope we have shown that, firstly, the conditions of brass-working
+in all its branches require that the shops in which it is carried
+on should be well ventilated in order to secure the escape of the
+“smother” from the casting-shops, and of the conglomerated dusts from
+the polishing rooms; and secondly, these conditions require or rather
+demand habits of personal cleanliness and of self-respect on the part
+of the workers, habits which prescribe temperance, avoidance of taking
+food in the shop, and frequency and regularity of ablution. Such are
+now possible of attainment by the persons whose health is concerned,
+and it rests with themselves alone to make full use of the improvements
+placed within their reach.
+
+Passing from the consideration of brass to that of copper, we find
+that there is little to be said regarding the working of that metal
+descriptive of any injury to health among its workers. Indeed it may
+be doubted whether any traces of such injury can be found. Having
+been mined in many quarters of the globe, the ore is subjected to the
+process of smelting, which, so far as Great Britain is concerned,
+takes place chiefly at Swansea, and also at St Helens and at
+Newcastle-on-Tyne. The qualities of the ores from different mining
+districts vary greatly, and the reducing processes of the ores vary
+correspondingly. Speaking generally, it may be said that the process
+consists of six operations conducted in reverbatory furnaces, termed
+calcining and melting furnaces. At the conclusion of these processes
+the metal, freed from the arsenic, sulphur, and other accessories of
+the ore, is melted and cast into ingots, to be sent in that shape to
+various centres for manufacturing purposes.
+
+During the smelting processes the sulphurous fumes either are collected
+in leaden chambers for purposes of condensation into sulphuric acid,
+or escape through the flues into the outside air. In neither case does
+the worker at the furnace suffer from these fumes, except, perhaps,
+when drawing the furnace he may experience some back draft of sulphur,
+an evil which may readily be met by the wearing of a handkerchief over
+the mouth while engaged in the operation. During recent years it may
+be mentioned that the first of the reducing processes is more commonly
+carried on in the vicinity of the mines, and as a consequence the ore
+on reaching S. Wales is now usually in the form of regulus. The denuded
+state of the country in the neighbourhood of the smelting furnaces
+bears witness to the unhealthy character of sulphur fumes. Dr Arlidge,
+however, notes an analysis of sickness in the Swansea district which
+tends to prove that though the fumes were very productive of acute
+pulmonary disease, yet the death-rate in parts of the country subject
+to their influence was lower than that in adjacent districts. We are
+told by Mr Lewis, who for many years has been the Factory Inspector
+in charge of the Swansea district, that although there is a prevalent
+impression that the furnacemen suffer exceptionally from chest mischief
+owing to the great heat and the fumes, he does not consider that
+they suffer in any degree more than the furnacemen in other metal
+processes. He forms the same opinion as that held by us in respect
+of the brass-workers, namely, that the workers are not sufficiently
+careful of themselves between shifts. He reports that the flue and
+chamber cleaners, as at other smelting works, rarely wear respirators;
+they will not ventilate the flues nor water the dust before commencing
+cleaning operations, and consequently the respiratory organs are more
+or less affected; he cannot find direct evidence of specific illness
+traceable to copper smelting. Mr Lewis attaches considerable importance
+to the provision of high and well-constructed stacks and flues, and to
+the due preparation of the chambers by ventilation and watering before
+the process of their cleaning takes place. No special inquiry having
+been ordered concerning this subject, particular importance attaches to
+Mr Lewis’ opinion.
+
+On the whole we do not consider that copper-working is in any way as
+dangerous an occupation as brass-working, for the pouring of metal
+is not accompanied by the same abundant vapours as in brass pouring,
+besides such vapour as does arise is mainly due to the presence of
+a small quantity of spelter in the mixture. The same precautions as
+advised for brass pourers should be taken, but the need is less;
+we have seen a pouring shop with a perfectly clear atmosphere five
+minutes after the pouring has taken place. A muffler or respirator
+should be worn during the operation, and, as far as we have seen, this
+is generally done. Apart from the pouring we have been struck by the
+excellent health of copper-workers, and as the dust is heavy, and does
+not float in the air, there are none of those respiratory troubles
+which, as we have seen, are the bane of brass-workers. There is one
+danger to which apparently they might be subjected, but we found no
+evidence of its having arisen, and that is from the accumulation of
+the heavy copper dust on the tables or boards at which the men are
+working. It seemed not unreasonable to expect that want of cleanliness
+on the part of the workers would entail digestive troubles from the
+mixing of copper dust with the food. As we have stated, no evidence of
+this is forthcoming. It will be seen that we are unable to confirm Dr
+Arlidge’s view of the dangers to copper-workers from the inhalation
+of copper dust, nor are we able, though contrary to our expectations,
+to assert that men employed in the trade are particularly liable to
+suffer from colic. According to Blaudet, this colic is attended by
+complete prostration, by vomiting and purging, and it is very probable
+that such results would follow, if the men were dirty in their work and
+habits, the introduction of copper dust by food taken into the stomach.
+Opinions are much divided on this subject, and it is possible that
+working in old copper and brass, which are covered with a carbonate
+of copper, may be responsible for the ill effects noticed. According
+to M. Perron of Besançon, clockmakers, who have to handle copper
+freely, suffer from a slow intoxication from it, exhibited by gastric
+derangements, diarrhœa, oppression, and some feverishness, but our own
+experience among copper-workers and other persons does not confirm
+these observations.
+
+The conditions of improvement suggested both for brass and copper
+working are those that should be applied to all manufacturing
+processes. Shops of good construction, well ventilated, and amply
+furnished with lavatory and other sanitary arrangements; these are
+desiderata for the workmen.
+
+ ROBERT M. SIMON.
+ SEYMOUR H. KNYVETT.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXI
+
+ INDIA-RUBBER: DANGERS INCIDENTAL TO THE USE OF
+ BISULPHIDE OF CARBON AND NAPHTHA
+
+
+Indiarubber is used in the manufacture of waterproof garments,
+door-mats, toys for children, insulators of electric wires, tobacco
+pouches, etc. In the production of these articles large numbers of
+people find employment. During my visits to indiarubber works in
+Manchester and London I had several opportunities of observing some of
+the dangers incidental to the trade.
+
+On entering a waterproof garment manufactory one encounters an
+extremely pungent vapour, which dries and heats the nose and throat,
+and is apt to make the eyes run water. This is the fume that comes from
+naphtha, which is used to dissolve the rubber and to form the dough
+that is spread as a thin layer by means of a roller machine upon the
+cloth about to be waterproofed. Both coal tar and mineral naphtha are
+employed. The vapour of naphtha is extremely irritating, and can be
+detected over the whole of the factory. The colour of the waterproofed
+material depends upon the pigment that is employed. If, for example,
+black is wanted, all that has to be added to the dough, composed of
+indiarubber and naphtha, is lamp black. The men who feed the roller
+machines, and who regulate the distribution of the dough upon the
+cloth, are constantly breathing the irritating atmosphere, but I did
+not find any special complaint in regard to it from them. It is the
+girls who work in the overheated and often overcrowded rooms of the
+factory that suffer most. They are usually very anæmic and complain
+much of headache. So saturated are they with the fumes of naphtha
+that even after they have left the factory they still feel the taste
+of naphtha in their food. In the workrooms these girls are employed
+rolling and pressing the garments; joining the seams, etc., by rubber
+dissolved in naphtha. On a winter’s night, when the gas is full ablaze,
+the air of the workroom is extremely pungent, so that girls are often
+obliged to leave the room and go into the open air for a short period.
+The fumes of naphtha are more unpleasant than really dangerous; still
+there is no doubt that the constant inhalation of these fumes during
+working hours and the distaste for food thereby created cannot but in
+time undermine the health of the female worker, and render her more or
+less unfit for duty.
+
+The dangerous process in the manufacture of indiarubber goods is not
+that in which naphtha is used, but _bisulphide of carbon_. In
+order to render rubber goods capable of withstanding alternations
+of heat and cold, and of retaining their elasticity in all kinds of
+weather, they must be _vulcanised_. The vulcanising agent is
+either the common flowers of sulphur or a compound of sulphur. When
+50 to 60 per cent. of sulphur is added to rubber there is obtained a
+very hard product known as _ebonite_. Considerable care has to be
+taken in using sulphur. If, for example, too much sulphur is added to
+rubber, the goods become hard; 5 per cent. gives good elasticity. There
+are various ways of bringing indiarubber goods under the influence of
+sulphur. It may be done in the primary mixing of the dough, so that
+all that is subsequently required in the treatment of the waterproofed
+materials is exposure to a great heat, say 260° F. in a closed oven.
+Another method is to hang up non-vulcanised waterproofed goods for
+several hours in a hot stove in which there is a basin containing
+chloride of sulphur heated over a flame. These processes can scarcely
+be called dangerous, for they are conducted in closed chambers.
+The real danger lies in using as the vulcanising agent bisulphide
+of carbon, to which is often added a small quantity of chloride of
+sulphur. The bisulphide of carbon has an extremely offensive odour: it
+is very volatile and highly inflammable, but it is an excellent solvent
+for caoutchouc. To vulcanise indiarubber goods by means of bisulphide
+of carbon, the materials are passed through a solution containing
+about one thousand parts of bisulphide of carbon and from two to ten
+of chloride of sulphur. The indiarubber is dissolved by the carbon
+bisulphide and becomes incorporated with the sulphur given up by the
+chloride.
+
+It is difficult to prevent the nauseating, offensive, and repellent
+vapour given off by carbon bisulphide penetrating the atmosphere of
+a workroom even when the room is provided with fans. Fortunately, in
+some respects, the work is carried on in the top storey of the factory.
+Here the long webs of cloth coated with indiarubber are vulcanised by
+being passed through a trough of bisulphide of carbon placed in front
+of rollers. Escaping at the distal end of the machine the cloth is
+afterwards hung up to dry. All the time the men are at work in this
+room they are exposed to the vapour of the bisulphide. Inhalation
+of the vapour is liable to induce a subacute inflammatory condition
+of the nerves of the limbs known as _peripheral neuritis_, in
+consequence of which men lose the power in their arms and legs. Some of
+the men whom I examined had been paralysed in their lower extremities,
+had been off work for several months, and had only slowly regained
+the use of their limbs. Occasionally men may work as long as three or
+four years in the bisulphide department without becoming paralysed.
+Before actually losing the power in their legs the men suffer from
+inco-ordination; they stagger when walking. The workmen complain of the
+carbon bisulphide vapour making them drowsy and of their sleep being
+heavy. After working for a few hours in the vulcanising department,
+they feel tired and sleepy. Thick or foggy weather rather tends to
+favour the development of these unpleasant symptoms.
+
+The pernicious effects of bisulphide of carbon are by no means
+confined to the men. The women and girls who dip very fine indiarubber
+goods--for example, children’s balloons, tobacco pouches, etc.--into
+the bisulphide, suffer even more severely than the men. The poisoning
+shows itself under two forms. In one the symptoms which are slowly
+developed are dizziness, headache, vomiting, lassitude, and not
+infrequently paralysis of the arms or legs. Many of the female workers
+complain of tasting the nauseous bisulphide in their food. The appetite
+thus becomes impaired. In the other form of poisoning, which may be
+spoken of as acute, the individual is really intoxicated. Girls have
+told me that on leaving the factory at night they have simply staggered
+home, they have even fallen as if drunk, or at the end of a day’s work
+they have had a splitting headache, and on reaching home have sat down,
+tired out, and fallen asleep before touching their evening meal. This
+sleep is heavy and non-refreshing. In the morning they drag themselves
+to the factory feeling ill and headachy, and, like people who are
+accustomed to the intemperate use of alcohol, they only get relief and
+recover their nervous equilibrium by renewed inhalation of the vapour
+of the bisulphide of carbon. Sad as this state of things is, it is
+nothing to the extremely violent maniacal condition into which some
+of the workers, both male and female, are known to have been thrown.
+Some of them have become the victims of acute insanity, and in their
+frenzy have precipitated themselves from the top rooms of the factory
+to the ground. In consequence of bisulphide of carbon being extremely
+explosive, vulcanisation by means of it has generally to be carried
+on in rooms, one side of which is perfectly open. This open front is
+usually protected by iron bars.
+
+Bisulphide of carbon, in addition to causing paralysis of the
+limbs and an exalted condition of the brain, induces a temporary
+form of amblyopia, or blindness. Women often suffer from excessive
+menstruation, and, if pregnant, they may abort. Girls sometimes become
+hysterical and excited. This form of _toxic hysteria_, like
+that in plumbism, often masks a deeper form of bisulphide of carbon
+poisoning. The individual becomes extremely loquacious; she shouts or
+sings, becomes very irritable, and may, when in this mood, perpetrate
+acts that are beyond her control and even beyond her consciousness.
+Just as in some people, after the excitement of alcoholic intoxication
+has passed off, there comes a stage of depression, physical and mental,
+so too after intoxication by bisulphide of carbon there is a period
+marked by great weakness of mind and body. Prolonged exposure to the
+vapour of bisulphide induces an enfeeblement of the intelligence that
+recalls the mental weakness of chronic alcoholic inebriety.
+
+In addition to the risks from naphtha and bisulphide of carbon,
+indiarubber workers are said to be liable to consumption. Dr Philip of
+Edinburgh states that within a period of eight years he had under his
+care in the Hospital for Consumption 70 indiarubber workers, and that
+85 per cent. of these suffered from respiratory diseases, the bulk of
+which was phthisis. His experience as to pulmonary phthisis has not
+been altogether confirmed by that of medical men elsewhere.
+
+_Prevention of Poisoning._--Ventilation of the workrooms is of the
+first importance. This cannot be secured by open windows alone. Owing
+to the inflammability of carbon bisulphide no fires and no naked lights
+are allowed in the workroom. The workpeople complain, therefore, of
+the cold, and as a consequence cannot but have their vital resistance
+reduced thereby. The air of this particular part of the factory is
+redolent of the offensive odour coming from the open troughs and
+basins. As carbon bisulphide is heavier than the ordinary atmosphere,
+the artificial means of ventilation that are required are such as shall
+draw the air of the workroom downwards away from the worker. No young
+person should be allowed to work in the vulcanisation of indiarubber
+by means of carbon bisulphide, nor should any adult be allowed to work
+more than five hours a day--two and a half at a stretch--separated by
+at least an hour’s interval, which should be spent in the open air, if
+possible, and away from the factory.
+
+This is a kind of work in which there ought to be alternation of
+employment. All receptacles containing carbon bisulphide when not
+in use should be covered. The machines should be provided with
+down-draught suction fans. During the drying of the vulcanised
+waterproof goods no person should be allowed to enter the room where
+these products are hanging unless on business that is absolutely
+necessary. Naphtha receptacles should, when not in use, be kept
+covered. No food should be eaten in the bisulphide department, and
+it should be discouraged also where naphtha is used. Girls say that
+they sometimes can only eat food in the workrooms, because they do
+not taste the naphtha there. In the open air the food tastes as
+though it contained naphtha. Workers in the bisulphide process should
+be medically examined once a month, and the slightest indication of
+commencing paralysis or other nervous manifestation should be followed
+by suspension from work. Five hundred cubic feet of air space should be
+allowed to each worker.
+
+Poisoning by bisulphide of carbon in its minor form generally
+disappears on removing the individual from his employment. By many of
+the workers, particularly girls who are extremely poor and ill-fed,
+suspension from work would be keenly felt, for to them the loss of the
+weekly wage is a serious matter. When peripheral neuritis has been
+induced and causes paralysis, recovery is usually tedious. The patient
+under these circumstances should be taken to a hospital, where under
+the influence of good food, rest, electricity, and tonic treatment,
+health will in most instances be regained.
+
+In the _Allgm. Medic. Central Zeitung_, 22nd December 1900,
+Lazarus, a surgeon-dentist, draws attention to a new malady to which
+workers in gutta-percha are liable. In one year he observed twenty
+cases of dental caries and necrosis of the jawbone not unlike that met
+with in lucifer matchmakers, and known as phosphorus necrosis. Those
+workers, who on entering the factory were already the subjects of
+decayed teeth and carious stumps, are the most predisposed. With the
+exception of a young woman, aged 19 years, and who had worked in the
+factory for only two years all the other females who suffered were from
+25 to 35 years of age. While Lazarus recommends a dental examination of
+the teeth of all the workers before entering a gutta-percha factory, he
+offers no suggestion as to the probable causes of the necrosis of the
+jaw in the patients who came under his care for treatment.
+
+ THOMAS OLIVER.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXII
+
+ THE EFFECTS OF DINITROBENZINE AND OTHER NITRO-SUBSTITUTION
+ PRODUCTS OF THE AROMATIC SERIES ON THE WORKMEN EMPLOYED IN THE
+ MANUFACTURE OF HIGH EXPLOSIVES.
+
+
+There are about fourteen authorised explosives in use in the United
+Kingdom, all of which contain, more or less, naphthalene and the
+aromatic nuclei, benzine, toluene, either singly or combined. These
+nuclei, when nitrated, form the usual combustible elements in high
+explosives.
+
+The dinitro compounds of benzine exist in three varieties, ortho, meta,
+and para. The ordinary commercial form consists almost entirely of
+metadinitrobenzine, and is generally used in the manufacture of high
+explosives. This is in some cases mixed with a chlorinated hydrocarbon.
+The metadinitrobenzine is usually commercially pure, it rarely contains
+a trace of mononitrobenzine, or the lower oxides of nitrogen. A little
+free acid is generally found which colours the crystals yellow, and
+stains the hands of the workmen. It is very sensibly volatile at a
+temperature of 48° C. At ordinary temperatures it is solid, as are also
+its isomerides, para and orthonitrobenzine.
+
+The proportions used in the various explosives differ very largely,
+ranging from 5 to 20 per cent. in the finished explosives. In a smaller
+number the mono, di, and tri nitrobenzine, toluene, and naphthalene are
+employed either alone or in combination.
+
+When comparing the poisonous nature of these substances, naphthalene is
+probably not poisonous, whilst some of the toluene compounds are more
+poisonous than the benzine.
+
+There is evidence that, generally speaking, the higher the nitration
+of the aromatic series, the more dangerous these substances are to
+manipulate.
+
+This is borne out by the following investigations, which we
+communicated to the _Lancet_, August 31, 1901:--
+
+“We found that mononitrobenzine when given by the mouth to cats was
+quite harmless, they seemed rather to thrive and grow fat upon it.
+Dinitrobenzine is exceedingly poisonous both to men and animals. 1.2
+grammes given to a cat by the mouth proved fatal in about three hours.
+The smallest lethal dose for a cat of 6 lb. in weight, given by the
+mouth in one dose, was .08 gramme. In another instance .06 gramme given
+in the same manner was almost fatal. A lethal dose of .09 gramme of
+dinitrobenzine, when given over a consecutive number of days in divided
+doses of .04, .02, .01, and .02 gramme, did not cause death.”
+
+“Hypodermically, .04 gramme did not prove fatal to a cat.
+
+“In experimenting upon animals with trinitrobenzine, we found that it
+was distinctly but not much more poisonous than dinitrobenzine.
+
+“Coming to the toluene group, the administration of mononitrotoluene
+proved, like its homologue mononitrobenzine, quite inert.
+
+“There is great difference of opinion amongst manufacturers as to
+whether dinitrotoluene has lethal properties or not. The weight of
+evidence rather supports the latter view. We are investigating this
+point (_Lancet_, August 31, 1901).
+
+“Trinitrotoluene is not poisonous under ordinary use.
+
+“For comparative purposes we injected 50 minims of a 1 per cent.
+solution of dinitrobenzine into a cat, with a fatal result. We then
+injected 60 minims of a 1 per cent. solution of trinitrotoluene into
+another cat, with the result that the only effect appeared to be some
+slight cyanosis.
+
+“Again, 90 minims of a 1 per cent. solution of dinitrobenzine given
+hypodermically was quickly fatal to a cat, whilst 90 minims of a 1 per
+cent. trinitrotoluene proved perfectly innocuous.”
+
+This is a very important practical point, as the susceptibility of man
+and animals seems closely allied. In some factories the trinitrotoluene
+has been substituted for dinitrobenzine, with great advantage to the
+health of the workmen employed.
+
+The oxidising bodies used are the nitrates of ammonium, potassium, and
+barium. These do not appear to affect the workmen injuriously.
+
+The gases produced by the complete detonation of these high explosives,
+when well diluted with air, are for all practical purposes harmless.
+
+During the process of the manufacture of these high explosives
+an intimate mixture of the organic compound with the oxidising
+body results. This is effected in the case of chlorinated
+metadinitrobenzine (of which this article chiefly treats), by the
+processes of grinding, melting at a temperature of 98.9° C., cooling,
+mixing in a closed, heated, jacketed pan at a temperature of 80° C.,
+and finally filling in air-tight cartridges.
+
+_Poisonous Dose._--Dinitrobenzine is a potent poison, whether
+introduced into the stomach, injected into the circulation, absorbed as
+it readily is by the skin, or inhaled in the form of vapour.
+
+The poisonous dose of dinitrobenzine for an animal, cat, or dog of six
+pounds in weight averages about .08 gramme; in the same proportion for
+a man of ten stones weight, it will be about 1.84 grammes.
+
+Dixon Mann (_Forensic Medicine_, 2nd edition) and T. Oliver
+(article in Allbutt’s _System of Medicine_, vol. ii.) do not
+mention the poisonous dose, but in all probability a dose of under 1
+gramme by the mouth will be lethal.
+
+In fatal cases death takes place within twenty-four hours from a single
+dose. If animals live beyond that time, there is a strong probability
+of their ultimate recovery.
+
+A marked characteristic of dinitrobenzine is the ease and rapidity with
+which, when mixed with fat, it passes through the skin into the system.
+We found that a 25 per cent. ointment in lanoline, rubbed into the skin
+of a cat, caused death in twenty-four hours, and 400 milligrammes of
+lanoline containing .1 gramme of dinitrobenzine, when rubbed into the
+groins of a man, produced lividity, cyanosis, and other pathognomonic
+symptoms in a few hours. No doubt the secretions of the cutaneous
+glands facilitate absorption when the powder settles on the skin. It
+is probable that all the nitro derivatives of the aromatic series pass
+readily through the skin. In most works, handling any of these crude
+compounds for any length of time without gloves is prohibited, being
+considered dangerous.
+
+The concentrated vapour is dangerous in small doses, and fatal in
+large. A workman breathing for ten minutes the air in a flue through
+which pure dinitrobenzine had passed from the mixing pans, died from
+the effects eighteen hours later.
+
+Judging from experiments upon animals, the poisonous dose, if injected
+hypodermically, is about half that taken by the mouth.
+
+Poisoning divides itself naturally into acute, subacute, and chronic.
+
+_Acute Poisoning._--Fatal acute cases are rare, and have been
+noted chiefly on account of their interest from a medico-legal point
+of view. The symptoms are nausea and vomiting, intense congestive
+headache, faintness and giddiness, loss of control over the limbs,
+numbness, tingling in tongue and lips, and other subjective sensations.
+A characteristic symptom is deep cyanosis; lips, fingers, and tongue
+are deeply cyanosed, nearly black in the early stage. The skin becomes
+cold and clammy, the pulse quick and weak, often over 120 a minute.
+It is small, thready, and feeble, and shows a very low condition
+of arterial tension. The capillaries are freely dilated, and cause
+the line of descent in sphygmographic tracings to be very rapid. In
+all severe cases the pulse is fully dicrotic, and displays well the
+loss of vasomotor tone, which is one of the most marked features in
+these cases. The heart’s action is easily excited by exertion, the
+breathing is laboured, and the urine darkened. The eyes become bright
+and glassy, the features pale and ghastly, and coma supervenes, which
+lasts for many hours. Exceptional symptoms are noises in the head, or
+dark specks floating before the eyes. When larger doses of the poison
+have been absorbed, unconsciousness may become complete. The eyes then
+roll slowly from side to side, the pupils are widely dilated, and the
+conjunctivæ are insensitive to touch. Both the deep and superficial
+reflexes are in abeyance. The respirations are increased to even double
+the normal number, become irregular, and Cheyne-Stokes in character.
+The limbs become quite flaccid, or one or more of the joints remain
+stiff, and when this is the case it is usually those of the upper
+limbs. Eventually this stiffness entirely disappears. The hands, feet,
+and face become remarkably bloodless. Occasionally there is œdema
+of the lips and eyelids, or dropsy of the lower extremities. The
+temperature ranges from 99° F. to 102° F. (_Lancet_, November 1,
+1902, p. 89).
+
+_Subacute Poisoning._--Subacute attacks may supervene upon
+chronic poisoning, in which, besides the usual chronic conditions to
+be mentioned later, we find a distinct distaste for food, especially
+breakfast. Sometimes there is nausea, or there may be slight vomiting.
+This should always be a warning sign, for, if neglected, coma may
+follow.
+
+The attacks vary in severity according to the amount of the poison
+absorbed. The symptoms noticed are:--Headache, with throbbing of the
+temples and forehead, great langour and depression, the urine becomes
+darkened in colour, the hands moist; there is drowsiness, with great
+tendency to sleep; the men say it is impossible to keep awake. During
+the night they sleep soundly unless prevented by an incessant headache.
+In the morning they awake unrefreshed and heavy. The tongue is fairly
+clean though dark in colour, and develops a yellowish fur; dull, heavy
+pains are felt in the back. Breathing is quick and short, and fatigue
+follows upon the least exertion. Pricking, tingling, and numbness
+in the extremities are complained of when walking; workmen when so
+affected may take three hours to cover as many miles; they stagger, do
+not know where their legs are, frequently fall, and are unable to pick
+themselves up readily. When asked to walk backwards with their eyes
+closed, their movements are very unsteady. These symptoms practically
+disappear if the men leave work a few days; after such rest they say
+they feel in excellent health and spirits.
+
+_Chronic Poisoning._--The more common manifestations may be
+denominated chronic, as they are found after prolonged absorption of
+small doses of the poison, and many of them persist for a long time,
+at least many months, even after the workmen have left this special
+occupation. All workers who are brought into intimate contact with this
+poison show more or less the following:--
+
+Upon careful examination of the cases, it is found that those employed
+suffer from a very severe form of anæmia. The ruddy hue of health
+disappears; the skin becomes dirty yellow-greyish in colour. This
+duskiness gradually deepens with the amount of poison absorbed,
+and decreases as it becomes eliminated. This objective symptom is
+especially marked in the mucous membrane. The men appear to be
+suffering from partial asphyxia. The conjunctivæ show a jaundiced tinge.
+
+_Muscular System._--The effects of the poison are shown in a
+marked manner upon the muscular system. The men have not the appearance
+of being employed in manual labour. When stripped the muscles are seen
+to be flaccid and the skin loose. The body lacks fullness and firmness.
+All movements lose tone and precision. Fatigue quickly follows muscular
+exertion.
+
+In long-continued cases the objective symptoms are occasionally
+remarkable, such as wasting of the muscles, especially those of
+the extremities. This has been particularly pointed out by Dr Ross
+(_Medical Chronicle_, May 1889). “The muscles of the hands are
+seen to be very much atrophied. The spaces between the metacarpal bones
+are more distinctly marked than is normal, and the grooves between them
+very noticeable. The muscles of the thenar and hypo-thenar eminences
+are soft and distinctly wasted, especially the abductor indices.
+Patients cannot, without considerable trouble and difficulty, cause
+the tips of the thumb and little finger to meet. Sometimes this is more
+observable in one hand than the other. The phalangeal joints must be
+bent, otherwise there is inability to flex the thumb strongly into the
+palm, and at the same time the power of adduction is feeble.
+
+“All the finer and more delicate movements of the hands are greatly
+restricted in severe cases. Small objects such as pins and needles
+cannot be readily felt or held. The act of walking loses much of its
+elasticity and spring, and in consequence the balance of the body is
+with difficulty maintained. The big toe in the advancing foot does not
+manifestly drop; it is only slightly flexed into the sole. There is
+usually no ankle drop, and the power of raising the toes whilst the
+foot is flat on the ground is not lost. The symptoms of weakness and
+paresis observed in the muscles of the foot are not so well-marked as
+those seen in the hand.”
+
+_Nervous Symptoms._--Pains of a shooting, stabbing, or darting
+character are of very frequent occurrence. They are felt in all parts
+of the body, a common position being under the heart or in the armpit,
+neck, or jaws. The legs are rarely affected. When the pains are in
+the locality of the stomach they are of a griping nature. Sometimes
+a smarting or burning sensation is described, which is felt in the
+cheeks, forehead, and eyes, or restricted to the soles of the feet.
+These sensations are not accompanied by tenderness to the touch.
+
+More or less irritation of the peripheral nerves is always present. It
+shows itself by tingling and itching of the skin of the fingers, palms,
+and backs of the hands, sometimes extending to the wrists. In a certain
+proportion of cases they are felt in the feet as well as the hands.
+They may be restricted to the feet, and only noticed when the men have
+their boots on, or their legs crossed. Whilst sitting, or at rest in
+bed, the pains are often acute. They are invariably confined to the
+dorsum of the foot, never being felt in the soles, and disappear upon
+standing or walking. Occasionally these symptoms are more severe in the
+extremity or extremities of one side of the body.
+
+Hyperæsthesia is a most characteristic feature in all these chronic
+cases of poisoning. In all cases it is present, but it varies both
+in intensity and in the part of the body affected. It may be felt
+in one or both feet, restricted to the upper or under surfaces of
+the toes. Striking the outside, or dorsum of the foot, causes severe
+electric-like pains to run all over the leg. In a well-marked case
+there will be exceeding tenderness upon the slightest pressure on any
+part of the foot. Drawing the finger very gently over these sensitive
+areas sends shooting pains about four inches up the legs. The soles of
+the feet are not affected by a light touch, but a sharp blow, tap, or
+jar, or a false step in walking causes painful sensations as high as
+the knees. These symptoms are usually more acute in the left than the
+right leg. The upper extremity is in like manner affected; a gentle
+rub on a small part of the cutaneous distribution of the ulnar nerve
+will produce general formication and tingling all over the arm. Partial
+hemianæsthesia, with a small patch excessively tender, may be present.
+This is probably hysterical. Dr Dreschfeld points out that Charcot,
+Balmskz, and Marie have found this same symptom in bisulphide of carbon
+poisoning, viz., hemianæsthesia with small circumscribed hyperæsthetic
+areas. The nerve trunks of the legs or arms are sensitive to pressure
+where superficial; and great pain is caused all over the area of
+distribution of the occipital nerve by pressure on the nerve trunk.
+
+The muscles are often very tender, especially those of the upper arm.
+Touch is often impaired in the fingers and toes. Patients almost
+invariably complain that the skin of the hands and soles of the feet
+is less sensitive than is usual in the healthy state. The fingers are
+numb and act clumsily, while the hands feel as if they were gloved.
+The impression of sand or snow is conveyed to the feet when standing
+or walking. Heat and cold are with difficulty differentiated. In
+one sufferer two test-tubes containing water, differing 10 degrees
+in temperature, being applied to the arms and trunk, were readily
+distinguished, but from the hips downwards the patient was utterly
+unable to discover which of the two tubes was the hotter. If applied
+simultaneously about three inches apart, both were experienced as
+cold. Generally speaking the skin of the body is more sensitive than
+that of the limbs, but in all parts variations occur. Upon using a
+Faradic current of a given strength, which was with difficulty borne
+by the thighs, arms, and trunk, there was no perceptible impression
+produced in the calves or legs. In these situations the compasses must
+be separated three inches, to be distinguished as two points. The
+transmission of touch and pain are slower than normal, or at any rate
+are not as readily responded to as in health. The extremities become
+very quickly chilled. On the slightest exposure to a low temperature
+the fingers look pale, bloodless, and feel as if they were dead, and
+the feet are always cold. Hearing and taste are unaffected. There
+is great loss of energy. Feebleness, lassitude, and depression are
+invariable concomitants. The sexual appetite is notoriously weakened,
+or lost, and erections of the penis rare. The reflexes, superficial and
+deep, are very variable; sometimes they are exaggerated; this, however,
+is not usual. Generally speaking, they are enfeebled. Dr Reynolds
+mentions a case where the patient was comatose and the knee-jerk
+persistent. Cremasteric and plantar reflexes are those most commonly
+absent. The muscles react readily to a moderate Faradic current, but
+different groups of muscles vary in their sensitiveness to the same
+strength of current.
+
+_Eye Affections._--Dinitrobenzine produces a distinct toxic defect
+of vision similar in many respects to that caused by tobacco, iodoform,
+bisulphide of carbon, etc. This amblyopia will be found in a varying
+degree in all those who suffer periodically from subacute attacks
+of poisoning, or who develop other symptoms due to the continued
+absorption of the poison. Susceptibility may aggravate the symptoms,
+but no worker can claim perfect immunity. Comparatively few complain
+of any impairment to their sight, but probably about one in ten are
+unknowingly affected. Dr Neiden (_Edinburgh Medical Journal_,
+1889) and Mr Simeon Snell (_British Medical Journal_, 1894) have
+described the eye affections. The latter summarises his conclusions as
+follows:--“Failure of sight, often to a considerable degree in both
+eyes, concentric contraction of the visual field, with in many cases a
+central colour scotoma, some blurring, never extensive, of the edges of
+the disc, and a varying degree of pallor of its surface.”
+
+In all cases absence from the work removes these symptoms in a varying
+length of time: and usually a restricted exposure will alleviate them.
+
+_Urinary Affection._--In cases of long-continued chronic
+poisoning, dinitrobenzine will always be found free in the urine
+(Dixon Mann). In the urine of animals, tube casts, brown flakes, and
+hæmoglobin have been isolated, and in the kidneys much cloudy swelling
+of the epithelium lining the tubules can be seen (Strassmann and
+Strecker).
+
+We tested the blood, lungs, liver, spleen, and urine from several
+cats poisoned by dinitrobenzine. In only one sample, the urine from a
+cat which died from chronic poisoning, could any indication be found.
+Both sugar and albumen are generally absent. The source of the bile
+pigments is the hæmoglobin of the blood, and the excretion of these
+pigments points to the existence of some cause at work in the blood
+leading to the destruction of hæmoglobin. The large deposit of urates,
+high specific gravity and presence of biliary pigments found in the
+urine, is strong corroborative evidence of an active destruction of
+blood corpuscles.
+
+No experimental evidence has yet proved that reduction takes place
+in the body in case of the nitro-compounds of benzine to aniline, or
+phenylene-diamine.
+
+In several samples of urine tested, both nitrates and nitrites were
+present, so that in the case of phenylene-diamine being present, the
+pigment Bismarck brown would be formed, and would give the urine a
+brown tint.
+
+The samples of urine were tested for free dinitrobenzine by the
+following method: The urine is treated with zinc and hydrochloric acid
+for some hours. Any dinitrobenzine that may be present is reduced
+by the nascent hydrogen into phenylene-diamine. The urine is then
+alkalised with caustic soda, and well shaken up with ether. The ether
+is then separated, filtered, and evaporated. The residue is treated
+with dilute acetic acid and nitrite of soda, when a yellow or brown
+coloration shows the presence of dinitrobenzine in the original sample.
+In three cases a slight indication was found.
+
+By ordinary reducing agents in the laboratory, such as nascent
+hydrogen, the nitro-substitution compounds of benzine can easily be
+reduced as follows:--
+
+Mononitrobenzine to aniline.
+
+Dinitrobenzine to phenylene-diamine.
+
+Trinitrobenzine to triamidobenzine.
+
+The amount of urea is generally high, due to increased metabolism of
+the tissues.
+
+The exact chemical changes which take place in the body are extremely
+difficult to follow. The nitro-compounds probably pass through the body
+without suffering any change, or they may be reduced in the body.
+
+It will be noticed in the subsequent table that all the samples are
+acid, many being strongly so. Nearly all are dark-brown in colour
+and generally precipitate a red deposit, principally urates. In most
+of these urobilin is present, and can be easily recognised by the
+following test: 100 c.c. of the urine are acidified with 10 drops of
+strong hydrochloric acid, and then shaken with 20 c.c. of chloroform.
+The chloroform which falls to the bottom is separated by means of a
+separating funnel, and filtered into a test-tube, .4 c.c. of a solution
+of 1 gramme of crystallised acetate of zinc dissolved in a litre of 95
+per cent. alcohol is then poured gently down the side of the test-tube,
+and at the junction where the liquids meet, a green fluorescent ring,
+characteristic of urobilin, will appear; the solution on shaking will
+become fluorescent, being green by transmitted, and rose-coloured by
+reflected light. This pigment can also be detected by means of the
+spectroscope.
+
+_Urine._--In severe cases of dinitrobenzine poisoning, the urine
+becomes of a dark, tawny, port-wine colour. There is no irritation or
+frequency in making water.
+
+The following table represents the examination of the urine from very
+mild cases, such as can any day be found amongst men handling, or
+breathing the fumes of dinitrobenzine.
+
+_Pathology: The Blood._--Active metabolism takes place at once
+upon contact of the blood tissue with dinitrobenzine, and this may
+induce a febrile rise of temperature. The blood becomes thin and dark
+in colour, varying from chocolate-brown to black. The number of blood
+corpuscles is greatly diminished, in some cases less than half the
+normal number. The amount of hæmoglobin averages 35 per cent. MacMunn
+describes the presence of large coloured megalocytes, 12 µ in diameter;
+the ordinary red corpuscles are smaller than normal, about 5 µ or 6 µ
+in diameter; many are crenated and broken up.
+
+Haldane (_Journal of Physiology_, vol. xxi., 1897), in carefully
+conducted experiments on mice, “finds spectroscopically a feebly-marked
+band in the red besides the oxyhæmoglobin bands; but it was not
+methæmoglobin. Methæmoglobin is contained in the blood, but some
+other pigment is probably present.” In men we were able to obtain
+the oxyhæmoglobin band, but it was always blurred. Whether there is
+a special dinitro band in the blood is a disputed point; it has been
+investigated in animals by Huber and Röhl (_Über akute u. chron.
+Intox durch Nitrokorp d. Benzolreihe_, 1890).
+
+
+ _URINARY ANALYSIS_
+
+ +---+-------------+----------------+-----------+-----------+
+ |No.| Sp. Gr. | Appearance. | Colour. |Reaction to|
+ | |Water = 1000.| | | Litmus. |
+ +---+-------------+----------------+-----------+-----------+
+ | 1 | 1029 | Clear | Red brown | Acid |
+ | 2 | 1030 | Clear | Yellow | Acid |
+ | 3 | 1024 |Slight pp. mucus| Yellow | Acid |
+ | 4 | 1021 |Slight pp. mucus| Red brown | Acid |
+ | 5 | 1025 | Heavy red pp. | Red brown | Acid |
+ | 6 | 1027 | Clear | Red brown | Acid |
+ | 7 | 1026 |Thick white pp. |Pale yellow| Acid |
+ | 8 | 1026 | Red deposit | Red brown | Acid |
+ | 9 | 1022 | Red deposit | Red brown | Acid |
+ |10 | 1022 | Clear | Yellow | Acid |
+ |11 | 1027 | Red deposit | Red brown | Acid |
+ |12 | 1025 | Red deposit | Red brown | Acid |
+ |13 | 1024 | Red deposit | Red brown | Acid |
+ +---+-------------+----------------+-----------+-----------+
+
+ Part 2 of table.
+
+ +---+-------------+---------+--------+---------+-------+---------+--------------+
+ |No.| Sp. Gr. | Urea |Albumen.| Bile |Sugar. |Urobilin.|Dinitrobenzol.|
+ | |Water = 1000.|per cent.| |Pigments.| | | |
+ +---+-------------+---------+--------+---------+-------+---------+--------------+
+ | 1 | 1029 | 2.6 | Nil | Nil | Nil | Nil | Nil |
+ | 2 | 1030 | ... | ... | ... |Present| ... | Nil |
+ | 3 | 1024 | ... | Nil | Nil | Nil | Nil | Nil |
+ | 4 | 1021 | ... | Nil | Nil | Nil | Nil | Nil |
+ | 5 | 1025 | ... | Nil | Nil | Nil | Present | Trace |
+ | 6 | 1027 | 3.3 | Nil | Nil | Nil | Nil | Faint trace |
+ | 7 | 1026 | 2.9 | Nil | Nil | Nil | Nil | Faint trace |
+ | 8 | 1026 | 3.1 | Nil | Nil | Nil | Present | Nil |
+ | 9 | 1022 | 3.0 | Nil | Nil | Nil | Present | Nil |
+ |10 | 1022 | 2.8 | Nil | Nil | Nil | Nil | Nil |
+ |11 | 1027 | 3.1 | Trace | Trace | Nil | Present | Nil |
+ |12 | 1025 | 2.9 | Nil | Nil | Nil | Present | Nil |
+ |13 | 1024 | 2.8 | Nil | Nil | Nil | Present | Nil |
+ +---+-------------+---------+--------+---------+-------+---------+--------------+
+
+Dinitrobenzine is a powerful narcotic poison. Death in acute cases
+is due to coma in man. Convulsions are frequently and generally
+observed in animals. It is a powerful disintegrator of the blood, and
+in dogs, cats, and rabbits causes oligocythemia, poikilocytosis, and
+hæmoglobinæmia. So great is the destruction of the blood corpuscles
+that Haldane attributes all the symptoms to the want of oxygen
+consequent on changes in the blood. In chronic poisoning men exhibit
+the features of a peripheral neuritis, although this point has not
+been confirmed by pathological investigation. Strassmann and Strecker
+(Friedreich’s _Blätter für gerichtliche Medizin_, 1896), in dogs,
+have obtained, by staining, degeneration of the lateral columns of
+the cord. They also found irritation and catarrh of the stomach and
+intestines, and after large doses small extravasations of broken-down
+blood-clot, with swelling and cloudiness of the mucous membrane of the
+stomach. There is also evidence of much tissue degeneration in the
+organs, probably fatty. In men, post-mortem, we find that the lividity
+entirely disappears, the skin becomes pale, and all the internal
+organs, such as the heart, lungs, and liver, are of a pale yellowish
+cast, and more friable than usual. The brain is of a dull pink colour,
+and the veins of the body, and especially the meninges, are filled with
+a thin, characteristically-fluid, black blood.
+
+_Prognosis._--Prognosis in cases of poisoning by dinitrobenzine
+depends upon the amount absorbed, the time the men have been exposed
+to it, and their previous health. The headache and general malaise
+caused by small doses are usually recovered from in the course of a
+few days. A week’s absence from work enables the men to regain their
+usual energy, the appetite and urine becoming normal. Anæmia is a
+very persistent trouble. If the number of blood corpuscles becomes
+greatly decreased, it takes months to restore them. The peculiar dusky
+colour of the skin can be detected by those who are conversant with
+this symptom, even weeks after ceasing work. In cases of coma hours
+may elapse before consciousness returns. Recovery has taken place
+after insensibility lasting eight to twelve hours. In one fatal case
+consciousness returned after nearly sixteen hours’ insensibility, but
+death suddenly occurred half-an-hour afterwards, when the man was
+being raised quickly and carelessly from the recumbent position. Cases
+which are going to terminate fatally usually do so within twenty-four
+hours. Some months may elapse before muscular power is fully restored.
+The profound anæmia does not leave its mark permanently, it is
+eventually entirely recovered from when the workers are removed to
+other occupations. Workmen often affirm that after a time they become
+accustomed to the effect of the poison. This is not so, any more than
+individuals can become habituated to taking alcohol without being
+affected by it. In the early stages of employment the workers notice
+and complain of the effects of the poison, as it is new and strange
+to them; eventually they come to regard the symptoms as necessary to
+the work, and if slight, know from their own experience that, by more
+care in the manipulation, or absence from work, the symptoms will pass
+away. Any natural weakness is liable to be aggravated, and pre-existing
+anæmia will be made worse.
+
+_Precautions._--With ordinary care the work is but slightly
+harmful, but without care it becomes immediately dangerous. The
+higher the percentage of dinitrobenzine used the greater the risk
+and the necessity for care. The dinitrobenzine used should be, as
+far as possible, chemically pure. We find a small admixture of
+mononitrobenzine makes it more dangerous to manipulate (_Lancet_,
+August 31, 1901). Commercial dinitrobenzine is a deadly poison, however
+introduced into the system. All precautions have for their object the
+prevention of poisonous quantities gaining access to the system, by the
+dilution of the poison, and the avoidance of personal contact. Works
+should be situated in the country. At the erection of the different
+houses, much attention should be given to their construction and
+arrangement. Each should be well isolated; not opening one into the
+other, nor contiguous to another building. Each should be surrounded
+by a plentiful air space, and have ample ventilation. Every house
+should be provided with a lantern roof, containing rain-proof windows
+easily opened and closed. The window space must be ample, and all
+windows capable of being freely opened or entirely taken out. It is
+often necessary to regulate the draught, and on windy days removing
+the windows on the lee side will permit a free current of air, and
+ample exit of the fumes, dust, and heat generated. No house should
+be overcrowded with machinery, and the different processes should
+be conducted as far as possible in separate buildings. All vessels,
+melting pots, cooling trays, or pans containing a heated compound
+must be provided with efficient and well-fitting covers, with flues
+leading from them to the outside air. The floors, tables, covers of
+pans, ledges, canisters, etc., in all the houses are to be kept clean
+and free from dust, the powdered compound, and manufactured explosive;
+and no utensils or useless articles are to be allowed in the houses.
+Canisters containing the powder must be kept closed with a well-fitting
+lid. No flue through which heated vapour has passed may be entered by
+any person. The cleaning of such flues must be done automatically, or
+from the outside of the building. Cooling trays should be in a shed
+open on all sides to the external air. A house, or other shelter from
+the weather, should be provided for the workmen to retire from the
+vitiated atmosphere of the house whilst watching the operations.
+
+Wherever possible, the processes of grinding, filling, and emptying
+utensils, hoppers, pans, and cartridges should be done automatically.
+If done by hand, respirators should be used, and the men should be
+careful to stand on the windward side of the pans when the covers
+are off. Washing appliances should be freely supplied, preferably
+near each house. Towels inside the houses are objectionable; even if
+covered up they remain wet. Frequent washing of the hands with soap
+and nail-brushes is most desirable. The face, beard, and head should
+be kept clean, frequently washed, and free from dust. The beard, hair,
+and nails should be cut short. The air in the houses should be kept
+as dry as possible. Moisture in the atmosphere is always followed by
+an increase in sickness. Low temperature and dry atmosphere cause a
+proportionate decrease in the sick-rate. This is accounted for by
+the fact, that moisture makes the powder cling to the exposed parts
+of the body; perspiration has the same effect, as also some of the
+deliquescent salts used. In winter the number of invalids is very
+small, but during the hot summer months is greatly increased. In all
+houses where there is much dust, respirators are essential. They are
+of no use against the vaporised fumes. Cotton respirators fitting
+over the nose and mouth, kept very clean and frequently renewed, are
+least objected to by the workmen. Dr Snell has suggested a diving-bell
+apparatus. Gloves are necessary when handling the material. The
+importance of keeping the interior of the gloves scrupulously clean and
+tight at the wristbands is self-evident.
+
+Special clothing should be provided, fitting well at the neck, wrists,
+and overlapping at the buttons; the caps should fit close. All clothing
+should be regularly washed, and never damp when put on. No overalls
+should be allowed in the eating place; they should be always removed
+before entering, and donned again before going into the working sheds.
+Separate dressing and dining rooms should be provided, suitably
+arranged with washing appliances.
+
+Medical inspection of the works should be made regularly, preferably at
+the end of the week. The difference in the appearance of the employés
+at the beginning and end of the week is very noticeable. The number
+of visits should be not less than once a fortnight. In hot and damp
+muggy weather, where there is extra pressure of work and longer hours,
+and in the more dangerous processes, medical inspection should be more
+frequent.
+
+The inspection should include the sanitary condition of each house,
+ventilation, number of hours worked, composition of the compound,
+condition of each employé, sufficiency of washing and drying
+requisites, the overalls, gloves, respirators, escape of vapour from
+melting pots or flues, dustiness of the air, cleanliness of the houses,
+and freedom of tables, floors, etc., from the powder. The surgeon
+should warn the management of any peculiarly dangerous process,
+suggest the number of hours to be worked, and notify any workman
+whom he thinks unfit for it. He may find it necessary to advise an
+earlier hour to begin work, on account of the heat, and more frequent
+exchange of workers in the different departments of the manufactory.
+In selecting men for work, he should choose men of middle age and
+strong constitution, and, other things being equal, the less frequently
+new hands are taken on the better. Young women, or nursing mothers,
+should not be allowed to work, or handle the crude dinitro, the organic
+compound, or the finished explosive. Pregnancy or anæmia should entail
+dismissal. The medical officer should watch carefully new beginners
+at the work, and initiate proper precautions to prevent chronic cases
+becoming acute. A written notice of employés off work supposed to be
+due to the effects of the poison should be sent to the medical officer
+in charge, so that he may investigate the conditions and causes.
+All employés should be examined and passed by the medical man, and
+their condition noted before being taken on. He may find it necessary
+to prescribe short shifts; this may mean either a short continuous
+number of hours at the work, as in the filling houses; or frequent
+intermission of work, as can be obtained by the mixing house workers.
+Sometimes it is necessary to advise very limited spells of work. The
+process of grinding and cleaning out of flues are operations attended
+with serious risk. About six hours’ work in the mixing and filling
+houses daily is as much as an average man can undertake. Headache,
+sickness, nausea, and distaste for food in the morning should be looked
+upon as warning symptoms, and men so affected should not be allowed to
+persist at the work. Heavy muscular exertion is not desirable for those
+who suffer from anæmia, or the cyanosis caused by the poison.
+
+Alcohol is contra-indicated, and all oils and fats are solvents of
+dinitrobenzine. Lemons, apples, acid fruits and drinks, and milk, are
+usually advised; the two latter may be ordered by the medical man with
+advantage.
+
+_Treatment._--There is no known antidote. Symptoms must be combated
+as they arise. If the poison has been taken into the stomach it must
+be immediately removed by the stomach tube. Oxygen freely inhaled
+and saline infusion are necessary. Artificial warmth, diffusible
+stimulants, and perfect rest must be persisted in until all danger from
+syncope is past. Warm, easily-assimilated liquid food per mouth and
+rectum must be given. Later the anæmia requires general tonics, fresh
+air, and good food.
+
+ ROBERT PROSSER WHITE.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+ DRY CLEANING BY MEANS OF BENZINE
+
+
+The cleaning of gloves and stained garments by means of benzine is an
+occupation which gives employment to large numbers of people. In some
+dry-cleaning establishments naphtha alone is used, so that what has
+already been said of naphtha in connection with indiarubber trades will
+equally apply here. The soiled articles are first washed with naphtha
+and soap in an out-building in which no naked lights are allowed, and
+then put into a revolving cylinder filled with naphtha. When benzine
+is the cleansing agent, two kinds are made use of: (1) a petroleum
+spirit obtained from mineral oil, and (2) spirit obtained from coal
+tar. In several dry-cleaning establishments fires have suddenly, and
+often in a most mysterious and unexplained manner, broken out. They
+have been attributed to friction, electric sparks, and to accidental
+ignition of the spirit by lucifer matches concealed in the clothes.
+One of the first things attended to on the arrival of garments to be
+cleaned is a thorough turning inside out of all the pockets, and the
+removal particularly of any matches that may have been left therein,
+also a stripping-off of all metallic buttons from coats, jackets,
+etc. The workmen are not allowed to smoke nor to have in their
+pockets any lucifer matches. The work is carried on in outbuildings,
+one side of which is quite open, so that the freest ventilation
+possible is obtained. No naked, nor artificial, light of any kind is
+allowed in these buildings. The garments, after having been examined
+on their arrival, and sorted, are placed in a revolving drum that
+contains benzine, and which can be hermetically closed, or in a fixed
+machine within which there is a revolving cylinder that contains the
+spirit. By either of these methods the clothes are brought into the
+closest contact with the benzine. After the garments have thus been
+sufficiently agitated and cleaned by contact with the benzine, they are
+removed and placed in a machine known as a hydro-extractor, whereby
+the excess of spirit is removed. This liquid is allowed to settle, the
+supernatant clean spirit is decanted off and redistilled. The garments
+on being removed from the hydro-extractor are rinsed in clean spirit,
+put through the hydro-extractor again, removed, dried, and finished.
+
+The risks incurred by the workpeople are twofold: (1) danger from fire
+and explosions; (2) effects of inhalation of the benzine. Fires, as
+already mentioned, occur in dry-cleaning establishments under the most
+mysterious circumstances. In one establishment that I visited eight
+fires and explosions had occurred in fifteen years. In the summer
+evenings when the weather is sultry, and perhaps several hours after
+the employés have left off working, fires have broken out in these
+establishments. The cause of the fire is often unexplainable. It is
+believed that benzine has a tendency to undergo spontaneous combustion,
+and that this can be prevented by the addition of a small quantity of
+oil soap, ¹⁄₁₀ to ¹⁄₁₀₀ per cent., to the benzine, and well mixed with
+it. This soap is prepared according to the patent of an Austrian firm,
+Messrs L. Schutte, Landsberg, & Co., by dissolving one kilo of caustic
+potass, or soda, in four kilos of alcohol. To a litre of this solution
+one and three-quarter litres of oleic acid are added and the mixture
+heated. In order to keep the salt in solution there should be added
+to every 100 parts of the mixture, either before or after heating it,
+250 parts of carbon tetrachloride, benzol, benzine, or other suitable
+solvent. Experience has shown that too great care cannot be taken in
+regard to the manipulation and storage of benzine. Materials that have
+just been removed from or cleaned with benzine should on no account
+be brought near a fire or naked light. Care has to be exercised, too,
+that naphtha and benzine are not poured into the drains in considerable
+quantity, for they give off explosive vapours which are dangerous when
+workmen enter the large drains in a city with naked lights.
+
+Inhalation of the vapours of benzine affect people differently. Some
+persons are more susceptible than others, and are obliged to retire
+from the work while others can remain at it. Its effects are more
+noticeable in young women than men. Females on the whole are more
+readily intoxicated, they become excited and hysterical. The power of
+walking is not interfered with. Both men and women complain of headache
+and giddiness after working in an atmosphere laden with benzine vapour.
+Occasionally they vomit. Although women seem to be more susceptible
+than men, yet even the men become intoxicated and feel as if they
+were drunk. On a sultry afternoon the effects are more pronounced.
+The workpeople are often obliged to leave the rooms and go out into
+the fresh air. The vapour of benzine produces in some people a heavy,
+sleepy feeling, with a sense of great tiredness, amounting to a loss of
+muscular power and followed by a temporary defect of memory. Naphtha
+produces similar symptoms. As its vapour is heavier than atmospheric
+air, the workmen suffer most in hot, close weather.
+
+_Prevention._--The air of the workroom should be kept as pure
+as possible by means of artificial ventilation. In the place where
+gloves are cleaned the air should be renewed by the running of a fan.
+No food should be allowed to be taken into the workroom. Attached to
+each revolving cylinder in which the garments are agitated along with
+benzine there ought to be an automatic fire-extinguisher. There should
+be plenty of loose sand lying about to put out any accidental fire, and
+there ought to be blankets in readiness to throw round any one whose
+clothes have caught fire. Woollen outer garments should be worn by the
+workpeople. If a dry-cleaning establishment is a few storeys high,
+there ought to be fire-escape ladders provided.
+
+Workpeople who have become excited or intoxicated by the benzine
+should be taken into the fresh air. It is by the respiratory organs
+that the spirit which has been taken into the blood leaves the system.
+Anæmic girls who are subject to headache should give up the work, for
+experience shows that the inhalation of benzine aggravates headache.
+
+ THOMAS OLIVER.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+ USE OF INFLAMMABLE OR SPIRIT PAINTS
+
+
+Inflammable paints have only come into use within the last twenty
+years. Known in the trade as _quickly drying, composite_ or
+_spirit_ paints, they are principally used for painting the
+interior of ships that put into dock and which the owners can only
+allow to stay there for two or three days. By their use a ship can
+be painted and turned out of dock according to the number of men put
+on to do the work in from one to three days. To the owners of modern
+steam-ships time is money, and consequently there has grown up of
+late a considerable demand for these paints. It is in the drying of
+the ordinary oil-paint that there occurs delay not only in regard
+to the laying on of a second coating, but in the utilisation of the
+painted spaces afterwards. With these quickly drying paints it is
+quite otherwise. Mr James H. Edwards, formerly of Messrs Edwards,
+ship repairers, South Shields, informs me that in half-an-hour or
+thereabouts after the first coating of spirit paint has been put on
+another layer can be applied. They are used more in the painting of old
+than of new boats. Instead of being ground with oil, the colours are
+mixed with methylated or petroleum spirit, or with benzine. The paints
+may contain lead, but there is less danger from the lead than from the
+spirit. It is the spirit which confers upon these paints their quickly
+drying properties, but at the same time it renders them extremely
+dangerous to the workmen alike from inhalation of the vapour and its
+inflammability. In investigating this question along with my colleagues
+of the Dangerous Trades Committee of the Home Office, our attention was
+specially drawn to the fact that as these paints are generally employed
+for coating spaces in ships that are confined and often dark, men have
+worked therein with naked lights, and, as a consequence, explosions and
+fires have occurred. Too often the workman is alone in the confined
+space, and as he may be rendered unconscious not only by the spirituous
+vapours rising from the paint, but, in the event of fire, by the
+products of combustion, he is quite unable to extricate himself from
+his perilous position. I have seen one man with burns nearly over the
+whole of his body who had been rescued with difficulty from the bunker
+in which he was working. It is not only in the confined spaces in the
+interior of ships that fires suddenly break out, they are not unknown
+during the painting of the outside of a ship in a dry dock. Momentarily
+and without any explanation, unless it be that the wind has fanned a
+naked light or blown a spark, the side of a ship may be enveloped in
+flame which is just as suddenly extinguished.
+
+It is during the painting of the bunkers, fore and aft peaks, tunnels,
+ballast tanks, and the holds of ships that the greatest risk is
+incurred, and especially in the former, since only one man as a rule
+can work in these confined spaces at a time. Men have been known, after
+working in one of these confined spaces, to have become excited as if
+intoxicated, and on being removed to the open air they have vomited.
+The ejected contents of the stomach have smelt strongly of the spirit
+paint they were using. For a short period the men have seemed dazed and
+stupid, and would have fallen if unsupported.
+
+Sometimes exposure of an hour or less to the vapours given off by
+the paint in a contracted chamber is sufficient to induce unpleasant
+symptoms. Men have become unconscious in the bunkers and have had to be
+extricated. On being placed on deck in the open air they have looked
+pale rather than cyanosed. In some instances where the symptoms have
+been less severe, there have been difficulty of breathing and a sense
+of suffocation in the chest, but as a rule these are absent. There
+is often complaint of a swimming in the head and a feeling of great
+uncertainty and want of self-confidence, while in other instances the
+individual falls soundly asleep. Now and again, when the men have been
+removed from the bunkers bleeding has occurred at the nose. As a rule
+the intoxicating and stupefying effects of these spirit paints soon
+pass off on exposing the workman to the open air.
+
+In some of the men I observed a well-marked blue line on the gums,
+showing that in addition to the danger caused by inhaling spirituous
+vapours their system at the same time had been exposed to the risk of
+lead poisoning.
+
+_Prevention._--Since these spirit compositions cannot be used
+to paint the inside of peaks, bunkers, and tunnels of ships, without
+running considerable risk to the workmen, clearly their employment
+ought to be prohibited in confined spaces. It is courting disaster
+to paint the inside of any cramped space, ingress to or egress from
+which can only take place through a man-hole. No naked lights should
+be allowed in these places. Illumination should be secured either
+by a safety lamp or by the electric light. All the workmen whom I
+have interrogated are unanimously of opinion that the work should be
+periodically interrupted. Every hour or two, according to the more or
+less confined character of the chamber in which the paints are being
+used, the workmen should go into the open air for several minutes.
+Six hours’ work a day should be the maximum, and this ought to be
+divided into equal halves, separated at least by one and a half hour’s
+interval. Since there is considerable risk from fire and explosion, no
+young or inexperienced person should be allowed to use these paints,
+and under all circumstances men on being employed for the first time
+should be informed of the dangers and of the risks they are running.
+Where a workman is painting the inside of a confined space in a ship
+with spirit paint he should be frequently visited by a foreman, to see
+that all is well.
+
+When an individual has become intoxicated through the vapours given
+off by composite paints, the best treatment is to take him into the
+open air, and to wrap him up in rugs so as to avoid the chance of his
+being chilled. When the workman has sufficiently recovered, he should
+be accompanied home by some of his mates, put to bed, kept warm, and a
+saline aperient administered at the earliest opportunity.
+
+ THOMAS OLIVER.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXV
+
+ ACETYLENE AND ITS DANGERS
+
+
+All details relating to the manufacture of coal-gas, water-gas, or
+oil-gas, and to the incidental risks both to the worker and the
+consumer, are well known, having been treated by many reliable
+authorities. Acetylene gas, however, is a comparatively modern
+illuminant, growing in public favour, and now that the manufacture of
+calcium carbide is not confined to the United States, Canada, and the
+Continent, but is produced also in the United Kingdom, it is probable
+that the adoption of acetylene will become more general.
+
+For country houses, country churches, railway stations, isolated
+factories and workshops, Indian bungalows, and other places where a
+cheap and ready supply of coal-gas or electricity is not available,
+acetylene will be particularly appreciated. Its uses, however, are more
+extended. On the Continent many towns are lighted with this gas. The
+Town Commissioners have expressed satisfaction with it as an illuminant
+for the town of Boyle. For photographic purposes, carriage lamps, magic
+lanterns, bicycle lamps, etc., acetylene is largely used.
+
+A brief description of the manufacture will be interesting. The
+writer, owing to the fact that there are as yet few carbide of calcium
+manufactories in the United Kingdom, can speak with only a limited
+experience, but he is indebted for information to the Read-Holliday
+Acetylene Company, to an article which appeared in the _Public Health
+Journal_ for 29th September 1900, to one on “Electrical Furnaces”
+recently published in the _Windsor Magazine_, and to other sources.
+
+The introduction of electrical furnaces capable of producing intense
+heat has rendered it possible to melt and join together such infusible
+elements as lime and carbon. When the furnaces are cool, the compound
+formed is known as “calcium carbide.” If dropped in water it
+decomposes; some authorities say, almost with an explosion. If simply
+damped, the decomposition is slower, the product given off being
+the gas known as “acetylene,”--a colourless gas, stated to contain
+by weight 24 parts of carbon and 2 parts of hydrogen. In England the
+electrical furnaces are practically arc lamps on a large scale, the
+bottom of the furnace being a large carbon block electrically connected
+to the positive pole of the generator, whilst the upper carbon is
+connected to the negative. By a simple arrangement the negative pole
+can be raised or lowered at will, to strike the arc or regulate the
+intensity of the furnace. A mixture of lime and coke, in the form of
+fine powder, is thrown into the furnaces for fusion, and when cool it
+is taken away in lumps ready for use.
+
+Seeing that this industry is one of very modern date, it is of interest
+to consider whether acetylene gas, during the process of manufacture or
+in use, is likely to produce injury to health or life. This question
+may be considered under the following heads:--
+
+(_a_) The inhalation of dust during the crushing processes and in
+feeding the furnaces.
+
+(_b_) The fumes evolved from the furnaces.
+
+(_c_) The danger of electric shock to the workers.
+
+(_d_) Explosion during the stages of manufacture.
+
+(_e_) Explosion, or risk of inhalation of gas, when in use.
+
+During the operation of grinding carbon and lime, and when feeding
+the furnaces, more or less fine dust must of necessity arise, unless
+this is prevented by mechanical appliances of a somewhat expensive
+kind. Some of this dust will be held in suspension by the atmosphere
+and inhaled by the workers, but as the work is done in practically
+open sheds, and as the industry is of comparatively recent origin, it
+is impossible at present to say whether injury to health is caused.
+Labourers engaged in quarrying limestone are said to be healthy
+men. The late Dr Arlidge, when referring to workmen employed about
+lime-kilns, stated that there are grounds for believing that the
+carbonic acid of respiration is capable of acting upon lime-dust and
+ridding the lungs of it.
+
+(_b_) Fumes must of necessity be given off from the furnaces, but
+mechanical ventilating fans render these harmless.
+
+(_c_) Little fear of electric shock need be apprehended in this
+country, the voltage being low, although the current is strong--a
+result attained by the aid of several brushes and heavy copper strips
+for conveying the current to the carbons forming the furnaces. An
+interesting article recently published in the _Windsor Magazine_
+describes a visit to Niagara Falls, where the largest furnaces in the
+world are operated, and where, amongst other industries, is found the
+manufacture of calcium carbide. Furnaces on the arc and incandescent
+principle are employed. The current enters the building at a voltage
+of 2200, to be transformed to about 100 volts, which approximates the
+pressure found in English works.
+
+(_d_) An accident of a serious (but happily a non-fatal) nature
+recently occurred at works in which the calcium carbide, when cool,
+is stored in 8 cwt. metal tanks, ready to be sent away. It appears
+that some moisture had found its way into a returned tank. This was
+unobserved by a worker, who placed about 4 cwts. of the material
+into it, screwed the lid down, and left the works for the night. The
+tank stood about 15 feet from the electric furnace. A mechanical fan
+for ventilating purposes was running, and caused a current from the
+direction of the tanks to the furnace. As a natural result, gas was
+generated in the tank during the night. The workman, before resuming
+work in the morning, took off the lid, liberating the gas, which was at
+once ignited by the furnace, causing explosion, and seriously injuring
+the man. The obvious lesson is, that tanks should be carefully examined
+for moisture or leakage before filling, and that under no circumstances
+should the filling be done near the furnaces, but in another room, in
+which there are no lights and no probability of “sparking” from any
+electrical machine.
+
+(_e_) On the first adoption of acetylene, accidents happened,
+giving rise to a general belief that it was dangerous. The following
+extracts from Orders in Council issued at various times will show that
+the Government officials were fully alive to this danger, and that
+from time to time precautions to safeguard the public have been taken.
+By an Order in Council dated 26th February 1897, certain parts of the
+Petroleum Acts, 1871–1881, were made to apply to carbide of calcium,
+and it was laid down that:--
+
+ “The label on the vessel containing the carbide of calcium shall
+ bear in conspicuous characters the words ‘Carbide of Calcium,’
+ ‘Dangerous if not kept dry,’ and with the following caution:
+ ‘The contents of this package are liable if brought into contact
+ with moisture to give off a highly inflammable gas,’ and with
+ the addition:--
+
+ “(_a_) In the case of a vessel kept, of the name and
+ address of the consignee or owner.
+
+ “(_b_) In the case of a vessel sent or conveyed, of
+ the name and address of the sender.
+
+ “(_c_) In the case of a vessel sold or exposed for
+ sale, of the name and address of the vendor.”
+
+On the 7th July 1897, an Order in Council amended the Order of 26th
+February 1897, by prescribing that:--
+
+ “Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the said Order,
+ the quantity of carbide of calcium which may be kept without a
+ licence shall be as follows:--
+
+ “(_a_) Where it is kept in separate substantial hermetically closed
+ metal vessels containing not more than
+ 1 lb. each 5 lbs.
+ “(_b_) Where it is kept otherwise None.”
+
+By a further Order in Council, dated 26th November 1897, it was laid
+down that:--
+
+ “Acetylene when liquid, or when subject to a pressure above
+ that of the atmosphere, capable of supporting a column of
+ water exceeding one hundred inches in height, and whether or
+ not in admixture with other substances, shall be deemed to
+ be an explosive within the meaning of the Explosives Act of
+ 1875, subject to the following exception; that if it be shown
+ to the satisfaction of the Secretary of State that acetylene,
+ declared to be explosive by this Order when in admixture with
+ any substance, or in any form or condition, is not possessed
+ of explosive properties, the Secretary of State may, by Order,
+ exempt such acetylene from being deemed to be an explosive.”
+
+The Order further prescribed that:--
+
+ “Whereas by section 43 of the Explosives Act, 1875, it is
+ provided that Her Majesty, from time to time by Order in
+ Council, may prohibit, either absolutely, or except in pursuance
+ of a licence of the Secretary of State under the said Act, or
+ may subject to conditions or restrictions, the manufacture,
+ keeping, importation from any place out of the United Kingdom,
+ conveyance, and sale, or any of them, of any explosive which is
+ of so dangerous a character, that in the judgment of Her Majesty
+ it is expedient for the public safety to make such Order.
+
+ “And whereas it is in the judgment of Her Majesty expedient for
+ the public safety that acetylene, when an explosive within the
+ meaning of this Order, shall be prohibited.
+
+ “Now, therefore, in pursuance of the above-mentioned provision
+ of this Act, Her Majesty is pleased, by and with the advice
+ of Her Privy Council, to order and prescribe that acetylene,
+ declared to be an explosive by this Order, shall be prohibited
+ from being manufactured, imported, conveyed, or sold.”
+
+An Order of the Secretary of State, dated 28th March 1898, provided as
+follows:--
+
+ “Acetylene in admixture with oil-gas in a proportion not
+ exceeding twenty parts by volume of acetylene in every one
+ hundred parts of the mixture, when subjected to a pressure not
+ exceeding one hundred and fifty pounds to the square inch, shall
+ not be deemed to be an explosive within the meaning of the
+ Explosives Act, 1875.
+
+ “Provided that the acetylene and oil-gas shall be mixed together
+ in a chamber or vessel before the gases are subjected to
+ compression.”
+
+Lastly, an Order of 15th May 1900 required:--
+
+ “That acetylene in admixture with air or oxygen, declared to
+ be an explosive by this Order, shall be prohibited from being
+ manufactured, imported, conveyed, or sold.
+
+ “Provided that nothing in this Order shall apply to acetylene
+ in admixture with air when such admixture takes place only in
+ a burner or contrivance in which the mixture is intended to be
+ burnt.
+
+ “Provided also that nothing in this Order shall be held to apply
+ to an admixture of acetylene and air which may unavoidably
+ occur in the first use or re-charging of an apparatus, properly
+ designed and constructed with a view to the production of pure
+ acetylene.”
+
+A Committee of the Society of Arts, London, was appointed to
+investigate the subject and frame rules for the safe construction
+of acetylene apparatus, and it is claimed (justly I believe) by
+manufacturers such as the Read-Holliday Acetylene Company, Lockerby and
+Wilson Limited, and others, that their apparatus fulfils the conditions
+laid down by the Committee, and that now their appliances may be used
+with perfect safety. Messrs Tinker & Holliday, of Huddersfield, who
+manufacture carbide of calcium, give their assurance that they have
+sold more than 1000 machines, mostly of a large size, some of 600
+lights, and that there has never yet been an accident of any kind.
+On the other hand, it must be remembered that, as acetylene is more
+explosive than coal-gas, exceptional care should be taken as to where
+generators are placed, and to avoid the use of lights where leakage
+is suspected. Early last November a representative of an acetylene
+firm visited an hotel in a country town in Derbyshire to inspect the
+generator. The newspapers state that immediately after striking a match
+a loud explosion occurred, in consequence of which his face and hand
+were injured.
+
+The _Chemical Trade Journal_ for 16th June 1900 contains a
+paragraph of public interest, relating to the safety of calcium
+carbide, which may perhaps with advantage be here reproduced:
+
+ “The large army of insurance agents and adjusters who are now
+ in Ottawa settling the losses incurred through the recent fire
+ have lately had before them an object lesson which should remove
+ any doubts that may have been entertained as to the safety of
+ storing carbide of calcium. According to a communication we have
+ received from Mr Andrew Holland of the Board of Trade, Ottawa,
+ when the fire reached the furnace-room of the Dominion Carbide
+ Works, everything in it that would burn was consumed. Three pigs
+ of carbide, however, in three crucibles remained in perfect
+ condition as evidence that they did not explode. The grinding
+ and mixing department and warehouse were in another building,
+ and every effort was made to prevent the fire from reaching it;
+ but the very strong wind blowing, and the vast rush of flame,
+ enveloped all the buildings in the vicinity, and they were in a
+ few minutes reduced to ruins. In the carbide warehouses there
+ were 15 tons of carbide, packed in rolled steel cans with screw
+ covers. When the floor burned, the carbide dropped through into
+ the cellar, in which a foot of water had collected from the
+ firemen’s hose. Here was an ideal combination for an explosion,
+ if carbide is an explosive. Several cans were broken in the
+ fall, owing to the intense heat having opened the seams, and the
+ carbide was dumped into the water. Gas was generated in immense
+ quantities, but it simply burned with a low steady flame, making
+ less show than two cartloads of coke on fire in the immediate
+ vicinity. Had the cellar been dry, the carbide could have been
+ all saved after the fire; but it continued to soak up the water
+ and make gas for some days, and the burning gas kept the carbide
+ so hot, that it could not be handled. As it was, about a ton
+ of it was shovelled out and packed in new cans. Two of the
+ cans were dug out whole from the hot mass, and saved with the
+ carbide, though they were burned like old, worn-out stove-pipes.
+ The insurance agents admit that they have had a practical
+ demonstration which had convinced them how much the ‘risks’ of
+ calcium carbide have been over-estimated.”
+
+It is claimed by the manufacturers of acetylene that it possesses
+certain hygienic advantages over other gases, these being--a less
+consumption of oxygen, a less addition of carbonic acid to the
+atmosphere, less heating of the air, and freedom from sulphur
+compounds. The illumination is stated to be brilliant, but not
+injurious to the eyes. On this point, however, it does not appear that
+oculists in this country have pronounced definite opinions, although
+individual medical practitioners have reported favourably. Dr W. A.
+M’Keown, in his _Treatise on Unripe Cataract_, in a chapter on
+“Suitable Light and Optical Aids,” says: “Fortunately, however, it is
+now within the power of the surgeon to whom the electric light is not
+available to have acetylene light, an illuminant at least as good as
+the electric light, and very well borne by the eyes.”
+
+An article by Professor Thomas Oliver, published in the _British
+Medical Journal_ of 23rd April 1898, and entitled “Acetylene, the
+New Illuminant, and the Dangers arising from its Inhalation,” is
+probably the only authoritative statement yet published dealing with
+the physiological effects of acetylene gas. In a brief paper such as
+this, many details describing the methods of experiment adopted by Dr
+Oliver must be omitted, but the following is an attempt to summarise
+the conclusions arrived at by him:--
+
+A mixture of air and acetylene commences to be explosive when it
+contains 5 per cent. of acetylene (Captain Thomson, H.M. Chief
+Inspector of Explosives, thinks 3 per cent.), whereas it requires
+the presence of 8 per cent. of coal-gas to make a similar mixture
+explosive. It is therefore more explosive than coal-gas. Acetylene
+has an excessively pungent and disagreeable odour, but this, although
+a disadvantage in some ways, acts as a warning to individuals of its
+presence. Generators for private mansions, etc., should be placed in
+the open air, or in a covered shed open at the sides. In the case of
+coal-gas and water-gas, death supervenes by asphyxia, owing to the
+carbon-monoxide entering into extremely stable combinations with the
+hæmoglobin of the blood. If a rabbit is placed in a bell-jar into which
+ordinary air and acetylene are pumped, the animal for a long period
+experiences little inconvenience. If atmospheric air is excluded, and
+acetylene only admitted, symptoms gradually and slowly develop. After
+more lengthened exposure to acetylene than that which is necessary for
+coal-gas, the animal becomes intoxicated, stupor stealing over it,
+apparently painlessly. When somnolence has been induced and asphyxia
+not pushed too far, the rabbit, if placed in atmospheric air, shortly
+afterwards moves about in as lively a manner as if it had not been
+interfered with. Should the inhalation, however, have been pushed
+further, and the animal be deeply narcotised, death may ensue. In the
+minor stages of asphyxia, vascular tension is maintained, but in the
+deeper stages the vessels are so deeply contracted, that it is almost
+impossible to obtain a drop of blood. On spectroscopic examination,
+the blood of a rabbit at different stages of intoxication from
+acetylene always exhibits the well-marked bands of oxyhæmoglobin, but,
+unlike the blood in coal-gas poisoning, it is capable of undergoing
+reduction. In this respect it behaves like ordinary blood. If asphyxia
+caused by acetylene is not too profound--and under ordinary domestic
+circumstances it would not be a pure acetylene atmosphere that would
+be inhaled by an individual, but one mixed with a large proportion
+of common air--the danger to life seems to be less than it would
+be in coal-gas poisoning, and the prospect of recovery by removal
+to atmospheric air greater. Death may supervene, however, if the
+inhalation has been lengthened, and atmospheric air excluded. In the
+treatment of unconsciousness caused by the inhalation of acetylene gas,
+it is necessary to remove the individual into the open air, and to try
+artificial respiration.
+
+Since this brief article was framed, a handbook for the student and
+manufacturer has been published by Professor Vivian Lewis, dealing
+in an exhaustive form with everything relating to acetylene. It is
+illustrated profusely, and doubtless will become a standard book of
+reference.
+
+In November 1900, the Foreign Office published a Consular Report by Dr
+Frederick Rose, H.M. Consul at Stuttgart, on “The Rise, Progress, and
+Present Condition of the Carbide and Acetylene Industries in Germany,”
+containing statistics and detailed information of considerable value,
+but which cannot well be here reproduced. It is shown that thirty towns
+or villages in Germany, with populations varying from 6000 to 382, are
+lighted by acetylene. In Berlin the Imperial Post Office has made a
+beginning by lighting two of its branch post offices with this gas, and
+has installed an apparatus with sixty jets in the head post office. In
+July 1898, 62,000 jets of acetylene were installed in Germany. In the
+first months of 1899 the number had increased to 170,000. Reference
+is made to a new application of calcium carbide in the production of
+pure metals from their ores by its use as a reducing agent; to the
+manufacture of lampblack, it being stated that acetylene gives three to
+four times as much lampblack as good oil-gas; and to an invention which
+utilises carbide for the production of converted steel, as well as for
+hardening armour-plate after Harvey’s process.
+
+On 1st December 1900, _The Public Health Engineer_ devoted the
+whole of its issue to acetylene, and as the article gives in detail
+descriptions of generators and other appliances made by practically
+all recognised firms, together with a statement of what is claimed in
+regard to safety and economy in use, it may be helpful to mention this
+publication, for the benefit of inquirers.
+
+ HAMILTON P. SMITH.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+ FLOUR MILLS
+
+
+Flour-milling as conducted in this country a few decades ago was,
+despite the fact that most of the mills were situated in the country,
+an unhealthy industry. Flour millers died from pulmonary consumption
+and chest diseases in a larger proportion than men engaged in other
+trades in the same district. The average life of a miller was said to
+be forty-three years. Hirt compiled tables of the comparative sickness
+of millers and bakers, and he showed that while of one hundred bakers
+seven died from pulmonary phthisis, out of the same number of millers
+the deaths were ten. Bakers and millers seemed to him to be about
+equally predisposed to emphysema of the lungs, but as regards pneumonia
+the mortality figure for bakers was 8.4 per cent. as against 42 per
+cent. for millers. These statistics are taken from a German source, and
+it is difficult to explain the very heavy mortality rate from pneumonia
+in millers compared with that of bakers.
+
+Until within thirty years ago all the wheat and oats in this
+country were ground between revolving stones. During the grinding
+a considerable amount of fine dust was given off, the continual
+inhalation of which was held responsible for much of the ill-health of
+the operatives. So unhealthy was the occupation of milling believed
+to be twenty years ago, that Friendly Societies would not accept
+operative millers as members. To-day no objection is raised. In
+addition to injury to health from breathing the dust-laden atmosphere,
+there was a risk from fire owing to the highly explosive character
+of the dust. While danger to life from explosions in flour mills
+still to some extent prevails, both it and the risk to health from
+inhalation of the dust have materially diminished. There is the widest
+divergence possible between the old and the new methods of milling. The
+introduction of the steam roller system of milling from Buda-Pesth, and
+the fact that nearly all the various processes are carried on inside
+closed machinery, have cleared the atmosphere of modern flour mills
+and converted what was admittedly a dangerous trade into one that
+compares very favourably with most occupations. Wherever the old method
+of milling is still carried on the atmosphere is found laden with a
+very fine dust, mostly flour. This with each inspiration is drawn into
+the bronchial tubes of the miller, and forms plugs with the mucus
+secreted by these passages. The plugs, owing to their tenacity, are
+dislodged with difficulty. It is not contended that the flour itself
+reaches the lungs; probably the whole, or at any rate the most of it,
+becomes entangled in the mucus of the smallest bronchial tubes, but
+in the dust there are other things than flour present, _e.g._,
+portions of the husks of harder grain than wheat, portions of hairs
+of oats, bristles of rye, and particles of mineral from the grinding
+stones (see Microphotographs, page 276), so that through one thing and
+another, and in consequence of the repeated bronchial irritation and
+the cough caused by respiring the dust-laden air, a strain is imposed
+upon the lungs that leads to over-distension of the air cells, or what
+is known as pulmonary emphysema. That portions of bristle, etc., are
+capable of being inhaled into the deeper recesses of the respiratory
+passages is shown by the presence of these bristles on microscopical
+examination of the expectoration that has been discharged after hard
+coughing.
+
+As a nation we are dependent upon foreign countries for our food
+supplies, especially wheat. Some of the wheat that is imported is
+extremely dirty, particularly that from the River Plate, India, and
+Persia. It not only contains small stones and sand, and the husks of
+other seeds, but often particles of soil that have been contaminated by
+manure. In going over a large modern flour mill one is struck by the
+amount of dirt that is taken out of wheat. It is therefore necessary to
+clean the grain, which is done by first removing all solid impurities
+and then washing it. To clean it, the wheat is passed through a
+separator composed of sieves that are kept vibrating. By this means the
+larger impure particles are removed, while by the operation of a strong
+current of air the lighter dust is sucked away. After this preliminary
+cleaning the wheat is taken to rotatory sieves, which size the grain
+and thereby separate the larger from the smaller seeds. It is now ready
+to be washed. This is done by allowing the wheat to fall into a tank of
+warm water, through which a stream is constantly running. From this it
+is removed to dryers and coolers. It is only the very dirty wheat that
+is washed. Some of it is simply scoured and brushed inside a conical
+iron cylinder by means of beaters or brushes that are revolving
+rapidly. The dust given off escapes through fine slot holes.
+
+In modern flour mills the dangers that operatives are exposed to are:
+(1) those incidental to the machinery; (2) fire and explosions; and
+(3) inhalation of dust. It is with the latter that we are here most
+concerned. The cleaning of wheat is a dusty process, but it is usually
+carried on within enclosed machinery, and so long as this and all the
+covered-in spaces are provided with fans that are kept in good order,
+and the pipes leading away from these to the dust chambers are kept
+patent, the workmen do not seem to incur any great risk to health.
+Attention, however, must be given to keeping the suction-pipes clean
+and the fans in good order, otherwise, as cleaning is a very dirty
+process, the men would assuredly suffer in their chest. At several of
+the large flour mills where Oriental wheat is ground, and to the grains
+of which particles of manure are often adherent, I have on several
+occasions interrogated the men as to whether any illness had ever
+followed the washing of the foreign wheat, but in no instance could I
+learn of any illness being traceable to such a source. Once the wheat
+has been cleaned and brushed or washed, it is put through the rollers
+and is milled into flour. This consists of not one but many processes,
+all of which are conducted in enclosed chambers, the product at each
+particular stage being lifted and carried onwards by self-regulating
+machinery and elevators from one part of the mill to another. Where
+the fittings of the machinery are good, no dust practically escapes.
+Hence it is that flour-milling has ceased to be the harmful industry it
+formerly was. In filling the sacks with flour, and in cleaning returned
+sacks, there is often a considerable amount of dust given off, but
+mechanical contrivances are now in operation that greatly minimise the
+amount of dust, so that this particular operation too has become less
+dangerous than it once was.
+
+ THOMAS OLIVER.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+ MINING
+
+
+The industry of mining, touching as it does the boundaries of nearly
+every field of human activity, necessarily presents itself under so
+many and such different aspects, that the complete study of the risks
+to life, limb, and health to which those engaged in it are exposed,
+involves an unusually large number of diversified considerations. It
+is here proposed to examine only the risks that are more directly
+incidental to mining proper, and these again only in so far as they
+affect the miners themselves, leaving out of consideration entirely
+the dangers to which mining operations may expose the population in
+whose midst they have to be carried on, although these are far from
+unimportant, including, for example, such accidents as a fall down an
+unfenced shaft, the destruction caused by the explosion of a dynamite
+magazine, the possibility of being struck by a stone projected by a
+blast, the injurious effects of fumes arising from smouldering waste
+heaps, or from the calcination of pyritic ores, and extending in
+extreme cases to the collapse of entire districts, as, for instance, in
+the salt-mining area of Cheshire.[109]
+
+The entire subject of mining is generally looked upon as divisible into
+three main branches, namely, “prospecting,” or the search for mineral
+deposits; “mining” properly so called, or the exploitation of these
+deposits; and “dressing,” or the preparation for the market of the
+minerals produced.
+
+Of these three branches the risks incidental to the last named are
+practically those to which workers in any ordinary factory are exposed,
+and need not be further considered here; whilst minor accidents, such
+as cuts and bruises, are common enough, especially when mineral is
+broken by hand, serious casualties, on the other hand, are fortunately
+rare. The only precautions needed are those indicated in all cases
+where men, and in the case of dressing works, often boys, girls, and
+women also are at work in the midst of machinery in motion. It may just
+be mentioned that, in certain branches of gold mining, a solution of
+cyanide of potassium is used as a solvent for extracting the gold; this
+solution is not only extremely poisonous when taken internally, but
+also produces in many instances painful sores on the hands and arms of
+the men working with it.
+
+The life of the prospector is necessarily a most arduous one, and for
+which men of exceptionally good physique and sound health are alone
+suitable. The typical prospector starts off, generally by himself,
+sometimes with a mate, to examine an unknown and at times uninhabited
+district; or worse still, the inhabitants may be uncivilised races,
+hostile to the white man, and thus their presence only introduces
+another and a serious danger to the prospector. At the best he can only
+carry a limited amount of food with him, and has often to depend on his
+gun for a great part of his supplies. He has, therefore, to time his
+journeys accurately, so as to enable him to get back to civilisation
+before his stock of provisions or ammunition is exhausted, and many
+a poor fellow has paid with his life for the rash eagerness that has
+led him too far afield in his search for valuable minerals. In some
+countries, such as Western Australia, not only has food to be arranged
+for, but drink also, great areas being absolutely without potable
+water; there is no doubt that many an explorer in this great auriferous
+continent has perished of thirst[110] in his search for the precious
+metal.
+
+When mining operations have to be undertaken by the prospector, these
+usually take the form of sinking small shafts, less rarely of driving
+levels. In either case the timbering is of the crudest character,
+any branch of a tree, piece of bamboo, or similar weak support being
+generally looked upon as sufficient. The windlass is usually a rough
+concern, made entirely, or almost entirely, of wood, and the writer was
+once a witness of the remarkably narrow escape of a prospector who was
+being hoisted up a shaft by a couple of natives with the aid of such a
+rudimentary windlass, after having lit a couple of shots in the shaft
+bottom, when one of the rough wooden handles of the windlass suddenly
+broke. To the risks incidental to working with imperfect appliances
+must be added those due to the fact that only native labour, always
+utterly inexperienced in mining and often unused to work of any kind,
+is available, whilst the prospector has to undertake, single-handed,
+the task of both instruction and supervision.
+
+It but rarely happens that the prospector is fortunate enough to
+find a healthy climate at the scene of his operations, although such
+is the case in some parts of Australia, South Africa, etc. As the
+greater portion of the temperate zone habitable by civilised man has
+been pretty well ransacked for minerals, the prospector is generally
+compelled to resort to tropical regions for his hunting ground, and
+is, therefore, often subject to all the risks of an unhealthy climate,
+amongst which malarial fever in its various forms is perhaps the most
+formidable. Prospecting in Central America, the northern half of South
+America, West Africa, and Central Africa, parts of India, Siam, Burma,
+the Malay Archipelago and Peninsula, and some parts of Australia means
+in each case the strong probability, amounting almost to a certainty,
+of being attacked by malaria, which, though not necessarily fatal,
+only too often undermines the strongest constitution. Finally, it must
+be remembered that whenever a rich “strike” has been made and a rush
+sets in to any small area, the townships that spring up thus suddenly
+are invariably unhealthy at first, even in the healthiest climates.
+“What is everybody’s business is nobody’s business,” and the most
+elementary rules of sanitation are disregarded with the most frightful
+recklessness, until the number of victims becomes so serious as to
+compel attention. In this way Kimberley, Johannesburg, Coolgardie,
+Menzies, etc., have all been visited by epidemics of typhoid or enteric
+fever.
+
+That the Polar regions are no more favourable to the prospector than
+are the Tropics is only too clearly shown by the death-roll of those
+who have been seeking their fortunes of recent years in the Yukon and
+other similar parts of far North-Western America. Statistics of the
+mortality of prospectors, whether by disease or by accident, are, of
+course, not available in any form, but no one who has had much to
+do with prospecting can fail to recognise that there are few more
+dangerous, just as there are few more fascinating, occupations.
+
+Turning next to mining proper, as carried on in civilised countries,
+it becomes necessary to investigate separately the accidents and the
+diseases incidental to the miners’ calling. Careful statistics of
+mining accidents are kept by many countries, notably Germany, France,
+Belgium, and Great Britain, and a comparison of these statistics would,
+no doubt, enable us to deduce results of the highest importance if
+these statistics were at all comparable. Unfortunately, however, the
+definitions of what constitutes a mining accident on the one hand, and
+of what constitutes a fatal mining accident on the other, are either
+extremely vague, or else will be found to differ in each country.
+In Great Britain we have no legal definition at all. The Coal Mines
+Regulations Act, section 35, merely says that “loss of life” or
+“serious personal injury” due to an accident must be reported, unless
+the accident be due to “any explosion of gas, or of any explosive, or
+of any steam-boiler,” when every personal injury whatever, whether
+serious or not, has to be reported. The Act, construed literally,
+seems to require only the reporting of any accident that is instantly
+fatal, or of a serious accident that terminates fatally under the
+head of “Loss of Life.” If a trivial accident, such as would not need
+reporting under the Act, happens to end fatally, as, _e.g._, when
+a slight cut or scratch causes blood-poisoning and ultimately death,
+the Act seems to deliberately exclude such accidents from the list of
+fatalities. In the absence of clear legal guidance, most inspectors
+seem to include in their list of fatal accidents all accidents of any
+kind whatever that terminate fatally within a year and a day from
+the date of the occurrence of the accident. This may not be law, but
+it is certainly common sense. The term “serious personal injury” is
+interpreted very differently in different places, the ultimate decision
+resting with the colliery manager and the colliery doctor. Thus one
+doctor may hold that a simple fracture is not a “serious” accident,
+and need not be reported; whilst another may consider a bad cut or
+bruise, perhaps not sufficient even to lay a man off for a day, as a
+“serious” accident, though the majority rather incline to the view that
+no accident is “serious” unless there is rather more than a possibility
+that it will end fatally. This wide discrepancy of opinion makes it
+very difficult to compare fairly the accident statistics of different
+parts of the Kingdom, and, as the sequel will show, the British
+official non-fatal accident statistics are practically worthless.
+
+In Germany each state or kingdom has its own mining law. The Prussian
+law, which is the most important by far of any, and which all the
+others follow more or less closely, merely says, that any accident
+that has caused death or serious injury to one or more persons must
+be at once reported. The accident statistics based upon these reports
+are, therefore, even less satisfactory than our own; it would appear
+as though the law contemplated only the inclusion of cases of
+instantaneous death in the list of fatal accidents, whilst non-fatal
+accidents are quite undefined. The Prussian official statistics record
+only fatal accidents in mines, except in the case of explosions of
+fire-damp, when injuries are also recorded. Fortunately, however,
+accurate statistics have been kept for some time past of all mining
+accidents by the Official Miners’ Permanent Relief Fund of the German
+Empire. This assurance association defines a fatal accident as one
+that causes death, whether instantaneously or after any length of
+time. Non-fatal accidents are divided into such as incapacitate the
+injured person from working for either a longer or a shorter period,
+the limit between these two classes being fixed at thirteen weeks. A
+distinction is also made between accidents that permanently, and those
+that temporarily, disable a miner, and again between those that cause
+total, and those that cause partial, disablement. As this Insurance
+Fund of Germany is under the direct supervision of the Governmental
+authorities, the statistics published by it have all the character of
+official documents.
+
+In France mining accidents are simply divided into those that cause
+injuries merely and those that cause death, there being apparently no
+precise definitions of either.
+
+In Belgium a mining accident is one that has for its consequences the
+death or severe injury of one or more persons--severe injury being
+defined as an injury of such a nature as to cause the ultimate death
+or to interfere with the regular work of the victim. Apparently the
+Belgian law, strictly interpreted, would include amongst the fatal
+accidents only those where the injured person is killed on the spot,
+but in the published statistics, a fatal accident is understood to be
+one that causes death within thirty days of its occurrence. Obviously
+this definition is much narrower than that used in Great Britain,
+a fact that must not be lost sight of when statistics of the two
+countries are compared.
+
+Perhaps the most exhaustive analysis of mining accidents is to be found
+in a work published in 1897 by the above-mentioned Official Miners’
+Permanent Relief Fund of the German Empire,[111] which covers the
+period from 1st October 1885 up to 1st January 1895. This Relief Fund,
+administered under Government supervision, deals with all accidents
+that incapacitate the victims from work for a longer period than
+thirteen weeks, all accidents of lesser importance, here called minor
+accidents, being dealt with by a separate fund worked in conjunction
+with the former. The total number of persons insured for one year
+during the period covered by this work was 3,623,175; the total
+number of accidents of all kinds notified was 278,371, distributed as
+follows:--
+
+ Per 1000
+ Persons
+ Numbers. Employed.
+
+ Fatal accidents 7,721 2.13
+ Accidents causing total permanent
+ disablement 1,427 0.39
+ Accidents causing partial permanent
+ disablement 14,367 3.97
+ Accidents causing temporary disablement 8,164 2.25
+ ---- 8.74
+ Minor accidents 246,692 68.09
+ ------- -----
+ Total 273,371 76.83
+ ======= =====
+
+Although, as will be seen subsequently, the ratio of fatal accidents
+is slowly but steadily decreasing in all the more important mining
+countries, the ratios between the various classes of accident appear
+to remain approximately constant. It is, however, notorious that ever
+since the laws providing compensation for accidents have received their
+present form, the number of non-fatal accidents reported in Germany
+has been steadily increasing year by year, there being no satisfactory
+explanation that can be assigned for this fact. The serious accidents
+are classified in various ways, the most interesting of which are those
+that refer to the causes of the accidents. Thus, of the above serious
+accidents, it is shown that the distribution was as follows amongst the
+various branches of mining:--
+
+ +--------------------------+---------+-----------------+-----------------+
+ | | | Fatal Accidents.| Serious |
+ | | | | Accidents. |
+ | | No. of +-------+---------+-------+---------+
+ | | Persons | |Per 1000 | |Per 1000 |
+ | |Employed.|Number.| Persons |Number.| Persons |
+ | | | |Employed.| |Employed.|
+ +--------------------------+---------+-------+---------+-------+---------+
+ |(_a_) Coal Mines |2,378,673| 6020 | 2.53 |19,130 | 8.04 |
+ |(_b_) Lignite Mines | 331,522| 617 | 1.86 | 1,354 | 4.08 |
+ |(_c_) Metalliferous Mines | | | | | |
+ | and Smelting Works | 58,853| 870 | 1.14 | 2,750 | 3.62 |
+ |(_d_) Salt Mines and Brine| | | | | |
+ | Works | 95,423| 143 | 1.50 | 450 | 4.71 |
+ |(_e_) Other forms of | | | | | |
+ | Mining | 58,704| 71 | 1.21 | 274 | 4.66 |
+ +--------------------------+---------+-------+---------+-------+---------+
+
+It is interesting to note that the ratio of accidents above ground to
+those below was as follows in the various branches of mining:--
+
+ Below Ground. Above Ground.
+
+ (_a_) Coal Mines 84.7 per cent. 15.3 per cent.
+ (_b_) Lignite Mines 45.1 „ 54.9 „
+ (_c_) Metalliferous Mines and
+ Smelting Works 73.5 „ 26.5 „
+ (_d_) Salt Mines and Brine Works 51.4 „ 48.6 „
+ (_e_) Other forms of Mining 42.3 „ 57.7 „
+
+The information is unfortunately not complete, as the relative numbers
+of the workers above and below ground are not given, so that no idea
+can be formed from these data of the relative degree of risk of work
+above and below ground.
+
+As regards the time at which accidents occur, there are a few more in
+the forenoon than in the afternoon, as might well be expected, seeing
+that the average number of men at work is greater in the former than in
+the latter period. As regards the days of the week, the percentage of
+accidents occurring on the respective days is as follows:--
+
+ Sunday 2.2 per cent.
+ Monday 15.1 „
+ Tuesday 16.2 „
+ Wednesday 16.6 „
+ Thursday 15.9 „
+ Friday 16.7 „
+ Saturday 17.0 „
+
+Excluding, of course, Sunday, it is noteworthy that the number of
+accidents in the second half of the week is notably greater than in the
+first half; apparently the only cause that can be suggested for this
+circumstance is that the men, being more fatigued towards the latter
+end of the week, are on that account more liable to accidents. It may
+well be, however, that the facts here noted are themselves merely
+accidental, and that observations extended over a larger period would
+tend to equalise the numbers.
+
+Two highly interesting series of tables give an objective and a
+subjective division of the causes of the accidents, showing in what
+manner and by whose fault these originated. The former table may be
+summarised as follows:--
+
+ KEY:
+
+ A: Falls of Rock, Coal, Falling Bodies, etc.
+
+ B: Transport, Haulage, Winding, Loading, etc.
+
+ C: Falls from Ladders, Steps, or other Heights.
+
+ D: Explosions.
+
+ E: Machinery in Motion, Motors, etc.
+
+ F: Molten Metal, Hot and Corrosive Liquids, Poisonous Gases.
+
+ G: Miscellaneous.
+ +-----------------------------+--------------------------------+
+ | | Causes of Accident per cent. |
+ | Branch of Mining. +----+----+----+----+---+---+----+
+ | | A | B | C | D | E | F | G |
+ +-----------------------------+----+----+----+----+---+---+----+
+ |(_a_) Coal Mines |41.1|26.2| 9.1| 9.2|5.7|1.0| 7.7|
+ |(_b_) Lignite Mines |35.9|28.7|14.8| 3.5|7.9|3.4| 5.8|
+ |(_c_) Metalliferous Mines and| | | | | | | |
+ | Smelting Works |34.4|20.8|13.1|10.2|5.6|1.9|14.0|
+ |(_d_) Salt Mines and Brine | | | | | | | |
+ | Works |13.7|31.5|23.6| 7.9|7.3|7.6| 8.4|
+ |(_e_) Other forms of Mining |31.9|25.2|12.2| 9.6|2.9|...|18.2|
+ |All Mines |39.4|25.8|10.2| 9.0|5.9|1.3| 8.5|
+ +-----------------------------+----+----+----+----+---+---+----+
+
+The accidents due to these various causes calculated per 1000 people
+employed in the whole mining industry were as follows:--
+
+ Falls of Rock, Coal, Falling Bodies, etc. 3.44
+ Transport, Haulage, Winding, Loading, etc. 2.26
+ Falls from Ladders, Steps, or other Heights 0.89
+ Explosions 0.78
+ Machinery in Motion, Motors, etc. 0.51
+ Molten Metal, Hot and Corrosive Fluids, Poisonous Gases 0.12
+ Miscellaneous 0.74
+ ----
+ Total (Fatal and Serious Accidents) 8.74
+ ====
+
+There were no less than 3.42 accidents per 1000 workers due to falls
+of rock and coal in the workings, whilst those due to explosions of
+fire-damp were only 0.31 per mil. It will be seen in the sequel that
+accidents due to falls of ground of various kinds play by far the most
+important part in mining casualties everywhere.
+
+In distributing the blame for these accidents, four main groups are
+distinguished, accidents being either apparently unavoidable and
+therefore put down to the intrinsic danger of the occupation, or else
+due to some fault of omission or commission either of the mine owners
+or managers, of the victims themselves or of their fellow-workers. The
+numbers for the entire mining industry are given as follows:--
+
+ Per cent.
+ Inherent danger of the occupation 58.2
+ Per cent.
+ Defects in or absence of safety appliances 0.2
+ Insufficient regulations 0.1
+ Other faults of management 0.9
+ Faults of the mine owners --- 1.2
+ Neglect of fellow-workers to use safety appliances 0.1
+ Contravention of regulations by fellow-workers 1.1
+ Unskilfulness of fellow-workers 0.3
+ Carelessness of fellow-workers 2.4
+ Ignorance of danger on the part of fellow-workers 0.1
+ Gross negligence of fellow-workers 0.5
+ Faults of fellow-workers --- 4.5
+ Neglect of victims to use safety appliances 0.9
+ Contravention of regulations by victims 6.4
+ Unskilfulness of victims 4.8
+ Carelessness of victims 20.3
+ Ignorance of danger on the part of victims 2.0
+ Gross negligence of victims 1.5
+ Fault of victims --- 35.9
+ Unknown causes 0.2
+ -----
+ 100.0
+ =====
+
+This table shows, in the first place, that 41.6 per cent. or two-fifths
+of all the accidents could have been avoided by proper care and
+intelligent thought on the part of all concerned; and in the second
+place, that fully one-third of the accidents can be ascribed to the
+faults of the victims themselves. This means that whilst the occupation
+is not necessarily much more than half as hazardous as the accident
+statistics make it appear, there is but little room for improvement
+either in the appliances used or in the regulations framed for the
+safety of the miners, and that the remedy lies largely within their
+own grasp, the better education of the miner and the development of
+his thinking powers being the best protection that can be offered him
+against accident. This view is further supported by the fact that in
+coal-mining the unavoidable accidents are as high as 61.7 per cent.,
+whilst the avoidable accidents fall to 28.2 per cent. (0.1 per cent.
+being ascribed to unknown causes). It may be taken as fairly well known
+that the coal miners are amongst the better educated and the more
+highly trained of all classes of miners, the effect of their higher
+intelligence being indicated in these figures.
+
+It is interesting to compare the above data with the results
+given in a recent paper by Mr B. M’Laren on “Preventible Colliery
+Fatalities,”[112] in which that gentleman analyses the fatal
+accidents in Great Britain during the years 1896–98, and points out
+that 35 per cent. of the total number of underground fatal accidents
+were preventible. In coming to this conclusion, he has included “all
+fatalities stated to have been brought about by carelessness or
+neglect; those in which a deficiency of props, sprags, bars, chocks,
+packs, etc., are mentioned; cases of want of judgment; a moment’s
+forgetfulness on the part of some one; acts contrary to the Coal Mines
+Regulation Act, special rules, and ordinary regulations; want of care,
+etc.; and those which present themselves as possibly preventible; while
+all apparently doubtful cases are omitted.” It may be added that this
+writer, like most others on this subject, concurs in the view that “the
+best preventive for colliery accidents is technical education.”[113]
+
+These German figures have been dealt with at considerable length
+because they give the most complete picture anywhere obtainable of the
+liability of miners to serious or fatal accidents. Although the tables
+in the work dealt with extend only up to the year 1895, they are still
+perfectly applicable to the present day; this is perhaps best seen by
+taking the proportion of fatal accidents for the decade 1890 to 1899,
+when it will be seen that though these fluctuate considerably about the
+average for the period under consideration, yet their general average
+agrees pretty well with that of the period covered by the work quoted,
+namely, 1885 to 1895:--
+
+ Death-rate
+ Year. per 1000 Persons.
+ 1890 2.19
+ 1891 2.44
+ 1892 2.05
+ 1893 2.27
+ 1894 1.91
+ 1895 2.16
+ 1896 2.21
+ 1897 2.05
+ 1898 2.53
+ 1899 2.03
+ ----
+ Average 2.18
+ ====
+
+No other equally complete data are available for any other country.
+In addition to the special report that has been here summarised, this
+official Relief Fund publishes annual statistics,[114] and these can
+be compared with the official statistics published annually by the
+Government from the returns collected by the Inspectors of Mines; it is
+true that these latter do not refer to the German Empire as a whole,
+but are published separately for the principal mining states, namely
+Prussia[115] and Saxony[116]; the Prussian statistics are especially
+useful, because, out of the total number of miners employed in the
+German Empire, no less than nine-tenths are included in the kingdom of
+Prussia.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The following table shows the proportion of Fatal Accidents as given in
+the above quoted Prussian statistics for 1899:--
+
+ +-------+---------------------------------------------------+
+ | | Fatal Accidents per 1000 Persons Employed in |
+ | +-----------+-------+-------------+--------+--------+
+ | Year. |Bituminous |Lignite|Metalliferous| Other | All |
+ | |Coal Mines.| Mines.| Mines. | Mines. | Mines. |
+ +-------+-----------+-------+-------------+--------+--------+
+ | 1891 | 2.889 | 1.825 | 1.035 | 1.018 | 2.395 |
+ | 1892 | 2.208 | 1.710 | 1.081 | 2.224 | 1.963 |
+ | 1893 | 2.619 | 2.089 | 0.794 | 2.298 | 2.245 |
+ | 1894 | 2.209 | 1.986 | 1.005 | 1.935 | 1.983 |
+ | 1895 | 2.540 | 2.103 | 1.002 | 1.917 | 2.229 |
+ | 1896 | 2.577 | 1.664 | 1.137 | 1.649 | 2.241 |
+ | 1897 | 2.353 | 2.362 | 1.046 | 1.611 | 2.124 |
+ | 1898 | 2.864 | 1.992 | 0.994 | 1.956 | 2.485 |
+ | 1899 | 2.314 | 1.945 | 1.393 | 1.231 | 2.114 |
+ |Decade | | | | | |
+ |1890–99| 2.518 | 1.946 | 1.079 | 1.708 | 2.204 |
+ +-------+-----------+-------+-------------+--------+--------+
+
+These figures refer to the total number of workers both below and above
+ground; an analysis for the year 1899 gives the following results:--
+
+ Per 1000 Persons
+ Employed Underground.
+ Fatal accidents due to explosions 0.079
+ „ „ haulage and winding 0.874
+ „ „ falls of coal and stone 1.191
+ „ „ after-damp 0.112
+ „ „ blasting 0.121
+ „ „ miscellaneous causes 0.142
+ -----
+ Total fatal accidents underground 2.519
+ =====
+ Per 1000 Persons
+ Employed Above Ground.
+ Total fatal accidents above ground 1.082
+
+ Per 1000 Persons
+ Employed in Open Workings.
+ Total fatal accidents in open workings 1.455
+
+It will be seen that the death-rate per 1000 persons employed is very
+nearly the same as that given by the Relief Fund Association, an
+agreement that goes far to confirm the belief above expressed in the
+general reliability of these statistics. It is important to note that
+metal-mining is in Germany a far safer occupation than coal-mining, a
+state of affairs that would naturally be expected to obtain, having
+regard to the conditions of safety of these two classes of work, and
+bearing in mind that in Germany the educational level of both classes
+of miners is more nearly the same, and that the legislation for both
+is practically identical. It should be added that the above statistics
+refer only to persons regularly employed in mines, and excludes fatal
+accidents that may occur in or about any mine, to persons not comprised
+in the category of regular mine employés; the inclusion of such cases
+would increase the above total figure by about 2.5 per cent.
+
+In Belgium, careful statistics of accidents are published,[117] and in
+spite of the fact that her coal mines present circumstances of special
+difficulty, the recorded death-rate is a low one, due partly to the
+fact already pointed out, that only deaths within thirty days of the
+accident are reported. Moreover, in Belgium, deaths due indirectly to
+mine accidents are excluded from the lists. Coal-mining being the chief
+mineral industry of Belgium, the mineral statistics of that kingdom are
+more particularly devoted to it. The death-rate has been as follows in
+the Belgian coal mines from the year 1895 to 1899:--
+
+ +-------+---------------------------------------+
+ | | Death-rate per 1000 Persons Employed. |
+ | Year. +-----------------+---------------------+
+ | | At Surface and | Underground only. |
+ | | Underground. | |
+ +-------+-----------------+---------------------+
+ | 1895 | 1.33 | 1.58 |
+ | 1896 | 1.14 | 1.38 |
+ | 1897 | 1.03 | 1.31 |
+ | 1898 | 1.40 | 1.71 |
+ | 1899 | 0.97 | 1.09 |
+ +-------+-----------------+---------------------+
+
+In 1899 there were 241 separate accidents underground, causing 101
+deaths, and 151 serious injuries; of these, 85 accidents, killing 48
+and injuring 43 workmen, were due to falls of rock or coal; accidents
+due to haulage produced 63 casualties, of which 19 were fatal, the
+majority, or 39 accidents, occurring in roads which were approximately
+level. There was only one explosion of fire-damp, causing 4 deaths,
+but there are 6 fatal accidents recorded as due to choke-damp. An
+interesting table shows that the number of accidents due to falls of
+rock or coal has produced an annual average of 0.73 deaths per 1000 men
+employed, the year 1899 happening to be considerably below the average
+in this particular category.
+
+In France also, great attention is paid to conditions affecting the
+security of the miner. Great care is exercised by the Inspectors of
+Mines, and the accident death-rate appears to be decreasing steadily
+and satisfactorily, but, in comparing the French statistics with these
+of other countries, it must be remembered that the former include only
+accidents that result fatally within a few days of their occurrence,
+there being no rule at all on the subject. The following table shows
+the death-rates per thousand since 1894[118]:--
+
+ +-----+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ | | Death-rate per 1000 Persons Employed. |
+ | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ | | In Coal Mines. | In other Mines. | In all Mines. |
+ |Year.+-------+-------+------+-------+-------+------+-------+-------+------+
+ | |Under- | Above | |Under- | Above | |Under- | Above | |
+ | |ground.|ground.|Total.|ground.|ground.|Total.|ground.|ground.|Total.|
+ +-----+-------+-------+------+-------+-------+------+-------+-------+------+
+ |1894 | 0.97 | 0.55 | 0.85 | 0.92 | 0.54 | 0.81 | 0.96 | 0.55 | 0.84 |
+ |1895 | 1.41 | 0.68 | 1.19 | 1.73 | 0.31 | 1.32 | 1.43 | 0.65 | 1.20 |
+ |1896 | 1.62 | 0.50 | 1.30 | 1.97 | 0.90 | 1.67 | 1.65 | 0.53 | 1.33 |
+ |1897 | 1.34 | 0.41 | 1.07 | 2.52 | 0.84 | 2.06 | 1.44 | 0.44 | 1.10 |
+ |1898 | 1.26 | 0.60 | 1.07 | 3.06 | 2.00 | 2.75 | 1.41 | 0.72 | 1.21 |
+ |1899 | 1.62 | 0.66 | 1.29 | 2.11 | 1.02 | 1.78 | 1.67 | 0.70 | 1.39 |
+ +-----+-------+-------+------+-------+-------+------+-------+-------+------+
+
+Coal-mining forms the principal portion of the French mining industry,
+over 90 per cent. of those engaged in mining being employed in
+collieries of various kinds. Metal-mining is comparatively unimportant,
+and is generally carried on upon a small scale, a fact that in part
+no doubt accounts for the relatively high accident death-rate. In
+coal-mining, on the other hand, the rate is a very low one. Many French
+collieries are controlled by large corporations, and in these large
+and well-managed concerns all work is done with the greatest care, and
+carried on in the most approved style.
+
+Italy is rarely looked upon as a mining country, yet there are over
+60,000 persons annually engaged in mining proper in the kingdom of
+Italy, the mining being practically all metalliferous mining. The
+following are the recent Italian accident statistics[119]:--
+
+ +-----+--------------------------------------------------+
+ | | Per 1000 Persons Employed. |
+ | +----------------+----------------+----------------+
+ |Year.| Underground. | Above ground. | Total. |
+ | +-------+--------+-------+--------+-------+--------+
+ | |Killed.|Injured.|Killed.|Injured.|Killed.|Injured.|
+ +-----+-------+--------+-------+--------+-------+--------+
+ |1897 | 2.77 | 3.23 | 0.78 | 0.86 | 2.31 | 2.67 |
+ |1898 | 1.75 | 3.50 | 0.46 | 1.39 | 1.41 | 2.95 |
+ |1899 | 2.10 | 3.29 | 0.42 | 1.08 | 1.66 | 2.72 |
+ +-----+-------+--------+-------+--------+-------+--------+
+
+It is worth noting that about two-thirds of the fatal and one-half of
+the non-fatal accidents underground are due to falls of stone, this
+being here, as elsewhere, the most prolific cause of disaster. The
+comparatively high death-rate in Italy cannot well be due to any of the
+conditions of mining, none of the mines being particularly deep, or
+presenting any conditions of abnormal danger or difficulty. It is more
+than probable that the high rate is due to the low educational level
+of the Italian miner. Whilst not less naturally intelligent or skilful
+than his fellow-worker in Britain, Germany, or France, his technical
+training is far inferior, and to this deficiency the higher accident
+death-rate in Italy may fairly be ascribed.
+
+In the United States it is only within quite recent years that
+any attempt has been made to obtain accurate statistics of mining
+accidents, and these are still mainly confined to coal mines; even now
+the inspection of these leaves a good deal to be desired. The following
+figures are given for miners other than coal miners in an article by
+F. L. Hoffman,[120] from which most of the following information is
+derived:--
+
+ +------------------------------------------------+-------------------+
+ | |Accident Death-rate|
+ | Occupation, Locality, and Year. | per 1000 |
+ | | Persons Employed. |
+ +------------------------------------------------+-------------------+
+ |Iron Ore Miners, Michigan (1892–96) | 5.14 |
+ | „ „ (1899–1900) | 3.62 |
+ |Copper Mines, Lake Superior (1892–96) | 3.57 |
+ | „ „ (1898–99) | 2.07 |
+ |Metal Miners, Colorado (1896–97) | 3.89 |
+ |Metal Miners (Lead and Zinc), Missouri (1892–97)| 2.59 |
+ +------------------------------------------------+-------------------+
+
+It is obvious that the collection of accurate statistics in the Western
+States, where the mines are much scattered and there is practically no
+inspection, is quite out of the question.
+
+The following table, taken from the paper above quoted, shows the
+accident death-rate in coal mines in the various States of the Union
+during the period 1886–1897, as far as such statistics are available:--
+
+ States and Accident Death-rate
+ Territories. per 1000
+ Persons Employed.
+ Alabama 1.63
+ Colorado 4.72
+ Illinois 1.82
+ Indiana 2.32
+ Indian Territory 3.76
+ Iowa 2.28
+ Kansas 1.62
+ Kentucky 1.50
+ Maryland 1.63
+ Missouri 2.19
+ New Mexico 9.42
+ Ohio 1.53
+ Pennsylvania (Anthracite) 3.15
+ Pennsylvania (Bituminous) 1.88
+ Tennessee 4.16
+ Washington 10.70
+ West Virginia 3.30
+
+ In all bituminous coal mines (average) 2.12
+ In all anthracite mines (average) 3.15
+ In all coal mines (average) 2.53
+
+The first point that is brought out by this table is that anthracite
+mining is evidently more dangerous than bituminous coal-mining, and
+this is the more striking seeing that anthracite coal does not give off
+fire-damp, so that the dangers of gas explosions are here excluded.
+The general conditions of anthracite mining, and more particularly
+the steep inclination and great thickness of many of the seams, are
+sources of danger that are not met with in ordinary coal-mining.
+Although, as has been already pointed out, comparisons between the
+statistics of different countries must be made with the utmost caution,
+it seems certain that the accident death-rate in the bituminous mines
+of the United States is higher than in the more important European
+coal-producing countries. There seems to be nothing in the nature of
+the bituminous coal mines of America to account for this fact, which is
+no doubt largely due to the circumstance that the American coalfields
+do not as yet possess a settled coal-mining population properly so
+called, and that experienced coal miners are therefore rare, any
+working man taking casually to coal-mining for a while, as he might
+to any other temporary occupation. Such men can of course never gain
+the experience and almost intuitive knowledge of coal-mining that is
+acquired by coal miners in the older continent, who are generally born
+and bred on the coalfields and imbibe knowledge about coal-mining
+matters from their earliest childhood. Another equally potent
+factor is the extraordinary mixture of nationalities to be found in
+most American coal mines, which seem to be the first refuge for the
+immigrant labourer from Eastern or South Eastern Europe. The result,
+of course, is that regulations or orders are only half understood,
+and are therefore not properly obeyed. Attention has recently been
+directed to this source of danger in various parts of the world; for
+example, the employment underground of persons who are not acquainted
+with the German language has recently been forbidden in the Westphalian
+coalfield. It is worth while noting that the States in which machine
+coal-cutting is most largely employed, such as Ohio and Illinois, show
+death-rates well below the average of the United States as a whole.
+
+Turning now to Great Britain, there is a large mass of statistical
+material available by which the liability to accident of the British
+miner may be gauged. Each of H.M. Inspectors of Mines in charge of a
+district issues an annual report, a great portion of which is devoted
+to mining accidents and their causes, and these district reports are
+summarised in the General Report and Statistics, Part II., Labour,
+whilst an advance proof is also published early in each year. It may be
+as well to point out first of all that the death-rate due to accidents
+has been steadily diminishing during the last half century,[121] as is
+well shown by the following table, worked out for quinquennial periods
+from 1851 to 1899:--
+
+ +------------+------------------------------------------------------------+
+ | | Average Annual Death-rate per 1000 Persons |
+ | | Employed in all Mines in Great Britain. |
+ | +--------------------------------------------+-------+-------+
+ |Quinquennial| | Above | |
+ | Period. | Underground. |ground.| Total.|
+ | +-----------+--------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
+ | | Due to | Due to | In | Misc- |Due to |Due to |Due to |
+ | |Explosions.|falls of|Shafts.| ellan-| all | all | all |
+ | | | Ground.| | eous. |Causes.|Causes.|Causes.|
+ +------------+-----------+--------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
+ | 1851–1855 | 1.280 | 2.016 | 1.296 | 0.556 | 5.149 | 1.012 | 4.301 |
+ | 1856–1860 | 1.234 | 1.846 | 0.899 | 0.648 | 4.628 | 0.994 | 3.883 |
+ | 1861–1865 | 0.618 | 1.714 | 0.668 | 0.790 | 3.791 | 1.105 | 3.240 |
+ | 1866–1870 | 1.158 | 1.578 | 0.528 | 0.730 | 3.995 | 1.256 | 3.433 |
+ | 1871–1875 | 0.516 | 1.210 | 0.437 | 0.572 | 2.736 | 0.899 | 2.342 |
+ | 1876–1880 | 0.811 | 1.132 | 0.317 | 0.449 | 2.709 | 0.847 | 2.306 |
+ | 1881–1885 | 0.408 | 1.108 | 0.263 | 0.532 | 2.312 | 0.848 | 2.007 |
+ | 1886–1890 | 0.312 | 1.015 | 0.196 | 0.517 | 2.042 | 0.913 | 1.806 |
+ | 1891–1895 | 0.244 | 0.798 | 0.188 | 0.470 | 1.704 | 0.820 | 1.524 |
+ | 1896–1899 | 0.117 | 0.783 | 0.122 | 0.457 | 1.479 | 0.798 | 1.338 |
+ +------------+-----------+--------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
+
+This table shows that as far as comparisons with other countries are
+at all possible, mining in Great Britain has reached a level of safety
+with which but few other nations can compare favourably; it also
+brings out the very satisfactory fact that the accident death-rate is
+steadily decreasing, although further investigation will show that all
+branches of the mining industry do not share equally in the decrease.
+Great Britain is essentially a coal-mining country, its metal-mining
+having been for years constantly diminishing until it is now almost
+a negligible quantity; it must, however, be remarked that by one of
+those curious legislative freaks that are so familiar to the miner in
+this country, the only remaining important branch of metal-mining,
+namely, ironstone-mining, is for legal purposes included under the
+head of coal-mining, and figures as such in all these statistics.
+About 95 or 96 per cent. of all persons employed in mining work in the
+coal mines as thus legally defined, over 93 per cent. being employed
+in coal-mining properly so called. The following table shows the
+death-rates for quinquennial periods from 1875 to the end of 1899 for
+coal and metal miners, taken separately, using these words in their
+official sense:--
+
+ +------------+-----------------------------------------------+
+ | | Average Annual Death-rate in Great Britain |
+ | | per 1000 Persons Employed. |
+ | +-----------------------+-----------------------+
+ |Quinquennial| | |
+ | Periods. | In Coal Mines. | In Metal Mines. |
+ | +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
+ | |Under- | Above | Total.|Under- | Above | Total.|
+ | |ground.|ground.| |ground.|ground.| |
+ +------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
+ | 1876–1880 | 2.752 | 0.936 | 2.396 | 2.170 | 0.432 | 1.472 |
+ | 1881–1885 | 2.310 | 0.962 | 2.046 | 2.338 | 0.461 | 1.600 |
+ | 1886–1890 | 2.038 | 0.970 | 1.834 | 2.116 | 0.318 | 1.428 |
+ | 1891–1895 | 1.686 | 0.874 | 1.526 | 2.250 | 0.392 | 1.482 |
+ | 1896–1899 | 1.462 | 0.816 | 1.340 | 1.898 | 0.468 | 1.305 |
+ +------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
+
+An examination of this table shows very clearly that practically all
+the improvement has been confined to coal-mining. Leaving surface
+labour out of question for the moment, it is seen that the death-rate
+amongst coal miners for the period 1896–99 is little more than half of
+what it was in 1876–80, whilst in metal-mining there has only been a
+somewhat doubtful improvement of about 12½ per cent. Contrary to the
+popular opinion, coal-mining in this country is obviously now a very
+much safer employment than metal-mining, and has been so for about the
+last twenty years. The death-rates of surface workers have in both
+cases remained about stationary during the last twenty-five years. It
+is evidently nearly double as high at collieries as it is at metal
+mines, the reason for this being undoubtedly the greater complexity of
+surface machinery, the far more intensive rate of work at the former,
+and above all the fact that the surface works of the vast majority of
+collieries are connected by a network of railway lines and sidings.
+That these are a grave source of danger needs hardly any proof, but
+such is easily obtainable, seeing that the accident death-rate of
+all males in Great Britain is about 0.87[122] per 1000, whilst that of
+railway employés, such as pointsmen, porters, guards, etc., is no less
+than 2.286[122] per 1000. It is evident that the higher death-rate
+at the surface of collieries as compared with metalliferous mines is
+easily enough accounted for, and the fact is, moreover, indicated in
+the statistics themselves. For example, in 1899, nearly 60 per cent. of
+the total number of surface accidents at collieries were returned as
+due to this cause. The suggestion of a remedy is unfortunately a far
+more difficult matter; this necessarily lies largely in the hands of
+the men themselves, and whilst it must be admitted that working about
+and amongst railway trucks is a dangerous occupation, it is a danger
+that can be considerably lessened by the care and attention of the
+workers themselves.
+
+An analysis of the causes of fatalities in coal mines leads to several
+important conclusions. In the first place it is obvious that the danger
+which is most prominently connected in the public mind with coal mines,
+that, namely, of explosions, is now one of the least formidable.
+
+The death-rate from explosions within the last five years has been as
+follows in all the collieries of the United Kingdom:--
+
+ Death-rate
+ Year. per 1000 Persons
+ due to Explosions.
+ 1895 0.10
+ 1896 0.31
+ 1897 0.03
+ 1898 0.05
+ 1899 0.09
+
+These figures have now become so small that they are necessarily
+irregular, an accident of any magnitude, causing even a dozen deaths,
+being sufficient to affect the rate very greatly. The improvement
+within the last twenty years is extremely marked, and is due to various
+causes, among which may be enumerated better ventilation, the far more
+extended use of safety lamps, the substitution in all dangerous mines
+of safer explosives for the once universally used black powder, and
+above all, of some better method of firing for the highly dangerous
+“squib.” It is highly probable that further improvements may be looked
+for with every prospect of success in this latter direction, and that
+the general adoption of electric firing would be a distinctly valuable
+safeguard. The recognition of the fact that coal-dust is an explosive
+agent but little less dangerous than fire-damp, due largely to the
+labours of Professor W. Galloway and Mr H. Hall, and the precautions in
+the form of watering now adopted, have also played an important part
+in reducing the death-rate. It need hardly be added that most of these
+precautions would have been of little value, even if their introduction
+had been possible, unless the scientific training of managers,
+officials, and men alike had concurrently made considerable advances.
+It is scarcely possible to enforce in a coal mine laws or regulations
+of which the more intelligent, at any rate, amongst the miners
+themselves do not see the use, and legislation alone could do but
+little, unless there existed a general feeling in the mining community
+that it was tending in the right direction. It needs a certain amount
+of technical and scientific training, however, to enable the average
+coal miner to realise such a fact, and that he has been brought to
+realise it is one of the main factors in the increased security that
+men enjoy nowadays.
+
+The main cause of disaster underground has always been, and still
+remains, that classed as “falls of ground,” to which considerably over
+half of the deaths underground are due. Explosions have now been so
+far brought under control that an explosion has come to be looked upon
+as an abnormal accident, due to a fault of omission or commission on
+the part of somebody, and therefore requiring careful investigation,
+whilst falls of ground are unfortunately still regarded as normal
+risks incident to the miner’s calling. These falls may be subdivided
+according as they are falls at the working face, when they are either
+falls of roof or falls of the coal face, or they are “backbye”
+accidents, that is to say, falls of roof in the roadways of the mine.
+Falls at the face are accountable for over 70 per cent. of the total
+number of deaths due to falls, but unfortunately our statistics do not
+discriminate between falls of coal and falls of roof at the face. In
+the absence of definite information on this important point, it is
+difficult to suggest what remedies should be applied, but these must
+depend greatly upon what may be found to be the most fertile causes of
+accident; falls of the roof, properly speaking, can only be avoided
+by setting more props, or by setting them better; falls of coal may
+be due to bad “spragging,” or to the undercut mass of coal falling
+forward, or to its coming away at one of the natural cleavage joints
+of the coal. In Germany a Government Commission has been appointed to
+inquire into the whole question of falls of ground, and no doubt the
+report, when issued, will throw much light upon this difficult subject.
+It is obvious that the two kinds of falls require entirely different
+treatment; systematic timbering, _i.e._, the setting of props at
+regular uniform distances apart, whether the roof seems to need it or
+not, is being advocated in several quarters, and it should certainly do
+something to reduce the number of accidents due to falls of roof. Falls
+of coal can hardly be treated in the same way; systematic spragging
+might do something, but would probably not of itself be sufficient. A
+very obvious mode of reducing the accident rate at the working face
+should be found in the more extensive use of coal-cutting machinery;
+in the first place the number of men necessary to be employed at the
+coal face for a given output would be very considerably reduced, and
+hence the number of men exposed to this danger would be proportionally
+diminished. Furthermore, as the machine cuts rapidly, and must be kept
+moving constantly if it is to be economically successful, the men
+working it will always be under a comparatively fresh roof, which is
+far less liable to sudden falls than a roof that has been laid bare
+for some time, the same being true also of a freshly-cut face of coal,
+which should never, under these conditions, be left standing long
+enough for the weight of the roof to affect it. Finally, a man working
+with a machine has a far better chance of looking about him and seeing
+what is going on than has a miner lying on his side, half under the
+coal, engaged in “kirving his holing,” that is to say, in hewing out
+with his pick a narrow strip of coal along the floor of the seam, an
+operation that has to be performed preparatory to breaking down the
+mass of coal.
+
+It is highly probable that one of the conditions that has contributed
+very largely to the prevention of colliery explosions, namely, the
+extended use of safety lamps, has at the same time been a contributary
+cause of the non-diminution in the number of accidents due to falls of
+ground. Among the conditions that have been laid down from time to time
+by Royal Commissions and others as essential to a good safety lamp,
+that of giving a sufficient amount of light has been very generally
+overlooked, and most of the safety lamps in use give a very poor light,
+especially after they have been burning for a few hours. Their shape,
+moreover, prevents their giving a top light, so that it is scarcely
+possible for a miner to adequately examine the roof of his working
+with a safety lamp, so as to see whether it is dangerous or not. Much
+was hoped from the introduction of portable electric lamps, but so far
+these have not come up to expectations, partly because no entirely
+satisfactory electric lamp has yet been devised, partly because the
+ordinary electric lamp does not, like the ordinary safety lamp,
+indicate the presence of gas, and thus allows the miner to continue
+his work without giving him warning that he is in an atmosphere in
+which he ought not to remain. A really good safety lamp, giving a light
+all round at least equal to that of an ordinary candle, is a great
+desideratum at the present moment.
+
+Of the remaining causes of accidents underground, the most serious are
+those connected with the transport of the coal; the various systems
+of mechanical or self-acting haulage in use in all collieries of any
+importance must always give rise to a certain number of accidents,
+but it can only be said that the number of these could be greatly
+diminished by a stricter attention to colliery regulations. A large
+number are due annually to men and lads riding upon the tubs, so as to
+save themselves the exertion of walking to or from the shaft bottom.
+Shaft accidents have fortunately diminished considerably within the
+last twenty years, having come down to about one-third of what they
+were; much of the improvement is no doubt due to the greater attention
+now being paid to the quality and condition of the winding ropes. A
+notable proportion of the accidents classified under this head occurs
+not in regular mining, but during the sinking of shafts, an operation
+that always of necessity involves a good deal of risk.
+
+Turning next to metal-mining, the most striking fact is that the
+conditions of safety have undergone such small improvement; the
+figures of course fluctuate a good deal from year to year, because
+the total number of men engaged is so small that a very few accidents
+more or less affect the ratios very considerably. It should be noted
+that metalliferous mines, as defined by law, include a large number
+of mines in which no metallic minerals are wrought, and should more
+properly be described as all mines not included under coal mines; the
+metalliferous mines properly so called show a far higher death-rate
+than is returned for the miscellaneous mines legally described as
+metalliferous. Here again, as in coal mines, the largest number of
+casualties is due to falls of ground, by which nearly two-thirds of
+the total number of deaths is caused. In metal-mining, the miner’s
+safety must depend far more than in coal-mining upon the worker’s own
+judgment, experience, and carefulness; it can only be suggested that
+mine managers should see to it that an ample supply of suitable timber
+is kept close to all the working places, and that the timbering of
+all levels, etc., should be constantly inspected by special officials
+appointed for this purpose.
+
+The most interesting problem that presents itself for solution is,
+however, the question why the form of mining that was the safer of the
+two twenty-five years ago in this country, and which is still far the
+safer in Germany, is now the more dangerous, and why the death-rate in
+one should have been reduced 50 per cent., whilst in the other it has
+remained practically stationary. The only salient point of difference
+to be found between the present regulations affecting the two forms
+of mining is, that whilst the Coal Mines Regulation Acts insist that
+no man shall be allowed to act as either manager or under-manager
+of a colliery unless he has passed certain prescribed examinations,
+any one is at liberty to manage a metalliferous mine, whether he be
+qualified to do so or not. The result has been that the educational
+level of coal miners as a whole has been raised; every intelligent
+coal miner knows that the only road to ultimate promotion lies through
+these examinations, and therefore applies himself to the scientific
+study of his work. There are thus growing up in every coalfield in
+Great Britain numbers of technically well-educated young men, from
+whom colliery managers can select their colliery officials, and the
+higher educational standard thus attained by the officials is slowly
+but surely affecting both the working miner on the one hand, and the
+manager on the other, as it is obvious that the latter dare not remain
+on an intellectually lower plane than his subordinates. It is probable
+this educational development has played a leading part in the improved
+conditions of safety in coal mines, not only directly, by increasing
+the knowledge and thinking powers of the miners, but indirectly, as
+already said, by rendering legislation easy that would scarcely have
+been possible without it, all of which merely amounts to another
+repetition of the statement, that improved education is the best
+safeguard of the miner against accident. It will be remembered that the
+same conclusion was already drawn from the comparison of the accident
+death-rates of various countries, the highest death-rates being found
+in the most ignorant nations. Although much has been done in this
+country within the last twenty-five years, very much still remains to
+be done in order to bring up the educational level of all connected
+with mining to the high standard of scientific technology that is to be
+found in some other countries.
+
+It should here be pointed out that mining, and more especially
+coal-mining, is really not the highly dangerous occupation that it is
+usually thought to be. The annual average accident death-rate[123] for
+all males in Great Britain is 0.870 per 1000, with which the present
+rate for coal miners underground of 1.462 per 1000 does not compare
+very unfavourably. The true accident risk of the miner is perhaps best
+seen by comparing it with a few of the other trades that are usually
+classed as dangerous:--
+
+ Average Annual Accident
+ Occupation. Death-rate per 1000
+ in the years 1891–93.
+
+ Bargeman, Lighterman, etc. 3.765
+ Seaman, Merchant Service 3.219
+ Dock Labourer, etc. 2.411
+ Railway Guard, Porter, Pointsman, etc. 2.286
+ Railway Engine Driver, Stoker 1.340
+ General Labourer 1.155
+
+As regards non-fatal accidents, it has already been pointed out that
+the official statistics of this country are of practically no value,
+owing to the absence of any standard or definition of what constitutes
+an accident to be reported. The following table shows the number of
+persons injured in mines (non-fatal accident cases) _according to the
+official statistics_:--
+
+ +------+------------------------------+
+ | |Number of Persons Injured per |
+ | | 1000 Persons Employed. |
+ | Year.+--------------+---------------+
+ | |In Coal Mines.|In Metal Mines.|
+ +------+--------------+---------------+
+ | 1895 | 7.49 | 6.96 |
+ | 1896 | 8.29 | 9.89 |
+ | 1897 | 6.42 | 8.29 |
+ | 1898 | 5.74 | 9.75 |
+ | 1899 | 5.66 | 10.10 |
+ +------+--------------+---------------+
+
+It will be seen presently that these figures are ludicrously
+disproportionate to the real casualties, and although it is difficult
+to get accurate data about these, an approximation, at any rate, to the
+true facts can be obtained.
+
+Valuable information is afforded by the various Miners’ Permanent
+Relief Funds, and by the Central Association for dealing with
+distress caused by mining accidents. The latter Association publishes
+statistics, from which the following table has been compiled, this
+representing the summary of the returns from the nine English societies
+(there are no Scotch or Irish ones) which together compose the
+Association[124]:--
+
+ +------+---------+------------------------------+
+ | | | No. per 1000 Members. |
+ | | No. of +---------------+--------------+
+ | Year.| Members.| Of Deaths by |Of Disablement|
+ | | |Fatal Accident.| Cases. |
+ +------+---------+---------------+--------------+
+ | 1889 | 238,892 | 2.12 | 188.3 |
+ | 1890 | 268,985 | 2.66 | 157.2 |
+ | 1891 | 287,690 | 1.88 | 149.8 |
+ | 1892 | 295,676 | 2.17 | 139.8 |
+ | 1893 | 299,027 | 1.59 | 144.8 |
+ | 1894 | 313,438 | 2.50 | 159.4 |
+ | 1895 | 317,004 | 1.99 | 166.8 |
+ | 1896 | 325,708 | 1.90 | 177.6 |
+ | 1897 | 334,428 | 1.76 | 192.6 |
+ | 1898 | 271,536 | 1.81 | 196.3 |
+ | 1899 | 279,842 | 1.67 | 176.6 |
+ +------+---------+---------------+--------------+
+
+The accident death-rate reported by the Association is rather higher
+than is shown in the Inspectors’ Official Reports, because in the
+latter only deaths that occur within a year and a day of the accident
+are included, whereas in the tables compiled by the Association all
+deaths that can be referred to mining accidents are given, however long
+the interval may be between the accident and the death of the injured
+person.
+
+The disablement cases in the above table comprise all injuries received
+by any member of the Association that are sufficiently serious to
+keep the victim off work for at least a week. They are _more than
+twenty times_ as numerous as those included in the Inspectors
+of Mines’ Reports, and this may be accepted as conclusive evidence
+that these reports do not record by any means all cases of “serious
+personal injury.” It is true that the two sets of statistics are not
+in all respects strictly comparable; the Inspectors of Mines take no
+account of an accident unless it happens within the precincts of the
+mine as legally defined, while the Associations’ regulations extend to
+accidents that may happen to miners going to or returning from their
+work. There is also a suspicion that occasional cases of disability
+to work are returned as due to accident, when they are really not so
+caused, and escape the vigilance of the various societies’ officials.
+Making all allowances, however, for these and similar defects, the
+above figures may be looked upon as reasonably accurate, and as fairly
+representing the risk of minor accidents to which the coal miner is
+exposed in this country; it may be added that the figures for each
+individual society do not vary very greatly from the general average,
+as shown by the Association. It is difficult to see why they should
+be about twice as high as the corresponding accidents in Germany, for
+although there may be some laxity in admitting supposed accidents, this
+circumstance cannot possibly account for one-half of the cases. It
+would be a decided advantage if Inspectors of Mines had power to record
+and report all cases of “smart money” and of compensation respectively
+paid by the collieries in their districts, as fairly accurate
+statistics of minor accidents could be obtained in this simple manner.
+It would also be more satisfactory if all accidents were subject to
+the examination of special medical officers appointed solely for this
+purpose. In this way the suspicion would be avoided that a medical
+practitioner may at times take too lenient a view of a doubtful case,
+biassed perhaps by the fact that his livelihood may depend largely upon
+the goodwill of the miners, who often form the bulk of his patients.
+
+By far the most important of the individual societies that make up the
+Central Association is the Northumberland and Durham Miners’ Permanent
+Relief Fund; from the annual reports of this society useful information
+may be gathered, some of which is summarised in the following table:--
+
+ +------+---------+-------------------------------------+
+ | | | No. per 1000 Members. |
+ | Year.| No. of +-------+--------------+--------------+
+ | | Members.| Of |Of Permanently|Of Temporarily|
+ | | |Killed.| Disabled. | Disabled. |
+ +------+---------+-------+--------------+--------------+
+ | 1896 | 122,257 | 1.33 | 1.96 | 156.6 |
+ | 1897 | 124,920 | 1.60 | 1.94 | 156.8 |
+ | 1898 | 127,564 | 1.24 | 1.96 | 152.1 |
+ | 1899 | 130,552 | 1.50 | 2.00 | 148.4 |
+ +------+---------+-------+--------------+--------------+
+
+According to the rules of the society an injured man whose injuries
+prevent him from working for a week is considered as “temporarily
+disabled,” and he continues in this category until he is fit to return
+to work, unless he is so badly hurt as to be unable to work for six
+months, when he is classed as “permanently disabled”; such a man may
+either recover sufficiently to be able to work again, or he may die, or
+he may remain disabled for life. The duration of permanent disablement
+as above defined has of course risen gradually from the commencement of
+the fund, until it amounted to 5.17 years in the quinquennial period
+1887–91, its average duration from the formation of the fund having
+been 4.42 years.[125]
+
+The duration of temporary disablement was about:--
+
+ 3.5 weeks in the year 1896
+ 3.6 „ „ 1897
+ 3.55 „ „ 1898
+ 3.55 „ „ 1899
+
+In the Liverpool district, the ratio of permanent disablement is found
+to be 4.5 per 1000 members, and of temporary disablement 180 per 1000
+members; the duration of the former cases averages 3½ years, and that
+of the latter 4.3 weeks.
+
+Annual reports are also issued by the Prussian Official Miners’ Relief
+Fund; the report for 1898 gives the accident death-rate of the members
+of the Association as 2.69 per 1000 members, the death-rate from all
+other causes being 5.39, making a total death-rate of 7.58 per 1000.
+It is worth noting that the average age at which members are totally
+incapacitated from working is 49.2 years, whilst the average age at
+which members are partially incapacitated is about forty-five years;
+this includes disablement due to old age as well as to accident.
+
+Coming lastly to the subject of the diseases of miners, it may first
+of all be stated that mining is a distinctly healthy occupation. The
+mortality of all males[126] in Great Britain during the years 1890–92
+was 18.74 per 1000, out of which 0.87 deaths were due to accident,
+leaving 17.87 per 1000 due to what may be termed natural causes. On
+the other hand the mortality among coal miners from all causes for the
+same period was 12.33, that due to accident being given as 2.00,[127]
+making the death-rate due to natural causes only 10.35 per 1000. Of
+course it must not be forgotten that the working miner’s career covers
+just that period of life at which the natural death-rate is lowest.
+There are no doubt several circumstances that contribute to the general
+healthiness of the miner’s occupation; in the first place, mining is
+hard work, and men whose constitution is not tolerably sound, and whose
+physique is not fully up to the average, will either select some less
+arduous occupation at the outset, or will find themselves, if they
+began life as miners, unable to continue at the work. On the other
+hand, the work, though arduous, requires steady though only moderate
+exertion, and does not expose the worker to the abnormally violent
+strains, exerted through brief periods, that characterise some other
+occupations. Again, the hygienic conditions are, as far as the coal
+mine at least is concerned, far more favourable than in most other
+occupations. The miner works in a good atmosphere, ample ventilation
+being a prime necessity for ensuring the safety of the coal miner,
+in an equable temperature, free from the extremes alike of heat and
+cold, he is not exposed to the inclemencies of the weather, and his
+working place is usually dry. The same cannot always be said of the
+miner in metalliferous mines, where the conditions of work are far less
+favourable in every respect, and his mortality is therefore higher. It
+may be added that the coal miner, if even moderately industrious, can
+always earn a wage ample to keep him in fair comfort, and to supply him
+fully with all the necessaries of life. Probably the most unhealthy
+part of the coal miner’s work consists in “kirving” or undercutting the
+coal, in doing which the miner has to lie on his side on the floor of
+the coal seam, swinging his pick with a peculiar sideways stroke over
+his head, till he has cut out a narrow groove some 3 feet deep below
+the over-hanging mass of coal. Work in this constrained position is
+necessarily harmful to some extent; its effect has been most noticed as
+affecting the nervous system, and especially the nerves of the eyes,
+the disease known as miner’s nystagmus having been often ascribed to
+it. Cases of miner’s nystagmus occur, however, also among miners who
+do not have to kirve, and it may well be due in great part to the poor
+light obtainable in so many cases underground, especially when safety
+lamps are used, and the consequent strain on the eyes; at any rate
+this seems to be the opinion of several who have suffered from this
+complaint. The coal miner working in this position is also bound to
+inhale a considerable amount of fine coal-dust, which has an irritating
+effect upon the lungs; thus it appears from the tables already
+referred to that the percentages of deaths of coal miners due to the
+respective causes indicated were as follows:--
+
+ Causes of Death. Percentage of
+ Total Number of Deaths.
+ Accident 16.2
+ Phthisis 10.7
+ Bronchitis 12.4
+ Pneumonia 10.9
+
+The most obvious remedy for reducing the proportion of diseases due to
+the above causes is the one already referred to, namely, the general
+use of mechanical coal-cutters, and the replacement of hand kirving
+by machine kirving. Another cause besides coal-dust that is probably
+answerable for a considerable proportion of diseases of the lungs is
+the universal custom among coal miners in this country of walking home
+in their damp and dirty pit clothing, instead of changing into warm,
+dry clothes at the mine. Colliery owners have tried the experiment of
+providing changing houses and baths for the men at the pit’s mouth, but
+have always found that the men declined to avail themselves of these
+conveniences.
+
+It has been pointed out that the metal miner’s work is far more
+unhealthy than that of the collier. This is well seen in the death-rate
+among Cornish tin miners, the typical metal miners of Great Britain.
+Here we find that the death-rate, instead of being below the average
+of the country, is higher, namely 19.66 per 1000 from all causes,
+that from accident being given as 1.14, leaving 18.52 per 1000 as the
+death-rate from disease. Consumption is extremely fatal amongst tin
+miners, bronchitis also claiming many victims. The following table
+shows the percentage of the total number of deaths for the period
+1890–92, due to the causes specified:--
+
+ Cause of Death. Percentage of the
+ Total Number of Deaths.
+ Accident 5.8
+ Phthisis 29.9
+ Bronchitis 13.5
+ Pneumonia 5.4
+ Other diseases of respiratory system 7.1
+
+It is worth noting that according to Dr Ogle’s figures the percentage
+of deaths in the period 1880–83 amongst Cornish miners (which may be
+taken as practically equivalent to the tin miners quoted above) due
+to phthisis was 37.5, and to other diseases of the respiratory organs,
+24.9, the death-rate from all causes being rather more than double
+that of the average of all males. It is probable that a good deal of
+the improvement that appears to have taken place in those ten years is
+due to the increasing replacement of ladders by cages for getting the
+men to and from their work; there seems little doubt that the fatigue
+of having to climb up a good many hundred feet of steep ladders at the
+end of a hard day’s work is a prolific cause of chest complaints and
+of heart disease. At most Cornish mines of any importance a “dry” is
+provided, _i.e._, a room or building in which the miners change
+their wet and dirty mine clothes, and leave them to be properly dried
+for the day following. As in coal mines, so in metal mines, the dust
+produced by the miner’s work is apt to injure the men’s lungs. In
+metal-mining this dust is chiefly produced by the action of drilling.
+When a drill hole inclines well below the horizontal, water can and
+always should be poured in, to convert the dust produced into mud, and
+thus to prevent it from flying about. When a hole “looks upwards” or
+is pointed above the horizontal, water cannot be poured in, but may
+be splashed in from time to time; this, however, involves a certain
+amount of trouble, and is rarely done, although it ought to be. It is
+especially important in the case of machine drills, which work very
+much faster and cause much more dust than hand drilling. The compressed
+air by which these drills are usually actuated can easily be employed
+to force a small jet of water into the drill hole; this is done by some
+machines, and is to be highly recommended. Some Continental makers
+have extended this idea, and use drills pierced longitudinally with
+a small hole, through which water is injected; this plan seems to be
+very effective in preventing dust, but may be found open to some other
+objections in practice.
+
+The fumes produced by blasting, especially when nitro-glycerine
+explosives are used, are said to be occasionally injurious to health.
+There is no doubt that the explosion of ordinary black blasting-powder
+produces a considerable amount of carbonic oxide, and this poisonous
+gas is also produced, though apparently in less quantity, by most of
+the so-called safety explosives used in coal-mining. There is, however,
+never or rarely any good reason why a miner should be exposed to these
+fumes, which can be cleared away rapidly, provided that the mine is
+properly ventilated. It has been remarked that in most cases where
+such ill effects have been complained of, the fault has lain with the
+men themselves.
+
+It is very exceptional that mining operations, properly so called,
+necessitate working in air under pressure, though this may occur in
+some special methods of shaft-sinking or of driving levels through wet
+ground; it is well known that men working under these conditions are
+liable to suffer from caisson disease. None but sound, healthy men,
+not too old, should be employed on such work; they should work short
+shifts, remain a sufficient time in the intermediate air-lock, and it
+is advisable that they should be under medical observation or periodic
+examination as long as the work lasts. In Westphalia the law forbids
+men working for more than six hours in any place underground the
+temperature of which exceeds 29° C. (84° F.).
+
+Of special diseases that particularly affect miners, there can hardly
+be said to be any. On the Continent, particularly in Belgium,[128] and
+more recently in Australia, especially in North Queensland, a good deal
+of alarm has been caused by the prevalence of a serious disease due to
+an intestinal parasite known as Anchylostomum Duodenale. This disease,
+once introduced, spreads with alarming rapidity; thus in one Hungarian
+pit, 80 per cent. of the workers were found to be affected, and in pits
+in the province of Liège from 50 to 69 per cent. were attacked; in
+Westphalia, in 1897, there were 275 cases of the disease amongst 56,370
+miners. The principal, if not the only remedy for this very serious,
+and often fatal disease, consists in the strictest personal cleanliness
+on the part of the miners themselves, whilst the management should take
+care to provide portable sanitary appliances, properly disinfected, at
+suitable places underground, and an ample supply of clean water for
+washing purposes. This has been made compulsory by recent legislation
+for the Westphalian coal mines. At German collieries bathing facilities
+are always provided, but the same Act now compels the use of separate
+shower baths in the place of the general plunge bath, the latter having
+been found to be a means of propagating not only anchylostomiasis, but
+other contagious diseases, such as trachoma (contagious disease of the
+eyes), typhus, etc.
+
+There are a few special diseases due to special cases of mining
+poisonous minerals, which only just need passing mention. It may be
+said that the only poisonous minerals mined are the ores of copper,
+arsenic, lead, and mercury. The mining of copper never seems to have
+given rise to any trouble, and it is even disputed by some authorities,
+whether copper, taken into the system in small quantities, acts as a
+poison.[129] Arsenic is usually mined in the form of arsenical pyrites,
+and does not seem in this shape to have any injurious effects. It
+is said that dust from the mineral smaltite (an arsenide of cobalt,
+containing no sulphur when pure), when drawn into the lungs produces
+cancer of the lungs,[130] and that this disease is not uncommon amongst
+the miners in the Schneeberg district of Saxony, where the above
+mineral occurs.
+
+In ordinary lead mines, lead poisoning or plumbism is almost unknown;
+in the mortality tables already quoted, only one case of death is
+referred to plumbism among 16,827 miners. This is apparently due mainly
+to the fact that in all British lead mines the supply of oxidised lead
+ores is practically exhausted, and work is confined to the sulphuretted
+ores. Galena, the sulphide of lead, is a heavy and difficultly soluble
+substance, and it would seem that lead is not readily absorbed from it
+into the system. The case is far different when the softer oxidised
+ores of lead, such as the carbonates, are worked, and these have been a
+source of serious trouble at the mines of the Broken Hill district, New
+South Wales. It was found that men could not safely be kept at work in
+those parts of the mine which produced the earthy lead carbonates for
+more than a fortnight at a time.[131]
+
+Mercurial poisoning is no doubt the most serious of all these special
+forms of mining disease, due to the fact that all ores of mercury carry
+more or less mercury in the metallic state, as also to the readiness
+with which metallic mercury volatilises even at ordinary temperatures.
+At the Almaden mines in Spain, and the Idria mines in Carniola, a good
+deal of mercurial poisoning is found to occur; the chief remedy adopted
+seems to be the working of short shifts, so as to expose the men for
+as short a time as possible to the dangerous fumes. At the New Almaden
+mines in California statistics have shown that there were amongst the
+miners 10.44 per cent. of cases of mercurialism (salivation) in one
+year (1890).[132] The following remarks on this subject in the report
+are worth quoting:--
+
+“The miners employed in the extraction of ore work by contract as
+a rule, and a certain number of careless men, through their own
+negligence, become victims to mercurial salivation. Men engaged in ore
+chambers, where native mercury is found, are requested not to eat,
+drink, or smoke, without first cleaning the face and hands, and using a
+solution of potassium chlorate as a mouth wash. Working stripped to the
+waist is discouraged.
+
+“As the greatest attention is paid toward the attainment of perfect
+ventilation, which is of prime importance in the prevention of
+mercurial sickness, it is the physician’s belief that if the miners
+were more thorough in the use of the above precautions, the salivation
+rate at the mine would be under 1 per cent., whereas it is now over 10
+per cent. It is probable that there will always be a slight amount of
+mercurial sickness, owing, very likely, to the suspension in the moist
+atmosphere of the mine of a small amount of the chlorides, and possibly
+other salts of mercury.”
+
+This last example, therefore, serves to repeat and enforce the lesson
+that seems to be taught by every portion of this investigation,
+namely, that although mining is from the very nature of the occupation
+accompanied by certain risks, and although enlightened legislation and
+careful and scientific management can do much towards diminishing these
+risks, the main prophylactic must always lie in the thoughtfulness and
+intelligence of the miners themselves, and that the best thing that can
+be done towards increasing the safety of mining operations is to raise
+by all possible means the intellectual status of mining communities.
+
+
+
+ HENRY LOUIS.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+ THE AIR OF MINES
+
+
+The air of mines of whatever kind is extremely liable to vitiation, the
+nature and extent of which is of considerable importance in relation
+to the health and safety of those working in the mine. The impurities
+met with are known to the miners under such names as “black-damp,”
+“fire-damp,” “after-damp,” “white-damp,” “gob-stink,” etc.; and these
+terms will as far as possible be adhered to in the present account of
+the subject.
+
+In all mines a current of air to all parts is secured by means of
+the arrangement of the shafts and roads. One shaft, known as the
+“downcast,” serves for the supply of fresh air, which is distributed
+by means of “intake” roads to the working places. The more or less
+vitiated air then passes along a corresponding system of “return” roads
+or passages to the “upcast” shaft, by which it leaves the mine. In
+coal mines, where a very large ventilation is necessary, the current
+is usually maintained by means of a centrifugal fan placed at the top
+of the upcast, or in some cases by a furnace at the bottom of the
+upcast. In metalliferous mines the warmth of the mine commonly causes
+sufficient up-current, without any artificial aid. It is evident that
+by analysing the return air, and measuring its rate of flow, we can
+obtain the best idea of the nature and amount of the general vitiation
+of air throughout the whole mine, while analyses made at particular
+points in the mine afford more information with regard to vitiation due
+to special local conditions.
+
+_Black-damp._--So far as is known the impurity known to miners
+as black-damp is met with to a greater or less extent in all, or
+nearly all, mines, and in many wells. Black-damp is recognised by
+the fact that when present in small quantities it causes a candle or
+lamp to burn dimly, without at the same time producing any distinctly
+noticeable effect on men: that in larger amounts it extinguishes
+lights; and that in still larger amounts it causes death by
+suffocation. It is never explosive when present by itself, and is
+almost always heavier than air, unless, as very frequently occurs in
+coal mines, it occurs mixed with fire-damp.
+
+Until lately black-damp was believed to issue from coal and other
+strata, and was commonly identified with carbonic acid. Investigations
+by Mr W. N. Atkinson and the writer[A] have shown that this belief is
+erroneous, and that black-damp is nothing else than the residual gas,
+resulting from the action of air on oxidisable material present in coal
+and other materials. Pure black-damp, free from air and other gases,
+consists of a mixture of nitrogen with usually from 5 to 15 per cent.
+of carbonic acid.
+
+
+
+The following table shows the composition of the black-damp obtained
+from various coal-mines, metalliferous mines, and wells. The samples
+were usually mixed to a greater or less extent with air, the amount of
+which was determined from the percentage of oxygen present:--
+
+
+ ANALYSES OF BLACK-DAMP.
+
+ +--------------------------------------------------------+---------+-------------+
+ | |Nitrogen |Carbonic Acid|
+ | LOCALITY. |per cent.| per cent. |
+ +--------------------------------------------------------+---------+-------------+
+ |Stopping, Podmore Hall Colliery, North Staffordshire | 87.87 | 12.13 |
+ |Another Stopping, same Colliery | 91.37 | 8.63 |
+ |Main Return, same Colliery | 87.30 | 12.70 |
+ |Sladderhill Colliery, Apedale, North Staffordshire | 85.86 | 14.14 |
+ |Old Road, Talk o’ the Hill Colliery, North Staffordshire| 91.90 | 8.10 |
+ |Main West Return, Talk o’ the Hill Colliery | 80.66 | 10.31 |
+ |South Main Return, Great Fenton Col., N. Staffordshire | 89.31 | 12.69 |
+ |Return, Wallsend Colliery, Newcastle, New South Wales | 89.00 | 11.00 |
+ |Old Workings, Burghlee Colliery, Midlothian | 86.90 | 13.10 |
+ |Upcast Shaft, same Pit | 86.91 | 13.09 |
+ |Upcast Shaft, Tylorstown Colliery, South Wales | 85.97 | 14.03 |
+ |Old Road, Conygre (Timsbury) Colliery, Somerset | 84.92 | 15.08 |
+ |Stopping, Nabb Pit, Lilleshall Colliery | 86.48 | 13.52 |
+ |Stopping, Hamstead Colliery, South Staffordshire | 93.25 | 6.75 |
+ |Upcast Shaft, Hamstead Colliery, South Staffordshire | 93.31 | 6.69 |
+ |Old Road, Forge Ironstone Pit, North Staffordshire | 85.30 | 14.70 |
+ |Issuing from Hole, Foxdale Lead Mine, Isle of Man | 88.07 | 11.93 |
+ |Issuing from another Hole, same Mine | 79.80 | 21.20 |
+ |Return Air-way, same Mine | 80.30 | 19.70 |
+ |Well at Redwick, Gloucestershire | 95.80 | 4.20 |
+ |Coming over Top, Well at Balcombe, Sussex | 88.93 | 11.07 |
+ |Well at Charterhouse School, Surrey | 81.86 | 18.14 |
+ |Well at Northleigh, Oxfordshire | 93.19 | 6.81 |
+ +--------------------------------------------------------+---------+-------------+
+
+The black-damp met with in coal-pits is probably formed chiefly and
+often exclusively from the oxidation of iron pyrites (FeS_{2}) present
+in the coal. This is oxidised to sulphuric acid and sulphate of iron,
+and as carbonate of lime (calcite) is also present in the coal, the
+sulphuric acid usually combines with the lime, liberating carbonic
+acid. The whole process may be represented by the following equation:--
+
+ 4FeS_{2} + 15O_{2} + 8CaCO_{3} = 8CO_{2} + 8CaSO_{4} + 2Fe_{2}O_{3}.
+
+Oxidation occurring according to this equation would yield black-damp
+consisting of 87.7 per cent. of nitrogen and 12.3 per cent. of carbonic
+acid, which is nearly the composition usually found. On pieces of coal
+which have been exposed for some time to air and moisture the red oxide
+of iron resulting from this reaction may frequently be seen. On other
+pieces where there is no carbonate of lime, crystals of sulphate of
+iron, and an acid reaction will be found in the positions previously
+occupied by iron pyrites, while the coal itself is unchanged. The
+oxygen of air left in contact with coal gradually disappears. Hence old
+workings or spaces of any kind left unventilated soon become filled
+with black-damp. A fall in barometric pressure leads to an issue of
+black-damp from these spaces, though often there is also a constant
+issue into the return air-ways on account of a little air being
+sucked through from the intakes. In the case of wells the influence
+of barometric pressure on the issue of black-damp is very marked. The
+black-damp is formed in the pores of the surrounding strata, and issues
+out up the well whenever a fall of pressure occurs. Thus the well may
+be fairly clear of black-damp at one time, and shortly afterwards full
+of it. Accidents to well-sinkers commonly occur through ignorance of
+this fact. The air is perhaps tested in the morning with a candle and
+found clear. In the afternoon after dinner a further test is neglected,
+and if the barometer has meanwhile fallen, the well-sinkers may descend
+into black-damp and be asphyxiated or fatally injured, or drowned by
+falling from the ladder. In the case of wells and metalliferous mines
+the black-damp is probably formed partly by the oxidation of carbonate
+of iron.
+
+The return air of coal mines always contains black-damp, about 2 per
+cent. being very commonly present in the air of the upcast shaft. As
+the air-current passing through a coal mine is enormous, the quantity
+of black-damp formed in the pit is very considerable, usually amounting
+to over 2000 cubic feet per minute in a large pit. The oxidation
+thus represented must liberate a large amount of heat in the mine.
+Thus in the case of one pit investigated by the writer and Mr F. G.
+Meachem[133] the amount of heat calculated as being liberated in the
+mine per minute would have sufficed to raise one ton of water 134°
+F. or to heat the whole of the air-current (of 100,000 cubic feet
+per minute) to boiling point. Of this heat only about one-ninth was
+expended in raising the temperature of the air, two-ninths became
+latent through evaporation of moisture, and the remaining six-ninths
+escaped by conduction into the surrounding strata. This slow oxidation
+is one of the main causes of the high temperatures met with in mines;
+and apart from it very deep workings could be kept comparatively
+cool by ventilation. It must, however, be borne in mind that air in
+descending the shaft of a pit is heated by compression about 5½°F.
+for every 1000 feet of descent. There is thus a limit to the cooling
+effect of ventilation. Moreover, at great depths oxidation is apt to be
+favoured by both the higher temperature and the crushing of the coal by
+the weight of superincumbent strata, since in coal which is crushed a
+much larger surface is exposed to the oxygen of the air. When a current
+of air insufficient to carry off the heat passes through crushed
+coal spontaneous combustion is very apt to occur, and is a source of
+constant danger in some seams.
+
+Black-damp is ordinarily recognised by its action in extinguishing a
+candle or lamp. The percentage which is just extinctive to a tallow
+candle or miners’ safety lamp was carefully determined by Mr Atkinson
+and the writer. We found that a candle held vertically will not
+continue to burn if more than 15.8 per cent. of black-damp is present
+(corresponding to an oxygen percentage of 17.6 per cent.): that 17.7
+per cent. of black-damp extinguished an ordinary safety lamp; and that
+18.6 per cent. extinguished a candle held horizontally. The extinction
+is due, practically speaking, to the reduction in the oxygen percentage
+of the air and not to the presence of carbonic acid, although dilution
+of air with carbonic acid extinguishes a light somewhat sooner than
+dilution with nitrogen. A light will still just burn in a mixture of 75
+per cent. of carbonic acid and 25 per cent. of oxygen. The presence of
+black-damp affects the light given by a candle long before the point
+of extinction is reached. The flame becomes smaller, and the rate of
+combustion is diminished. Angus Smith[134] found that when a candle was
+allowed to burn in air increasingly vitiated by its own combustion and
+by respiration, the light diminished to 22 per cent. of its original
+value when the oxygen percentage fell to 18.5 (corresponding to 8.9 per
+cent. of black-damp).
+
+The effects of black-damp on men are due partly to the carbonic
+acid, and partly to the diminished oxygen percentage accompanying
+the admixture of black-damp with the air. The influence of excess of
+carbonic acid and of deficiency of oxygen must therefore first be
+described separately.[135]
+
+When carbonic acid is added to air no noticeable effect is produced
+until about 3 per cent. is present, when the breathing begins to be
+distinctly deeper and slightly more frequent. No other unpleasant
+effects are produced, even after a long exposure; and animals kept in
+air containing 3 per cent. of carbonic acid are unaffected in health.
+As the percentage of carbonic acid increases, the effects on the
+breathing become more and more marked, until at about 6 or 7 per cent.
+there is severe panting, the pulse-rate being also more frequent and
+vigorous, and the face being flushed. The sensation experienced is
+similar to that accompanying hard, muscular work. A long stay in air of
+this composition is followed by frontal headache. With 10 per cent. of
+carbonic acid the respiratory distress is very great, but with a still
+higher percentage a narcotic effect is produced, and the mind becomes
+confused. Animals sometimes die from long exposure to air containing
+about 25 per cent. of carbonic acid, but even 50 per cent. may not
+prove fatal for some time.
+
+Diminution of the oxygen percentage of air usually causes no noticeable
+effect until the percentage falls to about 12, when the respirations
+begin to be just perceptibly deeper. At 10 per cent. the respirations
+are usually distinctly deeper, and the lips begin to become slightly
+bluish. At 8 per cent. the lips and face have more or less of a leaden
+blue colour, and usually the breathing is deeper and more frequent. In
+some persons, however, this is not the case, and nothing is noticed by
+the person breathing this vitiated air, although his face presents to
+a bystander a most alarming appearance. At 5 or 6 per cent. there is
+clouding of the senses, and loss of power over the limbs, and often
+complete loss of consciousness, which, to judge from experiments on
+animals, would probably soon end in death, either from gradual failure
+of the respiratory centre or from stoppage of the heart. The symptoms
+described are those observed when the breathing of the vitiated air is
+not accompanied by muscular exertion. The danger point is, however,
+reached much sooner when any muscular exertion, such as that of
+climbing, or even walking, is made. Even at 15 per cent. of oxygen
+there is often shortness of breath and dizziness on exertion, and when
+the oxygen percentage falls much further fainting is apt to occur, and
+this is probably the cause of many accidents in which men fall off
+ladders in vitiated air, and are fatally injured or drowned. When the
+oxygen percentage falls below 8 or 10 per cent. death may occur in
+consequence of muscular exertion. Air vitiated simply by diminution
+of the oxygen percentage of the air is exceedingly dangerous, for
+the reason that there are hardly any warning symptoms before life is
+imperilled; and were it not that a light is usually carried in such
+air, and that its extinction gives ample warning, since it occurs at
+about 17 per cent. of oxygen, accidents would be much more frequent.
+
+Sudden exposure to air containing less than 3 or 4 per cent. of oxygen
+causes in men loss of consciousness within about forty seconds. This is
+followed by convulsions, and the respirations soon cease. The heart,
+however, continues to beat for some time longer, and during this period
+artificial respiration will still restore life.
+
+A reference to the composition of black-damp will show that the effects
+produced by it are due, in most cases at least, to carbonic acid as
+well as to want of oxygen. When there is just sufficient black-damp
+present to extinguish a light no noticeable effect is, as a rule,
+produced, since there is 17 per cent. of oxygen, and usually not more
+than about 2 per cent. of carbonic acid. Occasionally, however, as in
+the case of two of the samples from Foxdale lead mines (see table),
+there will be as much as 3 or 4 per cent. of carbonic acid present, in
+which case the breathing will be slightly affected. With an increasing
+percentage of black-damp the panting due to carbonic acid will usually
+become more and more noticeable. Thus with 50 per cent. of black-damp
+there will commonly be about 6 per cent. of carbonic acid, and 10.5 per
+cent. of oxygen. The panting due to carbonic acid will, therefore, be
+very considerable. In some cases, however, as in the black-damp from
+Hamstead Colliery or Redwick Well, there will still be insufficient
+carbonic acid to produce panting, and the air will be already dangerous
+from deficiency of oxygen. With still larger percentages of black-damp,
+the symptoms from want of oxygen will predominate more and more, until
+at last with about 75 per cent., or 5 per cent. of oxygen, life can no
+longer be supported. Death is always due to want of oxygen, and not
+to the poisonous action of carbonic acid. The presence of carbonic
+acid diminishes the danger, as the panting caused by it not only gives
+warning of danger, but also increases the oxygen supply to the lungs,
+and thus wards off for a time the effects of the deficiency of oxygen.
+
+_Carbonic Acid._--There is no recorded case of evolution of pure
+carbonic acid in a mine in this country, but in one colliery district
+in France sudden outbursts of pure carbonic acid have occurred. The
+locality is a volcanic one, and possibly the carbonic acid may have
+originated from some such cause as the decomposition of limestone by
+silicates at high temperatures. The well-known case of the Grotto del
+Cane is one in which pure carbonic acid is evolved. The composition
+of a sample recently analysed by the writer from near the floor of
+the Grotto corresponded exactly to that of a mixture by diffusion of
+pure carbonic acid and air. The effects of pure carbonic acid have
+already been described, and are, of course, quite different from
+those of black-damp. According to Clowes, air containing 15 per cent.
+of carbonic acid is just sufficient to extinguish lights. Air of
+this composition would produce violent panting and partial loss of
+consciousness.
+
+_Fire-damp._--The gas known to miners as fire-damp is recognised
+by its forming with air explosive mixtures. So far as is known the
+fire-damp met with in English mines is always pure methane (CH_{4}),
+although in Germany ethane (C_{2}H_{6}) is also reported to occur
+in connection with certain kinds of coal. The writer has carefully
+examined many specimens of fire-damp from various English coalfields,
+but never found that it consisted of anything else but the methane
+described by previous observers. The presence of fire-damp in air is
+recognised by miners from the appearance over the ordinary flames of a
+lamp of a pale non-luminous “cap” of flame, similar in appearance to
+the non-luminous flame of a Bunsen burner, though much paler, unless
+the air is nearly explosive. From the size and distinctness of this
+cap, the percentage of fire-damp can be approximately determined. In
+testing for fire-damp the flame of the safety lamp should be lowered
+until only a small blue flame is left. The pale cap can then be better
+seen above the lamp flame. With very careful observation about 1 per
+cent. of fire-damp in the air can just be detected. With a hydrogen
+flame, as in the Clowes lamp, it is possible to detect as little as
+0.2 per cent.[136] With increasing percentages of fire-damp, the cap
+becomes longer and more distinct, and passes right up the chimney when
+the air is nearly explosive. Air containing anything between about 5
+and 13 per cent. of fire-damp is explosive.
+
+Fire-damp is given off from coal, within which it is contained in
+a highly compressed state. Different seams of coal give off very
+different proportions of fire-damp. Those seams which give off much
+are known to miners as “fiery.” The amount of fire-damp contained in
+the coal seems to depend in large measure on the extent to which the
+strata above the coal are gas-tight. If fire-damp can escape upwards it
+drains off from the coal. Some idea of the enormous amount of fire-damp
+contained in fiery coal can be formed from the amount of fire-damp
+which escapes from the mine by the upcast shaft. This is chiefly given
+off from the coal as it is exposed in working, so that from the output
+of coal and fire-damp from the mine a rough estimate can be made of the
+proportion of fire-damp in the coal. In one mine, for instance, about
+4500 cubic feet of fire-damp per minute were given off, with an output
+of about 1200 tons of coal per day, or nearly one ton per minute. It
+would thus appear that 4500 cubic feet of fire-damp per ton raised were
+given off, or 150 cubic feet of gas per cubic foot of coal.
+
+The fire-damp met with in mines is commonly mixed with a large
+proportion of black-damp; and in consequence of this the fire-damp,
+_though still capable of forming an explosive mixture when less air
+is present_, may not be recognised unless very carefully looked for,
+as the lamp is extinguished before a prominent cap is visible. Such a
+mixture may easily be fired by striking a match in the midst of it,
+or by a blown-out shot in blasting. The mixture is lighter than air,
+whereas pure black-damp is nearly always heavier than air.
+
+Fire-damp has no direct action on man. It only acts by diluting the
+oxygen of the air. When a mixture of 79 per cent. of fire-damp and
+21 per cent. of oxygen is breathed it cannot be distinguished from
+air; and animals may be kept for long periods in a mixture of this
+composition. The action of a given mixture of fire-damp and air thus
+depends simply upon the oxygen percentage, any effect produced being
+merely due to want of oxygen, the symptoms of which have already been
+described. As fire-damp is lighter than air, a man affected by it will,
+on losing consciousness, usually fall into better air. Were it not for
+this, fatal accidents by asphyxiation with fire-damp would be much more
+common. It often enough happens that a man is temporarily overcome
+by putting his head upwards into a cavity filled with fire-damp. If
+the fire-damp contains little or no air loss of consciousness occurs
+suddenly, and without previous warning. Fatal accidents sometimes occur
+through a man incautiously advancing without a lamp up a road, during
+attempts to restore ventilation in a district of a mine which has
+become filled with fire-damp. So long as a lamp burns in air containing
+fire-damp not the slightest harm results from breathing the air.
+
+_After-damp._--The gas remaining in a mine at the place where an
+explosion has occurred is known to miners as “after-damp,” and is much
+dreaded on account of its poisonous properties. A careful examination,
+recently undertaken by the writer,[137] of the bodies of the men and
+horses killed in three colliery explosions resulted in showing that in
+almost every case, whether or not there were burns or other injuries,
+the actual cause of death was carbonic oxide poisoning. In many cases,
+however, the burns or other injuries would certainly have proved fatal
+apart from the carbonic oxide; and the result of a rough estimate was
+that, on an average of the three explosions, about 23 per cent. of
+those killed had received burns or other injuries sufficient to cause
+death. Only 46 per cent. were burnt or injured.
+
+The symptoms of the rescuers who encountered after-damp were clearly
+those of carbonic oxide poisoning. Their lamps continued to burn in the
+poisonous air, and in some cases men were found dead with their lamps
+either still burning, or with the oil burnt out. The fact that a lamp
+continues to burn, which is an excellent test of the safety of air
+vitiated by black-damp or fire-damp, is thus no test of the safety of
+air vitiated by after-damp.
+
+In the case of the great colliery explosions which cause such wholesale
+destruction of life, the explosion is almost invariably one of
+coal-dust, started either by blasting at dry and dusty places in the
+mine, or by small explosions of fire-damp. Slighter explosions may
+be due simply to ignition of fire-damp. When fire-damp or coal-dust
+ignites in presence of excess of air, the products of combustion are
+simply carbonic acid and water, along with a little sulphurous acid in
+the case of coal-dust. The reaction occurring when fire-damp ignites
+under these conditions is represented by the following equation:--
+
+ CH_{4} + 2O_{2} = CO_{2} + 2H_{2}O.
+
+The after-damp from such an explosion in air would consist of 88.3
+per cent. of nitrogen and 11.7 per cent. of carbonic acid; and with
+coal-dust a slightly higher proportion of carbonic acid would be
+present. When, however, the proportion of air present is insufficient
+for complete oxidation a certain amount of carbonic oxide is produced
+in place of part of the carbonic acid. As much as 4.5 per cent. may be
+present in the after-damp of an explosion of fire-damp. In a colliery
+explosion the fire-damp or dust must always be very irregularly
+distributed in the air, so that in some places there will be an excess
+of air, and in others an excess of fire-damp or dust. At many places
+the excess of gas or dust must be so great that no explosion at all
+can occur. The after-damp is thus a variable mixture of nitrogen,
+carbonic acid, and carbonic oxide, together with much air, and, in
+the case of dust explosions, a little sulphurous acid or sulphuretted
+hydrogen, and various products of the dry distillation of coal. These
+latter products give after-damp a characteristic unpleasant smell. The
+fact that sufficient oxygen to support life is left along the track
+of an explosion is shown by the fact that the bodies do not present
+the appearances seen in the rapid death which ensues in an atmosphere
+devoid of oxygen. Probably about 2 to 5 per cent. of carbonic oxide
+is usually contained in the pure after-damp of a colliery explosion.
+The gas met with by rescuers some hours, or perhaps days, after the
+explosion, is, of course, a mixture of after-damp with the black-damp
+and fire-damp which has accumulated in consequence of stoppage of the
+ventilation through the air current being short-circuited.
+
+The action on men and animals of after-damp depends practically upon
+the carbonic oxide contained in it. Pure after-damp, containing no air,
+would of course cause death just as rapidly apart from the action of
+the carbonic oxide: but such after-damp unmixed with air is hardly met
+with.
+
+Carbonic oxide or carbon monoxide (CO) is a very poisonous gas. Judging
+from experiments on animals, air containing anything more than 0.4 per
+cent. would, after a sufficient time, always cause death in a man,
+though anything over 0.2 per cent. would in many cases prove fatal.
+It has practically no smell or irritating properties by which its
+presence might be readily recognised, and its action is peculiarly
+slow and insidious. The first symptoms of carbonic oxide poisoning are
+usually dizziness, shortness of breath, and palpitation following any
+unusual exertion. Sometimes there is drowsiness, and sometimes unusual
+excitement similar to that produced by alcohol. When more of the
+gas is absorbed there is great failure of muscular power. The least
+exertion causes dizziness and fainting, and any serious exertion may
+prove fatal. At the same time the mind becomes more or less confused,
+although the person affected is not himself aware of any mental
+failure. The senses are also affected, and frequently there seems to
+be greater or less insensibility to pain, as miners who are partially
+stupefied by carbonic oxide are not infrequently seriously burnt by
+their lamps. The loss of muscular and sensory power gradually becomes
+more and more complete, until at last consciousness is entirely lost;
+and finally, with further absorption, death quietly ensues. There is no
+pain or serious discomfort at any stage. Recovery from slight carbonic
+oxide poisoning is usually accompanied by severe headache, nausea, and
+depression. When consciousness has been lost for a considerable time,
+recovery is very slow and uncertain. Death may occur from pneumonia
+after two or three days; and a variety of severe mental symptoms may
+persist for long periods. In cases where much muscular exertion has
+been attempted during exposure to the poison the heart appears to be
+often seriously affected.
+
+In order to understand the very peculiar features presented by carbonic
+oxide poisoning it is necessary to consider the mode of action of
+this gas. The oxygen absorbed from the air in the lungs is normally
+taken up in the form of a loose chemical combination with the red
+colouring matter (hæmoglobin) of the blood corpuscles, and so carried
+by the circulation to the tissues, where it is used up. The hæmoglobin
+not only combines with oxygen, but is also capable of forming a much
+more stable compound with carbonic oxide, and, as was shown by Claude
+Bernard, hæmoglobin which is saturated with carbonic oxide cannot take
+up oxygen. Hence, when the hæmoglobin of a living animal is saturated
+to a certain extent with carbonic oxide, sufficient oxygen cannot be
+conveyed from the lungs to the tissues, and death occurs from want
+of oxygen.[138] Carbonic oxide has no other action than that due to
+its interference with the oxygen supply through the blood. Apart from
+its property of combining with the hæmoglobin it is a physiologically
+indifferent gas, like nitrogen; and it has no action on lower animals
+which do not possess hæmoglobin. The symptoms produced by it are
+therefore essentially the same as those described above as due to
+deficiency of oxygen in the air breathed. No noticeable symptoms are
+produced until the hæmoglobin is about a third saturated with carbonic
+oxide, and death does not usually occur until about 70 or 80 per
+cent. saturation has been reached. When, therefore, not much carbonic
+oxide is present in the air, a considerable time elapses before a
+sufficient quantity of the gas has been absorbed to produce symptoms.
+A man possesses on an average a weight of blood equal to ¹⁄₂₁ of his
+body-weight, or about 3 litres, and the hæmoglobin of this blood
+requires about 600 c.c. of carbonic oxide to saturate it. He breathes
+when at rest about 5 litres of air per minute. Hence, supposing that
+the air contains 0.2 per cent. of carbonic oxide, which is about the
+minimum quantity which will produce death, he can absorb only 10 c.c.
+per minute at the most. It must thus take at least twenty minutes,
+and actually takes a good deal longer, for distinct symptoms to be
+produced. During this interval, which will, however, be shorter when
+the man is breathing more rapidly in consequence of muscular exertion,
+he may advance far into an atmosphere poisonous from the presence of
+after-damp, and may consequently be unable to return.
+
+It might be supposed that the presence of any proportion, however
+small, of carbonic oxide in air would ultimately prove fatal from
+gradual absorption of the gas by the blood. Actually, however, there
+is a maximum limit to absorption with any given percentage of carbonic
+oxide in air; for although the affinity of hæmoglobin for carbonic
+oxide is much stronger than for oxygen, yet if both gases are present,
+the hæmoglobin is shared between them in proportion, not only to the
+relative strengths of their affinities for hæmoglobin, but also to the
+relative percentages present of the two gases. Hence, although the
+affinity of carbonic oxide for hæmoglobin is nearly four hundred times
+as great as that of oxygen, yet if the percentage of carbonic oxide is
+very minute as compared with the percentage of oxygen, only a little of
+the hæmoglobin will combine with the carbonic oxide, and consequently
+no symptoms of poisoning will be produced, however long the exposure
+may be. Thus with less than about .03 per cent. of carbonic oxide in
+the air, the blood will never absorb enough of the gas to produce
+distinct symptoms; and with less than .2 per cent. life will hardly be
+endangered, although very severe symptoms may be produced.
+
+In recovery from carbonic oxide poisoning, the gas is driven out
+from the blood through the lungs in consequence of the preponderating
+influence of the oxygen of the air; and in the course of several hours
+the blood will be again practically free from carbonic oxide. An hour
+of breathing fresh air will usually suffice to remove any dangerous
+excess of carbonic oxide, but if, as often enough happens in persons
+who have been rendered unconscious, the breathing is shallow, a much
+longer time may be needed unless artificial respiration has been
+employed. Carbonic oxide is not oxidised within the body, so that the
+only way in which it can be got rid of is through the lungs. The blood
+from which the carbonic oxide has been expelled is in no way injured.
+The expulsion of carbonic oxide during recovery from poisoning can be
+greatly hastened by the inhalation of pure oxygen, since its influence
+in driving out carbonic oxide from the blood is about five times as
+great as that of air, which only contains 20.9 per cent. of oxygen.
+Inhalation of oxygen has also another and immediate effect, however.
+In addition to the oxygen taken up in combination with hæmoglobin, the
+blood takes up in the lungs a little oxygen in simple solution, just as
+an equal volume of water would do. When pure oxygen is breathed, the
+quantity of this dissolved oxygen is increased five times, and is then
+sufficient to afford an important immediate supply of oxygen to the
+tissues. If an animal be placed in oxygen at two atmospheres’ pressure,
+carbonic oxide can be administered without harming it, since although
+its hæmoglobin becomes completely saturated with carbonic oxide, its
+blood carries enough oxygen in simple solution to support life.
+
+The cause of death in carbonic oxide poisoning can always be determined
+by examining a drop of blood taken from the body, and comparing it
+with normal blood from a healthy person or an animal. The normal blood
+is diluted with water until the tint of the solution appears yellow;
+the suspected blood is then diluted until its _depth_ of colour
+appears about the same. If death was due to carbonic oxide poisoning
+the latter solution will appear pink instead of yellow. By taking
+advantage of this difference of tint the percentage saturation of the
+hæmoglobin can readily be determined. Death often occurs, however, some
+hours or days after removal from the poisonous atmosphere, and in this
+case the blood will be free of carbonic oxide. Blood saturated with
+carbonic oxide has a red colour similar to that of arterial blood,
+hence the lips, cheeks, and other parts of the bodies of men who have
+died from carbonic oxide poisoning have often a pink colour similar to
+that seen in life.
+
+In consequence of the restricted oxygen supply to the tissues during
+prolonged exposure to carbonic oxide, serious changes may be produced
+in the brain, heart, and other organs, and as a result of these changes
+recovery does not occur at once when the carbonic oxide disappears from
+the blood. Unconsciousness may persist, or relapses may occur, and
+death is not unfrequent several days after exposure to the poison.
+
+The prompt recognition of the presence of carbonic oxide or after-damp
+in air is of much practical importance. As already remarked, the fact
+that a lamp continues to burn is no proof of the safety of air in which
+after-damp may be present, and elaborate chemical tests are hardly
+applicable in ordinary practice. A small warm-blooded animal, such
+as a mouse, or perhaps still better a small bird, may, however, be
+used to indicate the presence of any dangerous proportion of carbonic
+oxide. The oxidation processes in the small animal are enormously
+more rapid than in a man: consequently the small animal breathes and
+absorbs carbonic oxide much more rapidly. It therefore shows symptoms
+of poisoning in a fraction of the time necessary in the case of a man,
+although it is only about equally sensitive to a given percentage of
+the gas. Hence by watching the animal, timely warning may be obtained
+of the presence of enough carbonic oxide to cause danger to life. It
+must be remembered, however, that the animal may show no very evident
+signs when sufficient carbonic oxide is present to cause very distinct
+and unpleasant symptoms in a man, and that these symptoms may be
+aggravated to a dangerous extent by muscular exertion, such as that of
+hurrying back towards fresh air. Another circumstance which tends to
+suddenly intensify the symptoms of carbonic oxide poisoning is exposure
+to cold air, and this should be avoided as far as possible with persons
+who have begun to feel the effects of the gas.
+
+When a man has been rendered unconscious by exposure to carbonic oxide
+or any other suffocative gas, the first thing to do, after his removal
+from the contaminated air, is to apply artificial respiration without a
+moment’s delay, if the breathing has stopped or is feeble.
+
+_Smoke._--Some of the most disastrous accidents in mines have
+been due to the poisonous action of smoke from underground fires.
+Fires may occur from an intensification of the spontaneous oxidation
+of coal, iron pyrites, cotton waste, etc., from the careless use of
+lights, from engines underground, or in consequence of an explosion of
+gas setting fire to brattice cloths, igniting blowers of gas, etc. In
+any case the occurrence of a fire underground is a source of extreme
+danger, especially when the timbering has become ignited. If the fire
+occurs on, or spreads to, an intake road the ventilation current
+carries the smoke over the mine, killing all those who are unable to
+avoid it. Smoke which has travelled some distance in a mine appears
+to lose its pungent smell, and deposits the suspended particles which
+ordinarily render it visible. This greatly increases the danger, as
+there is then nothing to give warning of its presence. Thus in the case
+of the Snaefell accident in 1897 a number of men descended into the
+shaft without their suspicions being in any way aroused until they had
+gone too far to be able to return.
+
+The poisonous constituent of smoke is carbonic oxide. This was
+clearly established in the case of the Snaefell accident, where
+the timbering had caught fire.[139] A sample of the poisonous air
+collected by Mr Williams, Her Majesty’s Inspector of Mines, was found
+by the writer to contain 1.1 per cent. of carbonic oxide. Mr Williams
+fell over unconscious just after obtaining the sample, and was only
+restored through the prompt application of artificial respiration
+by his colleague, Mr Jones. Further evidence that carbonic oxide is
+the cause of death in underground fires was afforded by the medical
+examination of the bodies by Dr Burkitt in the recent fire at Whitwick
+Colliery.[140] There can be little doubt that carbonic oxide poisoning
+is also one of the most frequent causes of death in fires above ground.
+The writer recently examined the body of a man found dead in a sitting
+position in a house which was partially burnt in Oxford. Carbonic oxide
+poisoning was the cause of death. There were only a few superficial
+burns which had apparently been inflicted after death. The smoke from
+burning or smouldering wood is particularly dangerous, as the gas
+distilled from wood may contain about 30 per cent. of carbonic oxide,
+the large proportion of oxygen in wood favouring the production of
+carbonic oxide.
+
+As regards the symptoms produced by smoke nothing need be added to what
+has already been said under the heading of after-damp.
+
+_White-damp, Gob-stink, Fire-stink._--Under one or other of these
+names is included by miners the poisonous gas given off from coal which
+has heated from spontaneous oxidation. Some seams of coal, such as
+the thick coal in South Staffordshire, or the Bulhurst seam in North
+Staffordshire, are particularly liable to heating, which readily occurs
+where the coal has become more or less disintegrated. If the coal is
+not actually red-hot there may be no distinct smell, and the poisonous
+gas would come under the designation of “white-damp.” The name
+“gob-stink” is derived from the fact that the heating usually occurs in
+the waste coal of a goaf or gob (the area from which the workable coal
+has been removed). The origin of the name “white-damp” is less clear.
+
+Practically speaking, white-damp and gob-stink, or fire-stink, have the
+same properties as after-damp, and the poisonous constituent is again
+carbonic oxide, which the writer has found to be present in various
+samples. Occasionally, however, sulphuretted hydrogen is also present
+in formidable proportions. The latter gas is extremely poisonous, as
+little as .07 per cent. being capable of causing death. Air containing
+0.2 per cent. kills warm-blooded animals within one and a half minutes.
+Its presence may be detected not only by its characteristic smell of
+rotten eggs, but also by the fact that when present in the proportion
+of more than about .01 per cent., it causes smarting of the eyes and
+general irritation of the air-passages.
+
+_Gases from Explosives._--The gases from some explosives are
+extremely poisonous, from the presence in them of carbonic oxide,
+sulphuretted hydrogen, or nitric peroxide. In coal mines, when the
+ventilation is everywhere good, it seldom happens that there is
+trouble from the gases from explosives; but in metalliferous mines and
+underground quarries cases of poisoning are not uncommon.
+
+Gunpowder gives off on ignition carbonic acid and nitrogen, along
+with a variable, though much smaller, proportion of carbonic oxide
+and sulphuretted hydrogen, either or both of which gases may produce
+symptoms of poisoning.
+
+Of the “high” explosives, nitro-glycerine, blasting gelatine, and
+roburite yield on detonation only carbonic acid and nitrogen, whereas
+gun-cotton, tonite, gelignite, and carbonite also give off carbonic
+oxide, and therefore require more care when the ventilation is
+defective.
+
+The most serious accidents in mines from gases from explosives have
+been due to the accidental burning of high explosives, such as
+dynamite or gun-cotton. When substances of this class burn quietly
+instead of detonating, nearly the whole of the nitrogen is given off
+as nitric oxide (NO) instead of as free nitrogen. The nitric oxide at
+once combines with the oxygen of the air to form nitric peroxide, which
+is a very dangerous gas. Even when a charge is detonated for blasting
+purposes it may happen, particularly with badly made or roughly
+handled explosives, that part burns quietly and forms nitric peroxide.
+The latter is an irritant gas, but when sufficiently diluted may be
+breathed for some time without the person exposed to it being aware
+of his danger. Under such circumstances bronchitis of a very acute
+character is apt to occur after a few hours, and death often results.
+In the gold mines in India and the Transvaal, accidents involving the
+loss of as many as twenty men at a time have sometimes occurred in this
+way from dynamite catching fire underground, and serious injury to
+health may easily be caused by the fumes of imperfectly detonated high
+explosives where the ventilation is bad.
+
+ JOHN HALDANE.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+ QUARRIES
+
+
+_Introduction._--Man is essentially a builder, and Nature has
+prepared for him material in abundance and rich variety. Quarrying or
+stone-getting is an occupation of great antiquity. Its early records
+are evidenced in the relics of man’s labour in prehistoric days.
+Through all the ages human ingenuity and skill have been at work
+freeing the closely-fettered rocks and fashioning them for uprising.
+
+A thorough investigation of our subject would make an acquaintance with
+geology and practical mechanics desirable, but in the present article
+it will only be possible to deal with the matter in its immediate
+relation to health, and its public importance will be evident when it
+is remembered that something like 94,000 individuals are engaged in
+connection with quarries in the British Isles alone.[141]
+
+_Definitions._--A quarry (L.O.F. _quarrière_, F. _carrière_, L.L.
+_quadraria_, _quadratus_) is an excavation, pit, or place from which
+stone or rock material is separated by digging, cutting, blasting, or
+similar processes.
+
+For legal requirements a quarry is defined as: “A place in which
+persons work in getting slate, stone, coprolites, or other minerals,
+and any part of which is more than 20 feet deep.”[142]
+
+It will be readily seen that the depth limit in the legal definition
+introduces a factor which goes far to lessen a proper application of
+the law, and it is desirable that such restriction should be abandoned.
+
+_Varieties of Quarries._--Quarries vary greatly in respect to
+their size, depth, and the nature of the material worked. In some
+instances the quarry is superficial in its extent, readily accessible
+and easily worked from the surface. In other cases the quarry is deep,
+can be reached only by shafts or ladders, and its working necessitates
+elaborate means for the elevation and removal of the materials when
+separated from the native rock. Of the stones quarried for building
+purposes we may distinguish: 1. Enduring stones, which are used for the
+major part of the structure; 2. Shaping stones, which are principally
+utilised for ornamentation.
+
+Of quarried materials the uses may be exceedingly varied, chalk being
+worked for the making of lime, china-clay for the purpose of pottery,
+graphite for pencil manufacture, and so on.
+
+Quarries are perhaps best classified according to the nature of the
+rock they yield. We can distinguish the following:--
+
+ Alabaster
+ Basalt or Whinstone
+ Brickearth
+ Chalk
+ Chert
+ China-clay
+ Clay
+ Flint
+ Freestone
+ Graphite
+ Gravel
+ Gypsum
+ Limestone
+ Marl
+ Porphyry
+ Sand
+ Sandstone
+ Shale
+ Serpentine
+ Slate
+
+Of each of the above class of quarry much might be said, would space
+allow, concerning: (_a_) geological character of the rock; (_b_)
+localities where the various forms of quarry are to be found; (_c_)
+uses of the quarried materials; (_d_) special methods of working
+employed in some of the quarries; and (_e_) particular dangers
+connected with certain forms of quarry. But for the purposes of this
+article it will be desirable to deal with the subject in its general
+aspects only.
+
+_Methods of Working._--In early days men were content to labour
+patiently with primitive methods and inadequate tools. The modern use
+of explosives, and the introduction of various mechanical contrivances,
+have, however, done much to accelerate the getting of stone: and such
+measures have led to accidents and conditions inimical to health.
+
+The methods of quarrying and the operations immediately concerned
+therewith may be grouped under:--(_a_) Mechanical, or the application
+of various mechanical contrivances; (_b_) Blasting, or the use of
+explosives.
+
+In spite, however, of the introduction of machinery and explosives,
+it would seem that the risk of accidents and exposure to conditions
+detrimental to health have not been very appreciably increased,
+although, of course, the process of quarrying has been greatly
+facilitated, and such works extended. In most quarries, both in this
+country and abroad, the wedge and hammer are still the chief agents
+employed in the getting of stone. For rocks in levels or distinct
+seams, as in the case of the millstone grit, probably the wedges afford
+the best methods. A procedure called the “plug and feather” method, and
+working on the principle of the incline plane, is sometimes employed.
+
+According to an ancient procedure, after the hole was drilled, dry wood
+was inserted, and the expansion after moistening with water employed to
+split the rock. Another custom was to fill the bore-hole with quicklime
+and water.
+
+Explosives are, however, extensively employed, and their use proves
+fruitful as a source of accidents. In many quarries with stone in flat
+layers, after boring the holes by hand, or the aid of machinery, only
+sufficient explosive is used to split but not to break or shatter the
+rock, its further separation being accomplished by wedge and hammer.
+
+Blasting is commonly used for all rocks not found in seams, and hence
+explosives are largely employed in granite and marble quarries. In
+slate quarries also, especially in Wales, blasting would seem to be the
+favourite method.
+
+Among the more important explosives used in quarry work are the
+following:--
+
+ Blasting gelatine
+ Dynamite
+ Fulminate of mercury
+ Gelatine dynamite
+ Gelignite
+ Gunpowder
+ Roburite
+ Tonite
+
+_Pathology._--The quarryman, from the nature of his work and the
+circumstances under which it has to be carried on, is necessarily
+exposed to influences which may (1) excite or (2) predispose to morbid
+conditions, and in not a few cases it is difficult, if not impossible,
+to sharply distinguish between them.
+
+The pathological lesions resulting from the action of the causal agents
+may be best considered under the customary headings of (1) Accidents,
+and (2) Disease.
+
+_Etiology._--The exciting agents may be classified according to
+their nature into:--(1) Mechanical; (2) Thermal; (3) Chemical; (4)
+Electrical; (5) Biological.
+
+The predisposing agents act by (1) influencing the condition of the
+individual, and (2) by modifying the character of his environment.
+Without entering into details we may simply enumerate such points as
+heredity, sex, period of life, constitution, temperament and previous
+disease, as modifying the health tendencies of the individual; while
+climate, social standing, education, form of occupation, and habits are
+all influential in modifying the environment.
+
+Of accidents occurring in connection with quarries, a study of the
+published returns will show that these may be best considered as to
+whether they arise (1) inside, or (2) outside the quarry proper.
+
+Quarry accidents may thus be grouped:--
+
+1. _Those which occur inside the quarries_--
+
+(1) From falls of ground and detachment of rock. Such may occur
+(_a_) from beyond, or (_b_) at the person’s own working place.
+
+(2) By blasting. Accidents are here particularly liable to occur
+(_a_) while charging or tamping, (_b_) from stones projected
+by shots, (_c_) from miss-fires.
+
+(3) During descent or ascent to a deep-seated quarry, accidents may
+arise from (_a_) falling from paths, steps, or ladders, while
+climbing; or even (_b_) when ascending or descending by machinery.
+
+(4) Accidents may also arise from a miscellaneous group of causes,
+such, for instance, as--
+
+The breaking of ropes or chains, the mismanagement of machinery, boiler
+explosions; in connection with inclined and engine planes, railways,
+tramways, or sidings, from falling from ledges, or by injury with the
+ordinary quarry implements.
+
+2. _Those which occur outside the quarries_--
+
+The chief of these arise in connection with machinery, from the use
+of hot liquid or molten metal, by boiler explosions, from the escape
+of gas, steam, or metal, on inclined and engine planes, railways,
+tramways, or sidings.
+
+It will thus be seen that the accidents arise chiefly from mechanical
+agencies, or from the misuse of explosives. Thermal causes lead to
+burns and scalds. As electricity comes into more general use, injuries
+from this agent are likely to be met with.
+
+The dangers from mechanical conditions depend upon: (1) the situation
+and material of the quarries; (2) the implements and machinery used.
+
+Dangers in connection with the use of explosives arise: (1) while
+conveying explosives; (2) during the thawing of explosives; (3) from
+changing or stemming holes; (4) allowing access of sparks from lamp
+or candle; (5) by the use of iron or steel tools, or by using wooden,
+brass, or copper tools; (6) premature explosions are liable to arise
+from the use of squibs or straws, and sometimes from the so-called
+safety fuse; (7) delayed explosions; (8) unramming shots; (9) blows
+from stones projected by shots.
+
+Exceptional accidents may also arise, as, for instance, where an
+acetylene gas apparatus used in the quarry work suddenly exploded.
+
+The nature and extent of the injuries met with in quarrying vary
+greatly. Burns and scalds may occur from contact with the boilers and
+steam appliances used in many large quarries. Contusions of greater or
+less severity are necessarily common. Crushes may arise from falling
+rock or entanglement in machinery. Dislocation of joints sometimes
+occurs from falls or similar accidents. Eye injuries are somewhat
+common from granite chips or particles of steel, and they also occur
+where dressing of stone is carried out at the quarries. Fractures arise
+from falls and the giving of the ground. Lacerations, superficial or
+deep, and involving skin and muscular structures, arise not only in
+connection with the actual quarrying, but in the use of the machinery
+which is now so frequent in large quarries. Sprains are not uncommon
+in connection with falls and the like. Wounds may arise from various
+circumstances, and may be of any degree of severity.
+
+_Diseases._--After having made extensive inquiries with a view to
+ascertain the extent of actual disease which may be fairly considered
+as incidental to quarrying, we are drawn to the conclusion that such
+work, generally speaking, is not necessarily detrimental to health.
+
+The medical officers and managers of most of the large quarries from
+whom we have sought information are decisive in considering quarrying,
+as usually carried out in this country, a fairly healthy occupation.
+
+Of course quarry-workers are liable to many of the ailments to which
+all labourers are more or less prone, and their habits and social
+customs are not always such as to maintain a high degree of physical
+vigour.
+
+Unfortunately, in many parts the quarrymen are thriftless and drunken.
+Their homes also are often ill-built and ill-kept. A neglect of habits
+of cleanliness is, in many instances, only too apparent. In some parts
+of the country the quarrymen are of poor physique, which arises,
+according to local opinion, from too early marriage, intermarriage,
+excessive tea-drinking, and poor diet.
+
+We find that in some rather isolated districts, for instance in
+Cornwall, there is considerable intermarriage among the workers, and
+some believe that this affords a factor of importance in connection
+with the development of phthisis.
+
+That quarrying is by no means a dangerous employment to health is
+evidenced by the fact that in many quarry districts old men abound,
+many of whom work until over eighty years of age.
+
+We have made particular inquiries regarding workers in limestone, but
+even those who are engaged as burners and dressers of the lime seem to
+experience no detriment to health, many having worked all their lives
+without complaint. Indeed, we learn that at one justly celebrated
+lime-works, delicate lads have been sent to work at drawing lime,
+and have materially improved in their general health. The fact that
+quarrying is necessarily carried on out-of-doors of itself makes for
+physical vigour.
+
+Even where dressing is carried out in the immediate vicinity of the
+quarry, the sheds are frequently of such a character as to allow of
+free natural ventilation, and the ready carrying away of dust almost as
+quickly as it is formed. In many places the cutting is done quite in
+the open and with no protection whatever.
+
+Brief reference may be made to some of the more important pathological
+conditions which, arising in quarry-workers, may be considered as
+ætiologically associated with the nature of their labour.
+
+_Affections of the Respiratory Organs._--Lesions in connection
+with the lungs and air-passages have long and rightly been considered
+the more particular accompaniment of work associated with the
+production of dust. But in most forms of quarrying the amount of dust
+and its means of access to the respiratory tract must be considered so
+limited that serious pulmonary disease is quite the exception.
+
+Where, however, in connection with quarry-works there is also
+extensive dressing of soft material like sandstone, or the preparation
+of material giving rise to such irritating particles as granite,
+changes in the bronchi and lungs are liable to occur. The bronchi
+then become the seat of an excessive formation of mucus, and it may
+be that a catarrhal process is established which may progress to a
+chronic bronchitis, to which will sooner or later be added the usually
+associated conditions.
+
+The lungs may absorb more or less of the dust particles which, becoming
+deposited in the inter-alveolar and sub-pleural lymphatics, or arrested
+in the bronchial glands, give a greater or less degree of pigmentation
+to the lung (pneumoconiosis). Should, however, as is very likely, the
+particles of stone-dust produce marked irritation, the reaction of the
+tissues will lead to the formation of fibrous tissue which may not
+only lessen the function of the lungs as blood-aërating organs, but
+predispose them to the invasion of the tubercle bacillus.
+
+Quarry workers would appear to be but little predisposed to
+tuberculosis, and doubtless the outdoor character of the work greatly
+militates against the liability to infection.
+
+_Cardio-Vascular Disease._--The laborious and oftentimes straining
+character of the work seems to be influential, at least to some extent,
+in initiating and perpetuating states of arterial degeneration, leading
+to or associated with cardiac enfeeblement. It is very doubtful,
+however, if atheroma and cardiac involvement occur more frequently in
+quarrymen than in the sedentary and intellectual workers of the present
+day, in whom cardio-vascular regressive changes are only too common.
+
+Indeed, even when cardiac and arterial degeneration is met with in
+quarry workers there seems reason to believe that it is more often due
+to alcoholic indulgence and other irregular habits than to the nature
+and character of the work.
+
+_Cutaneous Lesions._--The skin frequently shows evidence of
+exposure to wind and weather and scars from the war with rocks.
+
+_Digestive Disturbances._--The lack of suitable food, irrational
+indulgence in tea, or excessive use of alcohol, not infrequently leads
+to digestive derangements.
+
+We learn that in consequence of dietetic ignorance in some of the Welsh
+quarries, constipation, dyspepsia, hæmorrhoids and hepatic disorders
+are common.
+
+_Ear Affections._--It might be thought that the constant vibration
+from the use of the hammer and the employment of explosives might prove
+detrimental to hearing, but such seems not to be the case.
+
+_Eye Affections._--Injuries to the eyes have already been
+referred to and are often serious, but inflammatory or other morbid
+processes in the eye are not of frequent occurrence. The action of the
+sunlight on some of the light coloured and strongly reflecting rocks
+may occasionally produce conjunctivitis, but, generally speaking, the
+powers of vision of the quarryman would not seem to be inferior to that
+of the ordinary labourer.
+
+_Osteo-arthritis_, whatever may be the nature of its pathology,
+certainly affects some of the quarrymen, especially when getting into
+advanced life, but they are apparently not more liable than other
+labourers. _Rheumatism_, more particularly in its so-called
+chronic and muscular forms, may affect quarrymen, and is generally
+credited as arising from exposure to damp and cold, which of necessity
+during a considerable part of the year forms the daily portion of most
+quarrymen in this country. Dupuytren’s contraction of the palmar fascia
+and contiguous structures may also be met with.
+
+_Septic Infection._--Considering the frequency of injuries and the
+unsatisfactory methods of treating the same, it is surprising that more
+cases of serious septic infection do not occur.
+
+_Tetanus._--A quarryman, just like any other labourer,
+occasionally contracts tetanus, but infection is quite exceptional.
+
+_Legal Provisions._--Very rightly the working of quarries is under
+strict supervision and controlled by legal enactments.
+
+The chief Acts directing their management are:--
+
+1. Quarries Act, 1894.
+
+This empowers the application to quarries of certain provisions of
+the Metalliferous Mines Regulations Acts, 1872 and 1875, and the
+Metalliferous Mines (Isle of Man) Act, 1891, and arranges that the
+Inspectors under the Metalliferous Mines Regulations Acts, 1872 and
+1875, shall be Inspectors of the Quarries under this Act. This Act
+applies to all quarries 20 feet or more in depth.
+
+2. Metalliferous Mines Regulations Acts, 1872, 1875, 35 and 36 Vict.,
+cap. 77, 38 and 39 Vict., cap. 39; and Metalliferous Mines Regulations
+Acts (Isle of Man Act) 1891, 54 and 55 Vict., cap. 47, make certain
+provisions which also apply to quarries.
+
+3. The Factory and Workshop Acts, 1878 and 1891. These Acts apply
+also to quarries, and there have also been introduced certain
+modifications in the working of the same. Since 1898 brick and other
+works in connection with quarries have come under the jurisdiction of
+Inspectors of Factories. This explains why of recent years the number
+of individuals returned as engaged in work outside the actual pit,
+hole, or excavation has often been less than formerly.
+
+4. Quarry (Fencing) Act, 1887. This provides that where any quarry
+dangerous to the public is in open or unenclosed land within fifty
+yards of a highway or place of public resort dedicated to the public,
+and is not separated therefrom by a secure and sufficient fence, it
+shall be kept reasonably fenced for the prevention of accident, and
+unless so kept shall be deemed to be a nuisance liable to be dealt with
+summarily in manner provided by the Public Health Act, 1875.
+
+Actual getting of clay in case of brickworks is under the Inspector of
+Quarries, but in the making of clay-ware under the Factory and Workshop
+Act, the local Inspector of Factories exercises supervision.
+
+Where washing and dressing of quarried material takes place adjacent to
+the quarry, the Inspector of Quarries acts as a Factory and Workshop
+Inspector under the Factory and Workshop Acts.
+
+It may be well to point out that there is much need that the legal
+definition of a quarry should be amended by abandoning the depth limit.
+
+It is also well to state that even in the case of small quarries,
+where only one or two men may be employed, and the stone removed only
+for such purposes as road repair, the place is nevertheless a quarry,
+and legal enactments must apply. Explosives may be employed only in
+accordance with the Explosives Act.
+
+In many indirect ways legislative measures have of recent years
+accomplished much in lessening the dangers of quarrying. Thus the
+passing of the Workmen’s Compensation Act has led in many districts
+to much greater care and supervision being exercised. For instance,
+in some quarries it is now forbidden to bring alcoholic drinks into
+the quarries during working hours, although formerly it was no unusual
+thing to find a lad whose chief work was the fetching of beer for the
+workmen.
+
+The Boiler Explosives Act will also, of course, apply to cases
+occurring in connection with quarry works.
+
+The systematic examination of boilers is a measure likely to avail much
+in lessening the occurrence of boiler explosions.
+
+The Employers’ Liability Act also applies to quarry proprietors.
+
+With regard to further restrictions, it may be pointed out that the
+Quarry Fencing Act, which applies to quarries on unenclosed land
+within fifty yards of the highway might be well extended in its scope,
+so as to provide protection to the public from the only too common
+abandoned quarries.
+
+It is also very necessary that those responsible for the conduct of a
+quarry should insist on the strict enforcement of rules. An abstract of
+the Quarries Act and Special Rules should be printed on enamelled iron
+and placed in a conspicuous position in the works. It is of particular
+importance that well understood signals be always used in connection
+with blasting.
+
+_Prophylaxis and Treatment._--Although quarrying as now conducted
+must be considered a comparatively safe and fairly healthy occupation,
+there yet remains much to be done to ensure the carrying on of such
+work with the minimum of risk and the maximum of efficiency.
+
+Unless constant care is exercised and rigorous inspection carried out,
+the results of ignorance and neglect are soon made apparent.
+
+1. _Preventive Measures._--These may be considered as they are
+formulated and carried out by (_a_) the State, (_b_) the
+Employer, (_c_) the Workman.
+
+(_a_) The State has recognised the risks and dangers incidental
+to quarrying, and legislation has to a great extent limited the
+dangers arising from neglect and ignorance. The annual publications
+of the Reports of the Inspectors and the occasional prosecution of
+law-neglecting proprietors give evidence that the enforcement of the
+law is in many districts satisfactory, but it may be freely admitted
+that further measures of control and increased activity in surveyance
+would do much to lessen the accidents still only too common in quarries.
+
+(_b_) The workmen should be well housed and offered inducements to
+live rationally and act hygienically. Where possible, baths should be
+available. Education in the elements of hygiene should be encouraged.
+
+(_c_) The workman can do much to maintain and retain his own
+health. His clothing should be suitable to the form of his work and the
+nature of the climate. His diet should be nutritious and appropriate
+to the laborious character of his work. Suitable recreation should be
+afforded, and temperance and thrift practised. Steps to provide against
+accidents, sickness, strikes, and old age will be taken by a thrifty
+and thoughtful workman.
+
+A wise workman realises that his best protection lies in his own
+intelligence and experience, and no rules or superintendence can
+relieve him of his own personal responsibility.
+
+2. _Treatment of Accidents and Ailments occurring in
+Quarries._--The workmen engaged in quarries should be trained in the
+methods of rendering “first aid” in cases of accident and illness, and
+dressings, bandages, splints, and suitable appliances should always be
+available.
+
+In most large quarries a medical officer exercises a certain amount of
+general inspection as regards hygiene measures, often holds ambulance
+classes, and attends in case of accident or sudden illness.
+
+ JOHN BROWN.
+ T. N. KELYNACK.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XL
+
+ THE CHEMICAL TRADES
+
+
+_Introductory Remarks._--Under the title of the chemical trades a
+very large number of industries must be included which vary widely in
+the conditions under which the manufacturing operations are carried on.
+Nor must sight be lost of the great variety of chemicals used in the
+arts. For instance, in the department of pure chemicals and drugs for
+medical purposes, we find manufacturers who are engaged in producing
+small quantities of these substances, with the greatest precautions
+for cleanliness and care in the details of manufacture. These articles
+may be manufactured in small vessels by the pound weight at a time.
+At the other end of the industry we find the manufacture of such
+chemicals as are used in very large quantities carried on by tons.
+The whole conditions of such a manufacturing process are necessarily
+quite different, and we find laboratory fittings replaced by enormous
+machinery and great furnaces working under open sheds and turning
+out large quantities of material. It is therefore impossible to deal
+adequately with an industry of this description, or to give anything
+approaching a complete survey of the different conditions of employment
+found in it.
+
+Furthermore, we have allied to the chemical trade others closely
+resembling it. It is, for instance, a mere arbitrary distinction to
+separate the manufacture of pigments from that of chemicals, as many
+of the pigments used at the present day are made by means of chemical
+processes carried on under similar conditions, and the workmen engaged
+in these are exposed to similar risks and dangers. The white lead
+industry, for example, is merely a process of chemical manufacture,
+although for convenience it is regarded as an industry by itself. There
+are other industries in which the danger to health in using certain
+chemicals is even more serious than it is to those actually engaged
+in their manufacture. For instance, it seems to be far more dangerous
+to dip match heads in the composition containing small quantities of
+phosphorus than it is to manufacture phosphorus itself, and many cases
+occur where lead poisoning results from the use of chemicals containing
+lead. The greatest danger seems to be for those who are continuously
+engaged in handling these substances in small quantities rather than
+for those who deal with the manufacture in bulk. It is evident, then,
+that as a matter of convenient classification we must strictly limit
+the meaning of the words “chemical trades.”
+
+Dealing purely with the manufacture of chemicals themselves, we may, I
+think, lay down this general principle, that there is not necessarily
+any danger to the workman in manufacturing the most poisonous
+substances, if reasonable precautions are taken. Most chemicals are
+made by a wet process, and are crystallised or precipitated from the
+solutions, and therefore the danger from the inhaling of poisonous dust
+is not present. If deleterious gases are evolved, suitable arrangements
+can be made for preventing them escaping into the laboratory: moreover,
+we find that firms engaged in the manufacture of fine chemicals usually
+prepare a great variety of substances, so that the workmen are not
+always engaged upon the same process, and the risk of accumulated
+poisoning is diminished.
+
+The experience of scientific chemists in their own laboratories goes to
+show that for many years experiments may be carried on with the most
+dangerous substances, including gases of a poisonous nature, and that
+they may work day after day in an atmosphere frequently loaded with
+the fumes of strong acids and other substances, and yet not suffer
+any serious damage. In the manufacture of miscellaneous chemicals and
+drugs conducted on a comparatively small scale, there is no reason,
+I believe, to look for any serious difficulty in making the work
+perfectly healthy. Good ventilation and obvious precautions are all
+that are really necessary. But when we come to consider the manufacture
+of certain chemicals in very large quantities, then we find conditions
+which make it very difficult to protect the workmen from injurious
+consequences. The heaviest part of the chemical trade is that devoted
+to the manufacture of hydrochloric and sulphuric acids, carbonate of
+soda, caustic soda, and bleaching powder. These chemicals are usually
+made in one establishment, as part of one process, or in establishments
+closely allied to each other, and we shall find that there are three
+distinct methods of producing some, at any rate, of these chemicals.
+
+_The Le Blanc Process._--To deal first with the process by which
+all these substances can be manufactured, and which is the oldest
+and still the most important, we shall consider in some detail the
+manufacture known as the Le Blanc process, which is carried on in this
+country by the United Alkali Company and others. We shall find that the
+manufacturing processes necessitate the workman being exposed to the
+weather in open sheds, and that he is carrying on operations involving
+considerable bodily exertion before furnaces, and is exposed to various
+deleterious gases. Probably the fact that his work is carried on in
+open sheds, while making him more liable to sudden chills after working
+before the furnaces, is, on the whole, beneficial, as he is supplied
+in this way with fresh air. In fact it would be impossible to carry on
+many of the operations under any other conditions. As has been shown
+by statistics, the agricultural labourer, in spite of his exposure to
+inclement weather, has the longest life of any class of workmen. We may
+say, then, that the chemical worker, as his employment is practically
+an outdoor one, has this much to the good; but we cannot compare the
+air which he breathes in the chemical works with that which is breathed
+on the country farm.
+
+The processes of Le Blanc manufacture are as follows: The first is
+the production of sulphate of soda or salt cake. This is produced by
+acting upon common salt with sulphuric acid or oil of vitriol. We shall
+have to consider the conditions of the manufacture of sulphuric acid
+itself, but it will be simpler in the meantime to assume that we have
+sulphuric acid supplied to us. Its manufacture is usually carried on in
+the same works in which the salt cake is made. The sulphuric acid and
+salt are heated on the bed of a furnace, and are raked and moved about
+by the man in charge, until the decomposition of the salt is complete,
+and it has been converted into sulphate of soda. During this process
+torrents of hydrochloric acid gas are set free from the mass, and are
+drawn away from the furnace by means of a Root’s blower or some similar
+contrivance.
+
+The hydrochloric acid gas has a suffocating and irritating effect when
+breathed, and if present in any considerable quantities in the air,
+makes it quite impossible for any one to stand the suffocation and
+irritation produced. Even in smaller quantities the irritation of the
+air-passages is so great that it must in course of time prove injurious
+to the workmen. If we could obtain an ideal system, there seems to be
+no reason why workmen should be exposed at all to this irritating gas.
+The furnaces are, of course, arched in, and the gas is drawn off as it
+is generated. The main danger of exposure to the gas comes when the
+workman rakes the salt cake from the furnace into barrows, for removal
+to the next operation. Here a considerable improvement has been made of
+late years. The salt cake is raked into an iron box, which is connected
+to the furnace draught, so that the gases are drawn away while the salt
+cake cools, and the box is not removed from this position until by this
+means most of the fumes of acid have been given off.
+
+Notwithstanding these improvements, hydrochloric acid gas is found
+to be present more or less in the neighbourhood of these furnaces.
+The state of repair in the furnaces themselves, the condition of the
+weather, the amount of moisture in the air, the successful working of
+the acid towers, the rate at which the workman is trying to get out his
+material, and consequently not allowing it to cool properly in the iron
+box--all these conditions are present, and any of them may result in
+the presence of a certain amount of gas. It is only necessary to be in
+a town like St Helens on a moist evening to realise the fact that from
+these various chemical works large quantities of hydrochloric acid and
+other gases are evidently escaping.
+
+In order to protect himself to a certain extent from the hydrochloric
+acid, the workman either wears a flannel muffler tied over his face,
+or he bites a piece of flannel between his teeth and breathes through
+it. The fumes of acid quickly cause the teeth to rot away, and it has
+been suggested that this biting of the flannel, which gets full of
+acid, is one of the main causes of the rotting of the teeth. I have no
+evidence, however, on this point. My impression is that the rotting
+away of the teeth will take place whether flannel is held between the
+teeth or is wrapped over the mouth. Besides being exposed more or less
+to hydrochloric acid gas, the man is also working before a furnace
+door, in an open shed, and his work is of a very heavy character, so
+that he usually wears a minimum of clothes and perspires freely. He is
+thus exposed to constant chills, and to the risk of developing some
+pulmonary disease.
+
+The custom of the chemical trade is to divide all work of this
+character into shifts of twelve hours each, though as a matter of
+convenience the workmen sometimes arrange to take shifts of eleven and
+thirteen hours. During the twelve hours the workman is supposed to have
+sufficient time for his meals, but he does not leave his furnace; his
+food is brought to him, and he so arranges his work that he is able,
+to get his meal while waiting for the next operation to take place.
+His work at the furnace is not absolutely continuous. It would be
+impossible for any human being to carry on such heavy muscular labour
+continuously. He has to watch the materials, to stir them and rake them
+about at the proper intervals, and to remove the charge when completed,
+and to distribute a new charge in the furnace. But as the method of
+payment universally adopted in the chemical trade is by the quantity
+of material turned out, he is naturally anxious to turn out as much
+as possible, and he produces with considerable regularity the same
+quantity of stuff from day to day.
+
+The amount of labour involved in this would be impossible to a muscular
+man who had not been trained to it. The mere exposure to heat would
+make it very difficult. But it must not be supposed, that because a
+man going to this work for the first time would find the labour and
+the heat involved quite intolerable that it is so to the salt cake
+worker. The extraordinary power of adaptation which we find in the
+human subject enables him to carry out these arduous operations with
+comparative ease, and so far does this adaptation go, that the men
+working beside him, whose business it is to wheel barrow loads of the
+weighed chemicals to the furnace door, can wheel barrows all day, but
+could not carry out the furnace operations; while the furnaceman, if
+put into the yard, where he has general labouring work to do, will be
+found at first very unfit for such toil, and will do the best he can to
+get back to his furnace work again.
+
+Besides the long hours involved, the exposure to the heat of the
+furnaces tends to make such men heavy drinkers, and I think it is the
+universal experience in the chemical trade that such is the case. I
+believe that inquiry would show that the quantity of alcoholic liquor
+that one of these men can take, without any apparent injurious effects,
+is extraordinary. In the end these drinking habits tell, and the result
+is that the health of the workman rapidly breaks down.
+
+We have then four conditions which are acting prejudicially--exposure
+to the fumes of an irritating gas, exposure to high temperature from
+the furnaces, exposure to cold and chills working in an open shed, and
+the tendency to drink heavily when away from work. I have described
+these conditions in considerable detail, because the work at the salt
+cake furnace is so similar to that carried on in many other operations
+in chemical works, that it may be taken as fairly typical. The men
+employed in this industry are very largely Irish labourers. If they are
+not of Irish extraction, they are principally country labourers from
+the surrounding districts. The comparatively high wages earned are, of
+course, a temptation. A man may change from salt cake to a black ash
+furnace, but he is still engaged in similar operations. The work is
+of so peculiar a character, that a man who has once got adapted to it
+is not suited for other purposes. When no longer fit for so arduous a
+task, we may find him employed in odd jobs about the yard, acting as a
+night watchman, or performing some of the many miscellaneous jobs that
+require to be attended to in chemical works.
+
+In the earlier inquiries into the effect on health of this and other
+processes in the chemical trade, very different opinions were expressed
+as to whether the operations which these men had to carry on, while
+undoubtedly of a disagreeable character, had really a serious effect
+upon their health. I shall not discuss this at the present stage, but I
+think it is proved, in spite of the difficulties, which I shall refer
+to later on, of obtaining definite statistics on this point, that the
+injury to health is of a definite and serious character. I shall also
+reserve for general discussion the question as to the long hours of
+labour, and how far that may be dealt with and improved.
+
+The salt cake after it leaves the furnace is mixed with limestone and
+coal in a black ash furnace. After being heated and stirred in this
+furnace for a sufficient length of time, it is poured out in a molten
+condition, wheeled away to cool, is broken up, and the soda dissolved
+from it in the black ash vats. This operation of decomposing the salt
+cake used to be carried on in furnaces worked by hand. Such furnaces
+have practically disappeared, and with their disappearance a form of
+labour as arduous as the work of the salt cake man has also gone.
+Large revolving mechanical furnaces are now used for this operation,
+and although the labour of tending these furnaces is arduous, yet the
+conditions are very much improved upon those which prevailed in the old
+days. No fumes result in this operation, so that the workman is not
+exposed to deleterious gases.
+
+After the soda has been dissolved it is subjected to various processes,
+according to the product which may be required. It may be converted
+into soda ash, into soda crystals, and into caustic soda. All these
+operations involve boiling, furnacing, and similar processes, but there
+is nothing to be said about them of special interest, except the final
+operation in the manufacture of caustic soda.
+
+In order to make caustic soda, the liquors, after treatment with lime,
+are evaporated in large cast-iron cauldrons some 15 feet in diameter.
+As the liquor gets more and more concentrated, the temperature
+keeps rising, until finally the cauldron is full of red-hot caustic
+soda, which when it is finished is bailed into iron drums and there
+solidifies and is ready for sale. These great cauldrons of red-hot
+caustic are, of course, dangerous, as the substance will produce very
+serious injuries, if by any accident it gets out of the pot, while a
+drop of water will cause it to spurt, and other accidents may happen,
+causing similar spurting of this liquid. We find accordingly that burns
+are apt to happen in the caustic shop, although they are seldom of a
+serious character, and occasionally men have lost their lives from
+slipping and falling into the caustic pot.
+
+Some of these cases were discussed in the inquiry which was made in
+1893 into the chemical trades, and certain precautions were suggested
+for preventing such accidents in future, and were embodied in the
+special rules. The most important of these was taking care that the top
+of the pot should be at least 3 feet in height above the ground, and
+that the brickwork should slope to the top, and should have no ledges
+upon it where the workman could place his foot.
+
+But while the manufacture of caustic may and does lead to accidents,
+there is nothing in the actual process of manufacture itself which
+seems to be injurious to the workman, beyond the exposure to heat and
+cold. The work of the caustic finisher is not nearly so continuous or
+so arduous as that of the furnaceman. He is usually highly paid, and
+requires to be a man of considerable skill, for the turning out of a
+white caustic of a high strength depends upon long experience, as well
+as great care in its manufacture.
+
+The next process to be considered is the manufacture of bleaching
+powder from the hydrochloric acid which was given off during the
+operations in the salt cake furnace. In practice there are two ways
+of dealing with this substance, with the view to producing chlorine
+gas, from which bleaching powder is prepared. Either the hydrochloric
+acid is decomposed in large stone-covered vessels, known as stills, by
+means of manganese mud, the chlorine gas evolved being carried away
+through suitable pipes to the bleaching chambers; or the hydrochloric
+acid gas is passed direct from the salt cake furnace, and without
+condensation is mixed with proper proportions of air and steam; it is
+then decomposed by being brought into contact with specially prepared
+material, and the chlorine gas liberated. The first process is known
+as the Weldon process, and chlorine gas produced by decomposition of
+hydrochloric acid and manganese mud is known as Weldon gas. The second
+process is known as the Deacon’s process, and the gas is called Deacon
+gas.
+
+I have mentioned both these processes because the method of preparing
+chlorine makes a considerable difference in the way in which bleach is
+prepared from gas. In order to prepare bleaching powder we must expose
+freshly slaked lime to the gas. The lime will then absorb the chlorine
+gas, forming a compound known as bleaching powder, from which chlorine
+can be very readily evolved, mere exposure to air and carbonic acid gas
+being sufficient to cause a slight decomposition to go on.
+
+It is a matter of great importance to the manufacturer to get as high
+a percentage of available chlorine into every ton of bleaching powder
+that he sells as he can, as the buyer of bleaching powder naturally
+objects to paying carriage on a weak article.
+
+As bleach is always slightly decomposing and losing in strength, it
+becomes specially important for export purposes, where it may be
+exposed to long voyages, to make it as strong as possible before it is
+sent away. We have then the production of an unstable compound, which
+can only be prepared at full strength, say 38 per cent., by taking
+great care in the conditions of manufacture, a compound which is always
+slightly decomposing, and which, if the conditions of manufacture
+are only slightly altered, will possibly lose rather than gain in
+strength in the final stages of its manufacture. For example, in order
+to be able to meet the competition from the Continent and America,
+it is necessary to turn out this product at as high a percentage of
+strength as possible. The bleach below 35 per cent. in strength is not
+saleable, except at a very reduced price, while bleach of 38 per cent.
+strength is considered to be of the highest quality. It is a matter of
+the utmost importance to the manufacturer to obtain this 2 or 3 per
+cent. of strength. Many of those who have discussed the manufacture
+of bleach, and have talked of improved mechanical processes, have not
+realised how difficult and delicate a business the production of bleach
+of full strength really is. These facts should be kept in mind when the
+chemical manufacturer is condemned for what is called his crude and
+old-fashioned methods of making this article.
+
+If we are going to make bleach from Weldon gas, we are dealing with
+gas which contains a very high percentage of pure chlorine, and,
+consequently, the conditions for successful manufacture are quite
+different from those prevailing in the case of Deacon gas, in which
+we have only some 7 per cent. of chlorine present. The manufacture of
+bleach from Weldon gas is carried on to-day as it has always been, by
+spreading lime over the floors of chambers, which are at the present
+time usually made of lead, and passing the gas into these chambers,
+and allowing it to be absorbed by the lime. These lead chambers are of
+varying size, but are usually about 100 feet long, 30 feet broad, and
+about 6 feet high. The lime is spread over the floor, and is made up
+into ridges by means of a wooden rake. The doors are closed and the
+chlorine gas is allowed to enter. The absorption process is carried
+on for two or three days. During that time the lime is taking up the
+chlorine gas, and forming the compound which we call bleaching powder.
+Samples are withdrawn from time to time, the supply of fresh gas is
+stopped, and the lime is allowed to continue absorbing the gas still
+remaining upon it in the chamber. When this operation has gone as far
+as it can, and the bleach has reached full strength, then the chamber
+is again connected to another chamber, containing fresh lime, and this
+second chamber is then connected to a pipe and subjected to a gentle
+suction so as to cause a slight current from chamber No. 1 to chamber
+No. 2. The doors of the first chamber are now slightly opened, so as
+to admit a little air, and the remaining chlorine gas is then gently
+drawn off into the chamber which is freshly limed, while air passes
+in and takes its place. The doors are then thrown wide open, and free
+admission of air is allowed. The chamber cools, and the greater part of
+the gas is removed; but complete removal of the gas is not practicable,
+as the powder itself is always slightly decomposing, and if left long
+enough on the chamber floor would soon cease to be saleable bleach.
+
+The quantity of gas which may be left in the chamber when the bleach
+is packed has been laid down in the Act of Parliament dealing with
+injurious gases from chemical works, and the works’ chemist is expected
+to test the air in the chamber and enter the result in a book which is
+inspected from time to time by the Alkali Inspector. These inspectors
+are not appointed under the Factory Acts. Their function is to prevent
+the escape of injurious gases which may injure neighbouring property.
+It must be remembered, however, that the bleach is always decomposing,
+and in summer weather the decomposition of the bleach is going on very
+rapidly, and unless it is packed with great promptitude it will lose
+in strength, while, on the other hand, the fact of this decomposition
+going on makes the work of packing more disagreeable.
+
+The method of packing is as follows:--The bleach packer wraps his face
+in roll upon roll of flannel, the flannel being drawn over his mouth
+and leaving the nostrils free. These layers of flannel stand out some
+three inches beyond his face, and have to be of just the right dampness
+to prevent the gas reaching his lungs. He then puts on leather goggles
+to protect his eyes, and ties a piece of paper round his trousers to
+keep the bleach from attacking them. He then enters the bleach chamber
+and rapidly shovels the powder through holes made in the floor. Under
+these holes are shoots down into the casks which are underneath the
+bleaching chamber, and a covering is attached to the shoot and tied
+round the sides of the cask, preventing the bleach from escaping as it
+goes down. In this way the bleach is packed.
+
+This operation of bleach packing is the most disagreeable to which the
+man in charge of the bleach is subjected. The chlorine rises from the
+bleach as it is disturbed, and it would be impossible for any one to
+remain for a few seconds in a bleach chamber unless he was protected
+from breathing the gas in the way I have described. On the other hand,
+such wrappings make breathing very difficult. In fact a man who has not
+got accustomed to the bleach packer’s flannel would imagine that he was
+going to die of suffocation, and could not bear it round his face for
+more than a few seconds. While the bleach packer leaves his nostrils
+free, he is careful to breathe out from them, while he inhales through
+the flannels. He may stay from twenty to forty minutes inside the
+chamber, then come out and take fresh air, then put on his flannels and
+go back again, and in the course of a day he may thus do from two or
+three to five or six hours’ bleach packing. The bleach chambers come up
+to strength in succession, and when one of these is up to strength the
+product is packed as rapidly as possible, and the chamber prepared for
+another operation. A great part of the bleach packer’s time is spent in
+merely looking after his bleaching chambers, seeing that the lutes are
+tight, that the gas is passing properly into the chambers, and so on.
+His life consists of periodic leisure combined with the most arduous
+and exceptional form of toil.
+
+The exact conditions vary in different works, but it is usually found
+that the bleach packer also prepares the chamber with lime, and he may
+also prepare the lime himself and sift it. In large works the duties
+of sifting and slacking the lime are performed by a special set of
+men. This preparation of the lime is also a very unpleasant process,
+as it involves working in clouds of lime, which settle on the body and
+clothes, and is inhaled in considerable quantities. The lime-dresser
+rubs his arms and face over with grease and has also to roll his face
+in a flannel, but does not require to put on anything like the number
+of layers which are necessary in the case of the bleach packer exposed
+to chlorine gas. In the case of the Deacon process, the arrangement is
+somewhat different. The lime is distributed on shelves, and is finally
+removed by being pushed from these shelves down suitable holes, by
+means of openings from the outside; so that the Deacon man does not go
+into the chamber, as he does in the case of Weldon gas.
+
+Besides the exposure to the chlorine gas under the conditions of
+packing, it must be remembered that, in carrying on operations on a
+large scale with gas having the corrosive properties of chlorine,
+many little escapes of gas will take place, and that accidents from
+this source will be found to happen more frequently when the men, not
+expecting such an escape, are not, consequently, prepared for it, than
+from actual breathing of the gas during the process of packing.
+
+It is unnecessary to describe the effects of chlorine when breathed.
+A person has himself to experience the peculiarly suffocating and
+irritating properties of this gas, in order to appreciate its
+qualities. But while the inconvenience and discomfort produced are
+very great, and may result in vomiting and irritation of the bronchial
+passages lasting for some days, yet the discomfort is greater
+apparently than the permanent injury to health. Insensibility and death
+have been produced, but such results are rare. It often happens that
+workmen in chemical works get “gassed” accidentally, and consequently
+feel great irritation of their respiratory passages, and have a feeling
+of suffocation, followed by vomiting, but these symptoms are temporary
+in their duration, and do not appear to cause permanent injury. Any one
+who is familiar with chemical works has been gassed occasionally, and
+yet he has found no permanent harm come from it.
+
+But when we come to the question as to whether the continuous exposure
+to this gas, combined with work under the peculiar conditions necessary
+in the case of the bleach packers, does not ultimately undermine the
+health of the workers, we approach a more difficult problem. These men
+are necessarily men of great physical strength and in the prime of
+life, and they like the trade because of the very high wages paid; but
+it is difficult to trace the ultimate history of such men, and decide
+how far the death-rate among men who are picked for their health,
+strength, and age would give any real information as to the injurious
+nature of the employment. Here again, as in the case of the furnace
+man, the temptation to excessive drinking is very great. The bleach
+packer is more highly paid, and as he has a good deal of responsibility
+resting upon him in the manufacture of this difficult article, he is a
+superior man, just as the caustic finisher is a better man than he who
+works at a furnace door. Many of them are in the local football teams,
+and I think we may take it that, at any rate for a considerable number
+of years, working in chlorine does not produce any very obvious bad
+effects.
+
+Naturally when people first come across this industry, they remark upon
+the crude methods by which this manufacture is carried on, and they
+say at once: “Why is not some arrangement invented for the mechanical
+production of bleach? How easy it would be to put in lime at the one
+end, and carry it by means of suitable belting out at the other end,
+and pass the chlorine gas continually over it, and so avoid these
+unhealthy processes.” And the chemical manufacturer has been denounced
+for his inhumanity in not adopting some such plan. The question of
+humanity, or inhumanity, does not enter into the matter. A successful
+mechanical mode of making bleach would save so much expenditure in
+labour, the men connected with bleach manufacture being highly paid,
+and would save so much capital expenditure, that it would be at once
+adopted by chemical manufacturers. In the Home Office Report on the
+Chemical Trades, one piece of apparatus, known as the Hasenclever
+apparatus, is described, and an invention by another engineer.
+Hasenclever’s apparatus has been used, I believe, in Germany, and
+there is one works at any rate in St Helens where the apparatus has
+been tried. I have had no experience of its working, and consequently
+can say nothing about it, but the mechanical difficulties involved in
+the manufacture of bleaching powder are so great, that there is no
+indication at the present time of mechanical methods being adopted.
+In the case of the Deacon process, shelves are being used, and the
+latest plant put up by the Alkali Company consists of shelves made of
+slate, upon which lime is to a certain extent distributed mechanically.
+In processes where strong gas like the Weldon gas is produced, the
+lead chamber is still in use, and in modern works where the latest
+electrolytic plant is being erected in this country, and of which I
+shall have something to say presently, large lead chambers on the same
+plan as those used for the Weldon gas are being built. Very little
+progress has, therefore, been made in the replacing of the old methods
+of bleach making by a mechanical process. The tendency seems to be in
+two directions. In the case of the Le Blanc manufacture, with which
+we have been dealing so far, the Deacon process is replacing the
+old Weldon process; but in the case of the new electrolytic methods
+of making bleach, which are probably going to be the methods of the
+future, the strong gas produced under these conditions is being poured
+into bleach chambers, built on the old lines.
+
+There is another possible way of getting over the difficulty, and that
+is by the men wearing a helmet not unlike a diver’s apparatus. There
+are two difficulties here: one is the awkwardness for the workman
+wearing such an apparatus, and his dislike to being covered in it,
+while engaged in heavy toil. Another difficulty is in making the
+apparatus of such material that it will stand continuous exposure to
+chlorine gas. It is a common thing for people to say, why not use a
+helmet covered with gutta-percha, or some other material that will
+resist chlorine? This sounds very simple, but the material which will
+continuously resist the action of chlorine, and at the same time will
+enable us to construct a tight-fitting helmet, with its valves and
+apparatus, has yet to be discovered. The practical difficulties in the
+way of improving the conditions of bleach manufacture are very serious
+indeed, and I fear that no real solution of them has yet been found.
+
+We have still to deal with two other products of manufacture which
+are made by the Le Blanc process before considering other methods of
+manufacturing soda and bleaching powder. One of these is sulphuric acid.
+
+The manufacture of sulphuric acid is carried on in many works besides
+those for the manufacture of soda. Sulphuric acid is used in many
+processes of manufacture, and is so expensive to carry, that it is
+found more convenient to make the acid on the spot where it is wanted.
+The method most universally adopted for making the gas is to burn
+sulphur or sulphide of iron in specially constructed furnaces, so as to
+produce sulphur dioxide, with the smell of which we are all familiar.
+This is drawn into large lead chambers, where it is brought into
+contact with air, steam, and nitrous fumes. These fumes are produced
+by decomposing small quantities of sodium nitrate with sulphuric
+acid, the nitric acid gas and fumes being drawn into the sulphuric
+acid chambers. In these chambers a chemical reaction is set up which
+results in the production of sulphuric acid, while the nitrous fumes
+are regenerated by the action of the air, and are consequently used
+for the manufacture of a fresh quantity of acid. As it is necessary to
+cause a current of these gases to move through the chambers, we find
+at the end of the series of chambers air ladened with nitrous fumes
+passing away; the nitrous gases are therefore absorbed and are returned
+to the process again, so that we have in practice the burning of the
+sulphide of iron going on continuously, and the gases passing into
+the chambers at the bottom of which the sulphuric acid collects and
+is drawn off from time to time, while the addition of fresh nitrous
+fumes, by the decomposition of small quantities of nitrate of soda,
+is necessary, merely in order to supply the waste which takes place
+in what is theoretically a continuous process. The manufacture from
+sulphur dioxide is too new to be considered here.
+
+The men working at the pyrites burners are exposed to heat and cold,
+and at the same time are exposed to a certain amount of sulphur
+dioxide, and to occasional nitrous fumes. These gases are, of course,
+irritating, and must tend to produce similar effects on the breathing
+apparatus to those found in the case of chlorine and hydrochloric acid.
+Here again an entirely perfect system would result in the men not
+having to breathe either sulphur dioxide or nitrous fumes, but under
+practical conditions of manufacture, such substances are apt to be more
+or less present on occasion. The work of a pyrites burner is not so
+arduous as that of a man employed in making salt cake.
+
+The other product of manufacture, introduced in recent years, is that
+of sulphur. Returning for the moment to the preparation of soda, it
+will be remembered that at a certain stage black ash was produced,
+which was treated with water, and the soda it contained dissolved
+from it. After this operation, the black ash vats are left full of
+material, known as vat waste, which is principally sulphide of lime.
+In past years this material was thrown out as a waste product, so that
+in the neighbourhood of such towns as St Helens immense quantities of
+it have accumulated, forming great mounds. It is very unsightly, as no
+vegetation can grow upon it, and it is gradually decomposed by air and
+rain, with the result that the air and the streams become loaded with
+sulphuretted hydrogen--a most disagreeable gas--the rotten-egg smell
+of which is familiar to those who drink sulphur waters. For many years
+attempts were made to recover the sulphur from this substance, and we
+now find that the problem has been solved by that part of the Le Blanc
+manufacture known as Chance’s process.
+
+The tank waste is mixed with a sufficiency of water, and placed in
+large closed vessels, through which carbonic acid gas is passed. The
+result is to decompose the tank waste, and give off sulphuretted
+hydrogen gas, while the carbonate of lime is precipitated. When the
+decomposition is complete, the sludge is run off from these vessels
+into a suitable settling pond, and the sulphuretted hydrogen gas, which
+has been produced, is burned, under certain conditions as to limitation
+of the quantity of air, with the result that water and sulphur are
+formed.
+
+This process means the manufacture in enormous quantities of
+sulphuretted hydrogen, and this gas, as is well known, is very
+poisonous. Breathing the gas for a few minutes, even if diluted with
+a considerable quantity of air, results in coma, very often followed
+by death. The smell of the gas is also so disagreeable, that if only a
+very little escape, the whole neighbourhood is made intolerable, and
+therefore the process of manufacture is so carried on as to make the
+chance of gas escape as remote as possible. At the same time we find
+here again the difficulty of carrying on a large process with absolute
+perfection. Consequently, in such a district as St Helens we find
+that at night the air will, in the neighbourhood of a Chance’s plant,
+occasionally smell strongly of this gas. The best remedy for gassing
+with sulphuretted hydrogen seems to be the breathing of pure oxygen,
+and consequently a cylinder of compressed oxygen is kept at the works.
+On the other hand, I have not been able to obtain any evidence that the
+occasional exposure to small quantities of this gas has an injurious
+effect. People living in the neighbourhood of Chance’s plant are
+frequently breathing this gas, largely diluted with air, and while they
+seem at first to suffer in health, loss of appetite, and so on, they
+seem soon to adjust themselves to it, and not to suffer any permanent
+inconvenience. At the same time it is very difficult, unless we could
+have a large number of cases very carefully watched for many years, to
+tell how far the presence of this gas is deleterious to health in its
+ultimate effects.
+
+_Alkali Manufacture, other Methods._--We have now dealt with the
+main branches of alkali manufacture, as carried on by the Le Blanc
+process, and it remains to say something of the new processes which
+are being used in connection with this industry. Soda is very largely
+manufactured in England, and on the Continent, by means of the ammonia
+soda process. This process is carried on in closed vessels, the
+substance being in solution during the whole time, and we do not find
+the furnace introduced until the very last stage, when the soda ash has
+to be heated at a comparatively low temperature, so that there are no
+deleterious gases produced. There are no arduous furnace operations,
+and I have never heard any complaint made as to the conditions of the
+workmen in this industry. Messrs Brünner, Mond, & Co., the largest
+manufacturers in this country, introduced some years ago an eight
+hours’ day for their furnace-workers, and I believe that the result was
+very successful, but I shall deal with that matter later on.
+
+The ammonia soda process, while giving us soda, does not produce
+bleaching powder, and consequently we have to adopt some other means of
+production--either by chlorine, as produced by the Le Blanc process,
+or by some other method of obtaining this gas. At the works of Messrs
+Brünner, Mond, & Co., I believe special processes are used by which
+chlorine is part of the manufacture, but I cannot go further into that
+particular matter.
+
+One of the most important methods of producing both soda and chlorine,
+which is now coming to the front, is by means of the electrolysis of
+salt. An electric current is passed through a solution of salt, and
+the result is to decompose the salt directly into chlorine gas and
+caustic soda. The caustic soda can be concentrated, or converted into
+carbonate of soda, while the chlorine gas is led away and used for the
+making of bleach. This method of manufacture has been very successful
+on the Continent, and is also in use in this country, where large
+new works are being erected for the production of chlorine in this
+way. As in the case of most new industries, many different devices
+have been introduced for carrying on the process, some successful and
+some unsuccessful, but on the whole it continues to advance, and is
+likely ultimately to replace the Le Blanc process. By this method of
+manufacture we find all furnace operations are practically done away
+with; but, on the other hand, the chlorine gas has to be drawn from
+the decomposing house and converted into bleach, and we find here
+conditions prevailing which we have already described, and which show
+no indication of improvement. With the exception of the bleach packing,
+the conditions of labour, however, are enormously improved, and the
+more arduous duties of the chemical workers are absent.
+
+We must not expect to see the Le Blanc process of manufacture entirely
+replaced by these new methods, and for this reason: the first stage of
+the manufacture consists of the preparation of salt cake as already
+described. This substance is used in very large quantities in glass
+manufactories and also in other industries. As long as there is a
+demand for salt cake, it will probably be prepared by the decomposition
+of salt with sulphuric acid. It is possible that in the future the Le
+Blanc process may stop at this stage, and that nothing but salt cake
+and hydrochloric acid will be manufactured; but salt cake in some way
+or other must be produced in enormous quantities quite apart from the
+other products resulting from the Le Blanc process.
+
+_The Chemical Worker._--The general conditions of the chemical
+worker are very much as I have described them, but how far they affect
+his health is a more difficult matter. The earlier inquiries into this
+question seem to have left the effect on health very doubtful. The
+statistics of the death-rate of such a town as St Helens are not of any
+value for a purpose of this kind. The town is inhabited very largely
+by glass workers, coal miners, and engineers, and the chemical workers
+form only a small proportion of the number of hands employed. I do
+not find on inquiry of the medical men in St Helens, that they have
+very definite views on this question. Where we have, for example, lead
+poisoning produced by an industry, it is very easy to trace back the
+cause of illness, but when we are dealing with a general undermining
+of health, it is much more difficult to give definite figures or
+definite facts as to the effects of an industry. Then the chemical
+worker changes; he leaves the trade and goes back to it; he moves from
+place to place. We also find that a very large number of men who work
+in chemical works are simply labourers employed in the yard, and are
+only exposed accidentally to the injurious gases produced, and then
+probably in a diluted form. The construction of the works has also an
+important effect. We may, for example, be trying to trace the effects
+on health of employment at the black ash or the salt cake furnace, and
+in the particular works examined, the bleach chambers might be built in
+such a position that when the wind is blowing in a certain direction,
+the chlorine gas is carried to the furnace and may seriously affect the
+health of the workmen, while in other works the chlorine might be blown
+in a different direction. The gas is so heavy that under
+
+
+ TYNE AND SCOTLAND DISTRICT.
+
+ _Average Hours of Labour and Wages per Week._
+
+ +---------------+----------------+----------------+
+ | | Vitriol | Salt Cake, |
+ | | Burner | Pot, and |
+ |Name of Works. | | Men. |
+ | +------+---------+------+---------+
+ | |Hours.| Wages. |Hours.| Wages. |
+ +---------------+------+---------+------+---------+
+ |TYNE:-- | |_s._ _d._| |_s._ _d._|
+ | | | | | |
+ | Allhusen’s | 56 | 32 1 | 56 | 30 0 |
+ | | | | | |
+ | Hebburn | 56 | 33 10 | 70 | 34 6 |
+ | Friar’s Goose| 56 | 31 6 | 71 | 33 0 |
+ | St Bede | 56 | 31 6 | 70 | 32 6 |
+ | | | | | |
+ |SCOTLAND:-- | | | | |
+ | St Rollox | 56 | 35 0 | 70 | 28 0 |
+ | Eglington | 84 | 34 0 | 72 | 38 0 |
+ | Irvine | 84 | 33 3 | 70 | 35 8 |
+ +---------------+------+---------+------+---------+
+ | Averages | 64 | 33 0 | 68 | 33 1 |
+ +---------------+------+---------+------+---------+
+
+ Part 2 of table.
+
+ +---------------+--------------------------------------------------+
+ | | Alkali. |
+ | |----------------+----------------+----------------+
+ | | Revolver | Vat | |
+ |Name of Works. | Men. | Men. | Salting. |
+ | +------+---------+------+---------+------+---------+
+ | |Hours.| Wages. |Hours.| Wages. |Hours.| Wages. |
+ +---------------+------+---------+------+---------+------+---------+
+ |TYNE:-- | |_s._ _d._| |_s._ _d._| |_s._ _d._|
+ | | | | | | | |
+ | Allhusen’s | 56 | 40 4 | 84 | 35 4 | | |
+ | | | | | | | |
+ | Hebburn | 71 | 36 0 | 54 | 32 0 | 70 | 32 6 |
+ | Friar’s Goose| 70 | 37 0 | 58 | 44 0 | 70 | 28 0 |
+ | St Bede | 72 | 41 7 | 72 | 27 0 | 72 | 24 0 |
+ | | | | | | | |
+ |SCOTLAND:-- | | | | | | |
+ | St Rollox | 70 | 32 0 | 56 | 26 0 | 70 | 27 0 |
+ | Eglington | | | | | | |
+ | Irvine | 70 | 40 0 | 54 | 37 0 | | |
+ +---------------+------+---------+------+---------+------+---------+
+ | Averages | 69 | 37 9 | 63 | 33 7 | 70 | 28 0 |
+ +---------------+------+---------+------+---------+------+---------+
+
+ Part 3 of table.
+
+ +---------------+---------------------------------+
+ | | Alkali. |
+ | |----------------+----------------+
+ | | | Caustic |
+ |Name of Works. | Carbonating. | Pots. |
+ | +------+---------+------+---------+
+ | |Hours.| Wages. |Hours.| Wages. |
+ +---------------+------+---------+------+---------+
+ |TYNE:-- | |_s._ _d._| |_s._ _d._|
+ | | |{Firing. | 56 | 35 0 |
+ | Allhusen’s | |{Finish- | | |
+ | | |{ ing. | 84 | 63 8 |
+ | Hebburn | 70 | 30 6 | | |
+ | Friar’s Goose| 70 | 31 0 | | |
+ | St Bede | 72 | 31 0 | | |
+ | | | | | |
+ |SCOTLAND:-- | | | | |
+ | St Rollox | 70 | 25 6 | | |
+ | Eglington | | | | |
+ | Irvine | | | 72 | 52 0 |
+ +---------------+------+---------+------+---------+
+ | Averages | 70 | 29 6 | 71 | 50 3 |
+ +---------------+------+---------+------+---------+
+
+ Part 4 of table.
+
+ +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ | | Bleach. |
+ | |----------------+----------------+----------------+----------------+
+ | | Weldon | Deacon | Lime | Still |
+ |Name of Works. | Packers. | Packers. | Dressers. | Men. |
+ | +------+---------+------+---------+------+---------+------+---------+
+ | |Hours.| Wages. |Hours.| Wages. |Hours.| Wages. |Hours.| Wages. |
+ +---------------+------+---------+------+---------+------+---------+------+---------+
+ |TYNE:-- | |_s._ _d._| |_s._ _d._| |_s._ _d._| |_s._ _d._|
+ | | | | | | | | | |
+ | Allhusen’s | 42 | 60 0 | | | 42 | 59 9 | 56 | 35 0 |
+ | | | | | | | | | |
+ | Hebburn | 36 | 60 0 | | | 36 | 60 0 | 70 | 39 0 |
+ | Friar’s Goose| 36 | 55 0 | | | 48 | 40 0 | 69 | 33 0 |
+ | St Bede | 36 | 60 0 | | | 36 | 60 0 | 70 | 33 0 |
+ | | | | | | | | | |
+ |SCOTLAND:-- | | | | | | | | |
+ | St Rollox | 48 | 34 0 | | | 54 | 33 0 | 75 | 27 0 |
+ | Eglington | 36 | 55 0 | | | 48 | 52 0 | 72 | 46 0 |
+ | Irvine | 36 | 47 0 | | | 36 | 47 0 | 70 | 47 0 |
+ +---------------+------+---------+------+---------+------+---------+------+---------+
+ | Averages | 39 | 53 0 | | | 43 | 50 3 | 69 | 37 0 |
+ +---------------+------+---------+------+---------+------+---------+------+---------+
+
+ Part 5 of table.
+
+ +---------------+---------------------------------+----------------+
+ | | Sulphur. | |
+ | |----------------+----------------+ Copper |
+ | | Carbonator | Claus | Furnace |
+ |Name of Works. | Men. | Kiln. | Men. |
+ | +------+---------+------+---------+------+---------+
+ | |Hours.| Wages. |Hours.| Wages. |Hours.| Wages. |
+ +---------------+------+---------+------+---------+------+---------+
+ |TYNE:-- | |_s._ _d._| |_s._ _d._| |_s._ _d._|
+ | | | | | | | |
+ | Allhusen’s | 42 | 60 0 | | | 42 | 59 9 |
+ | | | | | | | |
+ | Hebburn | 36 | 60 0 | | | 36 | 60 0 |
+ | Friar’s Goose| 36 | 55 0 | | | 48 | 40 0 |
+ | St Bede | 36 | 60 0 | | | 36 | 60 0 |
+ | | | | | | | |
+ |SCOTLAND:-- | | | | | | |
+ | St Rollox | 48 | 34 0 | | | 54 | 33 0 |
+ | Eglington | 36 | 55 0 | | | 48 | 52 0 |
+ | Irvine | 36 | 47 0 | | | 36 | 47 0 |
+ +---------------+------+---------+------+---------+------+---------+
+ | Averages | 39 | 53 0 | | | 43 | 50 3 |
+ +---------------+------+---------+------+---------+------+---------+
+
+_N.B._--The hours mentioned are the total hours the men are on
+duty, without deduction for meal times, etc. certain atmospheric
+conditions it will produce serious effects a long way from the point of
+escape. In fact the men working in the bleach chambers might be quite
+free of the gas while it was doing much damage elsewhere. Each works
+would, therefore, have to be considered by itself in studying health
+conditions, or very erroneous conclusions might be arrived at.
+
+_Hours of Work in Alkali Manufacture._--Before leaving this
+industry it will be of interest to give some figures supplied by the
+Alkali Union to the inquiry made in 1893 as to the hours of work of
+the different workmen employed. These figures may be taken as very
+carefully drawn up, and as representing very closely the conditions of
+labour which still prevail. Wages, of course, tend to vary, so that
+statistics on this point have to be constantly revised (_see table on
+preceding page_).
+
+
+ HOURS OF ATTENDANCE AND TIME SPENT IN ACTUAL
+ WORK AT GLOBE WORKS.
+
+ _Vitriol Process._
+
+ Average hours of attendance of the two shifts of men 84 per week
+ Hours spent in actual labour (say) 30 „
+ The latter is arrived at in the following way, viz.:--
+ Dropping one burner or kiln 2 minutes
+ Barring and charging one burner 4 „
+ --
+ 6 „
+ ==
+
+ 30 burners are charged per 12 hours, or at the rate of 2½ per hour.
+ 6 × 2½ = 15 minutes per hour.
+ Time spent in potting 6 „
+ --
+ 21 „
+ × 12 = 4.2 hours per shift, or 29.4 per week.
+
+
+ _Salt Cake Department._
+
+ Average hours of attendance 70 per week
+ Potmen--Time spent in actual labour 52½ „
+ Arrived at as follows:--
+ Gathering up charge 6¾ minutes
+ Shoving 23¼ „
+ Spreading 10 „
+ Charging pot 7¼ „
+ Wheeling out salt cake 19 „
+ Wheeling salt 19½ „
+ Working pot 14 „
+ Watching acid-heater filling 16 „
+ Clinkering fire 3¼ „
+ Firing 8 „
+ Throwing up cinders 2½ „
+ -------
+ 129½ „
+ =======
+
+Or 2 hours 9½ minutes per charge × 3 = 8 hours 38 minutes per shift, or
+51 hours 48 minutes per week.
+
+ Furnacemen--Time spent in actual labour 55 hours 18 minutes
+ Arrived at as follows:--
+ Taking in one charge 23¼ minutes
+ Spreading 10 „
+ Charging pot 7¼ „
+ Clinkering 3 „
+ Slicing 28¾ „
+ Wheeling out salt cake 19 „
+ Slicing, tooth-raking, and drawing 36½ „
+ Firing 8 „
+ Throwing up cinders 2½ „
+ -------
+ 138¼ „
+ =======
+
+= 2 hours 18¼ minutes per charge × 4 = 9 hours 13 minutes per shift, or
+55 hours 18 minutes per week.
+
+
+
+_Bleaching Powder Department._
+
+ Lime Dressers--Three men employed:--
+ Average hours of attendance 63 per week
+ Time spent in actual labour (say) 30 „
+ Arrived at as follows:--
+ 2 men sieving 3½ hours each
+ One man laying down lime, 2½ hours }
+ One man slacking lime, 1 hour } 3½ „
+
+ All the men turning lime, 1 hour each, ∴ each man works 4½ hours,
+ which × 6 = 27 hours per week (say, 30 hours).
+
+It will be noted, after examining these figures, that the employment
+of men who are on duty a very large number of hours does not mean
+absolutely continuous work. The labour is, of course, of a very heavy
+character, and such continuous labour would be impracticable.
+
+As has been already stated, Messrs Brünner Mond have introduced eight
+hours’ shifts for their furnace workmen, and I myself am responsible
+for trying an experiment of this character with hand-worked black ash
+furnaces. My experience was as follows: I found that each furnaceman in
+a twelve hours’ shift was able to turn out 15 black ash balls, and on
+an eight hours’ shift he was able to turn out from 11 to 12, so that
+in the course of the twenty-four hours the output of the furnace was
+increased from 30 to 36 balls. This increased output was not sufficient
+to enable the firm to pay quite the same wages. The black ash workman
+is paid by the balls that he turns out, and it is evident that in order
+to earn the same wage, the amount paid per black ash ball would have to
+be increased. We were able to so adjust matters that his earnings were
+reduced less than 2s. a week, while of course he had the advantage of
+additional leisure. This experiment was ultimately abandoned, because
+it was not appreciated, either by the foreman or by the black ash men
+themselves. They preferred to have a twelve hours’ shift, and produce
+their 15 balls with less strain, than to work harder for eight hours,
+to get out the twelve balls. The foreman objected that the greater
+leisure which the men had, made it more difficult to keep his gang of
+men sober, while I believe the wives also objected to the change of
+shift for the same reasons. These, of course, are merely temporary
+objections, which would disappear if any such reform was carried out on
+a large scale. Messrs Brünner Mond state that in their experience they
+found that the result of the change has not worked out at any loss to
+the firm, while the workmen are receiving the same wages.
+
+It must be remembered, however, that there are many processes in the
+chemical works which cannot be hastened, and that the greater energy
+of the workman has no effect on the output of the process. This was
+pointed out by the Alkali Union at the time of the Home Office inquiry.
+In such cases it is evident that the shortening of hours must result
+in a definite loss to the manufacturer, and therefore it is not right
+to assume that, because in the special furnace operations carried on
+by Messrs Brünner Mond they are able to reduce the number of shifts
+without loss because of the greater output of their furnaces, therefore
+in the case of chemical processes of all kinds a similar gain would
+result from shorter hours. This point is sometimes lost sight of by
+those who discuss this question.
+
+_The Administration of the Alkali Act._--There is another matter
+to be considered in connection with the alkali manufacture and all
+chemical processes in which gases are produced which are injurious to
+health and to vegetation. These processes have been under the charge
+of a special set of inspectors appointed under the Alkali Act to
+prevent the escape of gas with the view to protecting the neighbouring
+districts from the injurious consequences that these gases may produce.
+Consequently the present alkali manufacturer finds himself under
+inspection from two different departments and from two different points
+of view. The Factory Inspector requires him to take certain precautions
+under the special rules issued by the Home Office for dangerous trades,
+while the Alkali Inspector also requires him to prevent the escape of
+gases. The Alkali Act had done a great deal to improve the condition
+of the workman in the chemical works, because the diminution of the
+escapes of gas injurious to his health has of course benefited him as
+well as those living in the neighbourhood.
+
+The main defect, however, under this Act is to be found in the limited
+amount of inspection possible in spite of the zealousness of the
+inspectors. The districts they have to cover are so large, and the
+number of works they have to visit so great, that it is impossible
+for them to do all that might be done by enforcing this particular
+Act. The tendency in all the chemical works is to arrange that if
+any gases are to be allowed to escape it shall be done at night, and
+consequently a night staff of inspectors is urgently required in order
+to see that the law is complied with. It is a common statement to make,
+that as these gases have a commercial value the manufacturer may be
+trusted to prevent their escape. This argument is one which a practical
+manufacturer smiles at. It is often much more important to push work
+through as rapidly as possible with the view of delivering orders. And
+it may be more profitable, with the view to getting a larger output
+from the same plant, to allow a certain amount of gas to escape, rather
+than use up the whole of the gases. It may happen that some part of
+the plant breaks down, or that in order to get over some difficulty
+the simplest plan is to let certain gases go. The temptation is for
+all such operations to be arranged to take place if possible at night,
+so that the public shall know as little about them as possible. There
+are so many ways of evading such an Act that a far larger staff of
+inspectors is necessary, to see that it is thoroughly complied with.
+
+_Output Method of Paying Wages._--Another matter we have referred
+to is the method of payment of the workmen. We have already quoted the
+tables supplied by the Alkali Union, with the view of showing the hours
+of work prevailing in their factories. The usual method of payment
+in the chemical works is by output, and a system of sub-contracting
+is very frequently present, i.e., one man will take charge of the
+output of bleach or of caustic soda, and will pay those he employs.
+Whatever the system may be, the general principle is to pay by tonnage
+and not by means of a weekly wage. This has been denounced as an
+unfair system, as it causes the workman to be more exposed than is
+necessary to the injurious nature of his employment. As I have already
+indicated, it has that effect. The workman is disposed in many cases
+to push the work through at the risk of exposure to injurious gases
+for the sake of getting a larger output, and making a higher wage. On
+the other hand it is, I fear, the only way in which such an industry
+can be successfully carried on. Chemical works usually extend over
+a large area of ground, and consist of a large number of workshops
+and buildings in which various processes are being carried on, and
+which make strict supervision on the part of the foreman practically
+impossible. The only way in which economical results can be obtained
+is by making the workman himself directly interested in creating a
+proper output, while the chemist in the works takes care that the
+product produced is up to standard quality. It is difficult to see
+how under the present conditions of manufacture it could be carried
+on economically in any other way. The amount of competition which now
+exists with Germany and America has put this industry in so serious a
+position that it is engaged in a fierce struggle for existence, and
+consequently it becomes very difficult to carry out any radical reforms.
+
+While we have stated the dangerous nature of the work, it will be
+evident in reading this description that little has been suggested in
+the way of improvement beyond increasing the staff of alkali inspectors
+with the view to keeping down the escape of injurious gases. The
+reduction of the hours of labour of the workmen from twelve to eight
+would no doubt have an excellent effect, and would be a reform which
+all would welcome. At the same time, unless some understanding could
+be come to, of an international character, on this point, I fear
+that such a reduction at the present time would be disastrous to the
+chemical trade, and consequently it is not at the present moment within
+the region of practical politics. The difficulties of improving the
+manufacture of bleach have also been dealt with, and while it may be
+said that dangers have been pointed out and no remedy suggested, it
+is better to face the fact of the numerous difficulties in the way of
+improvement, rather than to imagine that it is a simple matter to put
+this industry in a proper sanitary state.
+
+_Bichromate of Potash Manufacture._--Another department of
+chemical manufacture which has attracted attention is the preparation
+of bichromate of potash. This subject has already been dealt with by Dr
+Morison Legge, and need not be repeated here.
+
+_Coal Tar Products._--Another industry, to which attention has
+been directed of late years, is the manufacture of various products
+from coal tar. This manufacture is principally carried on in Germany;
+the crude distillations of the coal tar are made in this country, and
+the resulting products sent to Germany: various dyes, drugs, etc., are
+there manufactured from them, and then largely sold in this country to
+our dyers and druggists.
+
+But the preparation of these compounds in this country is growing in
+importance, and the almost complete monopoly which Germany has held for
+so many years is not likely to be permanent.
+
+Consequently attention has been directed to the effect on the health of
+the workers of the substances manufactured. Many of these are so new
+to science that their possible poisonous qualities are not yet known,
+but in the case of one or two, distinctly injurious results have been
+proved to exist.
+
+Among these we may mention aniline and the nitrobenzines. These
+bodies are prepared in large quantities as the starting point for
+other compounds, and consequently their poisonous qualities have been
+shown very clearly upon the workmen. One or two references to reports
+will make this clear. In the year 1896, Mr Rodgers, H.M. Inspector
+of Factories, pointed out that he had one or two cases of somewhat
+serious illness among workers in aniline. He described the process of
+manufacture by which the crude benzine is first of all converted by the
+action of sulphuric and nitric acids into nitro and dinitrobenzine,
+known to the workmen under the name of myrbane. This substance is then
+reduced to aniline by means of the action of hydrochloric acid and iron.
+
+The fumes from the preparation of the nitrobenzines seem to
+occasionally produce serious effects, such as dizziness ending in coma
+and vomiting. Evidently some men are more susceptible than others, as
+one case is mentioned where a man had been repeatedly away suffering
+from pain in the stomach, dizziness, partial paralysis of the legs, and
+defective vision.
+
+Again, we find another further reference to this industry. In the
+report for the year 1899, Mr Sidney Smith, H.M. Inspector of Factories,
+reports that he has noticed the peculiar anæmic appearance of the
+men engaged in the manufacture of aniline, both those employed in
+distilling the crude aniline oil and those engaged in manufacturing the
+aniline hydrochloride. The men speak of being “gassed”--as they call
+it--a number of times, and they seem to find tolindene, the homologue
+of aniline, to have a similar effect. So that here we find the aniline
+itself referred to as dangerous to the workers. It is, of course, well
+known to medical men that aniline itself is an active poison. It is
+evident from these accounts that these substances are dangerous to
+health, and special measures are required to protect the workers.
+
+Doubtless, as we get further knowledge of the compounds belonging
+to this large group of substances, we shall find other cases where
+injurious results are produced, and, in fact, the time has probably
+come for a searching inquiry into this branch of chemical manufacture.
+
+_Bisulphide of Carbon._--Another substance which might yet be
+mentioned is bisulphide of carbon, but as it has been dealt with in
+regard to the manufacture of rubber, where its effects are far more
+injurious than in the actual manufacture of the substance itself, it is
+hardly necessary to discuss it here.
+
+_Phosphorus._--In the same way phosphorus is more dangerous to
+the matchmaker who uses it than to the worker who manufactures it. The
+modern process of manufacture in an electric furnace is to a great
+extent a secret one, and consequently it is difficult to get accurate
+information.
+
+There are numerous other chemical substances, such as cyanides, the
+compounds of antimony, the compounds of arsenic, and the compounds
+of barium, which are very poisonous, and which are manufactured in
+very large quantities, and which have not, as far as I am aware,
+ever been studied in their relation to health. But many of these
+substances appear in other industries, and their discussion in any
+detail would be endless. It is probably sufficient to say that in all
+these processes of chemical manufacture special precautions should be
+taken to prevent the workmen being exposed to the fumes arising from
+vats and tanks, to insist upon the greatest cleanliness, to allow him
+efficient respirators during certain operations, and to take every
+precaution for ensuring the removal of dust, and thorough and efficient
+ventilation. If these things are done there is no reason why many of
+these substances should not be manufactured, although poisonous in
+their nature, without injury to the workmen.
+
+The special rules which were drawn up by the German Government
+for bichromate works afford, I think, a very good guide as to
+the conditions that ought to be insisted upon in all chemical
+manufactories. We come now to consider how far statistics show that the
+manufacture of chemicals is injurious to health.
+
+_Health of Chemical Workers as shown by Statistics._--The use
+of statistics in this particular industry is of doubtful value. In
+the first place it is very difficult to define what are the limits of
+chemical manufacture. If, for example, the manufacture of chemicals
+includes white lead, at once we shall cause a considerable apparent
+increase in the unhealthiness of the industry; while, if white lead
+manufacture is treated by itself and statistics referring to it removed
+from the chemical trade, doubtless better results would be shown. There
+are many other cases where it is difficult to know whether under the
+head of chemical manufacture a particular industry is included or not.
+
+Then the trade is one which to a large extent employs the lowest class
+of labour and requires little skill or special knowledge from those
+employed. Many manufacturers in fact prefer to use this class of
+labour, so that the workman himself shall have as little knowledge as
+possible of the processes that he is carrying on, and will therefore be
+useless to any rival manufacturer if bribed to give information. Then
+the labour being of this rough and unskilled kind, the men leave the
+industry or come into it in a very casual way, and we do not find that
+a chemical worker is always a chemical worker in the same way in which
+a cotton operative would be who remains in the cotton mills all his
+life.
+
+Furthermore, so many of the chemical industries require men of unusual
+health and strength, that they are recruited from the vigorous class
+of country or Irish labour, and when the men get unfit for the arduous
+character of the work, they are apt to drop out of the industry, so
+that it is difficult to follow these men through their whole career,
+and death statistics fail to indicate how far the industry is unhealthy.
+
+As I explained in the opening remarks of this chapter, the conditions
+of the industry itself vary so enormously according to the substances
+manufactured that any general condemnation of it, or approval of it,
+is impossible, and if we find that men engaged in this industry show
+a distinctly higher death-rate than those engaged in ordinary trades,
+we must, I think, assume that certain branches of chemical manufacture
+are peculiarly unhealthy since those branches are able to bring up
+the death-rate over the whole number. With these preliminary remarks
+I propose to quote some of the figures published by Dr Tatham as the
+result of the census of 1890–91–92, which show, I think, very clearly
+that this industry is far from being a healthy one.
+
+In the first place, if we compare the mean annual mortality of males
+engaged in different occupations at successive periods of life, we
+find, as is evident from the figures printed below, that while the
+chemical worker up to the age of thirty-five does not show any very
+excessive rate of death as compared with all males, with occupied
+males, or with carpenters (to take an industry which may be regarded
+as a very healthy one), his death-rate after thirty-five begins rapidly
+to increase, and by the time we come to the period between forty-five
+and fifty-five, his death-rate is nearly double that of a carpenter.
+
+In fact, in order to find between these ages so high a death-rate, we
+have to take the returns for brewers, who are notoriously unhealthy
+from the excessive quantities of beer they consume, cutlers, file
+makers, lead workers, earthenware and glass workers. In some of these
+industries that I have just referred to the figures are considerably
+higher than those for the chemical worker: _e.g._, while the
+figure for the chemical workers at this age (forty-five to fifty-five)
+is 30.3, that for earthenware is 43, and for the file maker 40: but
+these are notoriously unhealthy industries, and it is evident that the
+chemical worker comes high up among the unhealthy trades.
+
+
+ MEAN ANNUAL MORTALITY of Males engaged in different
+ Occupations in the three years, 1890–91–92, at
+ successive periods of life.
+
+ +-----------------------+--------------------------------------------------+
+ | | Ages. |
+ | Occupations. +------+------+------+------+------+------+--------+
+ | | 15–20| 20–25| 25–35| 35–45| 45–55| 55–65| 65 and |
+ | | | | | | | |upwards.|
+ +-----------------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+--------+
+ | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
+ |All Males | 4.1 | 5.6 | 7.7 | 13.0 | 21.4 | 39.0 | 103.6 |
+ |Occupied Males | 2.6 | 5.1 | 7.3 | 12.4 | 20.7 | 36.7 | 102.3 |
+ |Brewer | 2.7 | 5.6 | 10.8 | 19.0 | 30.8 | 54.4 | 129.1 |
+ |Cutler | 2.4 | 5.4 | 8.5 | 20.9 | 35.6 | 60.2 | 136.8 |
+ |File Maker | 1.7 | 6.9 | 11.1 | 26.1 | 40.1 | 70.8 | 147.4 |
+ |Copper Worker | 2.6 | 8.0 | 11.1 | 16.2 | 27.9 | 58.8 | 168.9 |
+ |Lead Worker | 4.4 | 11.8 | 12.1 | 22.8 | 37.6 | 75.3 | 281.3 |
+ |Carpenter | 1.7 | 4.0 | 5.8 | 9.4 | 17.2 | 32.2 | 102.2 |
+ |Manufacturing Chemist | 4.5 | 6.7 | 8.4 | 16.7 | 30.3 | 62.5 | 117.3 |
+ |Earthenware Manufacture| 2.8 | 5.4 | 8.2 | 19.6 | 43.0 | 75.1 | 143.4 |
+ |Glass Manufacture | 3.2 | 6.4 | 11.3 | 17.9 | 32.1 | 60.8 | 172.4 |
+ +-----------------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+--------+
+
+If, now, we take another of these tables and compare the comparative
+mortality from specified causes among males engaged in certain
+occupations, and if we take the annual mortality among all males as
+1000, so as to obtain a figure of comparison, we find the following
+results. The brewer, cutler, file maker, copper worker, lead worker,
+and those engaged in earthenware and glass, all show high mortality;
+but among these we find again the manufacturing chemist. In fact we
+find only five industries in which the mortality is greater. Among
+these, the file maker, lead worker, and earthenware worker again head
+the list with enormous figures.
+
+
+ COMPARATIVE MORTALITY from specified Causes among Males
+ engaged in certain Occupations, 1890–91–92.
+
+ Key to table:
+ A: All Causes.
+ B: Alcoholism.
+ C: Rheumatic Fever.
+ D: Gout.
+ E: Phthisis.
+ F: Diseases of the Nervous System.
+ G: Diseases of the Circulatory System.
+ H: Diseases of the Respiratory System.
+ I: Diseases of the Digestive System.
+ J: Diseases of the Urinary System.
+ K: Plumbism.
+ L: Accident.
+ +--------------+-----------------------------------------------+
+ | | Causes of Death. |
+ | Occupation. +----+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+
+ | | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L|
+ +--------------+----+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+
+ | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10| 11| 12|13|
+ |All Males |1000| 13| 7| 2|192|102|132|224| 58| 44| 1|56|
+ |Occupied Males| 953| 13| 7| 2|185| 82|126|221| | 41| 1|56|
+ |Brewer |1427| 41| 13| 10|273|125|195|315|106| 78| |50|
+ |Cutler |1516| 18| 7| |382| 91|167|518| 58| 56| 3|32|
+ |File Maker |1810| 4| | 4|402|212|204|423| 72|104| 75|39|
+ |Copper Worker |1381| 4| | |294| 85|186|406| 76| 60| 8|57|
+ |Lead Worker |1783| | | |148|232|272|397|147|161|211|45|
+ |Carpenter | 783| 8| 9| 2|172| 71|106|154| 45| 34| |39|
+ |Manufacturing | | | | | | | | | | | | |
+ | Chemist |1392| 7| 7| |162| 98|168|502| 68| 52| 1|98|
+ |Earthenware | | | | | | | | | | | | |
+ | Manufacturer|1706| 9| 8| 1|333|123|227|668| 66| 63| 17|20|
+ |Glass | | | | | | | | | | | | |
+ | Manufacturer|1487| 24| 10| 9|295|155|157|445| 67| 63| 12|59|
+ +--------------+----+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+
+
+If we now pass from these figures to the causes of death there are some
+interesting points to notice. Unfortunately, returns as to causes of
+death are not of so much value as they might be. Death certificates
+are apt to be filled in in many cases very hastily, and too often the
+custom is to give the immediate cause of death without attempting to
+show how that immediate cause has been brought about. It has been and
+still remains one of the great difficulties in tracing the effects
+of industry on health that so little attention has been paid by the
+medical profession throughout the country to industrial conditions
+as causes of death. Even in the case of so specific a thing as lead
+poisoning much difficulty has been found in obtaining reliable
+statistics, and when we come to the general undermining of health
+produced by other industries, the difficulties are increased. It must
+be remembered that on account of the low class of labour employed in
+chemical works, although the wages are in many cases good, the workman
+probably feeds badly, lives under unhealthy conditions, and spends
+far too much on drink, so that all these tell against him. It must
+also be remembered that the tendency to drink is largely caused by
+the nature of his work, therefore the nature of his employment may be
+indirectly blamed for injury that is really caused by alcohol. With
+these preliminary remarks, let us look at the causes of death as stated
+in Dr Tatham’s tables.
+
+One striking fact is noticeable. The chemical trades head all other
+industries in the number of deaths put down to accident. While the
+number for all males stands at 56, the number for the chemical trades
+stands at 98, and the only industry which approaches it is that of
+shipwrights, with a death-rate from accident of 63.
+
+The next point of interest to notice is the number of deaths from
+diseases of the respiratory system. If the fumes and deleterious
+gases breathed by the chemical workers are injurious to health, it
+is in pulmonary diseases that we should expect to find an increase;
+consequently we find that while the number of deaths from diseases of
+the respiratory system stand in the case of the manufacturing chemist
+at 502, there are only two industries in which higher figures are
+given--the cutlers, who are exposed to the dust from the grindstones,
+and the earthenware manufacturers, who are exposed to the deadly
+dust from the ground flints. Curiously enough, the next figure after
+chemical workers is that for manufacturers of glass. This is not an
+employment in which the workers are exposed to dust or injurious fumes,
+and the only and the natural cause for diseases of this character must
+be the exposure to the heat of the glass furnace and to the cold of the
+open sheds, while engaged in an arduous employment. The figure given
+for the glass workers is 445, so that it is apparently probable that
+the conditions under which the chemical workers carry on the operations
+in furnaces would alone be sufficient to cause a high death-rate among
+that particular class without the additional injury caused by exposure
+to fumes.
+
+When we look at the returns of death from phthisis we find that the
+manufacturing chemist is below the normal for all males, the figure for
+all males being 192, and for the chemical worker 162. If we compare the
+glass worker, who is exposed to similar conditions of heat and cold, we
+find that the figure for the glass worker is 295. This result agrees
+with the view, which is held by many doctors in St Helens, that the
+gases present in the air, such as sulphur dioxide, hydrochloric acid,
+nitrous fumes, and chlorine, are distinctly beneficial to phthisical
+cases; that phthisis is rare, and when present, that the progress of
+the disease is slow, also that it does not assume the virulent form
+which is found in other places.
+
+As the figures given for chemical workers do not show any other marked
+results, we may say that chemical manufacture is to be ranked among
+one of the most unhealthy of our industries, coming fairly high up in
+the list, although of course not ranking with those in which lead is
+present in large quantities.
+
+Furthermore, it is one of our industries in which it is not easy to
+improve the health of the worker.
+
+It is to be hoped that the most objectionable process of manufacture,
+the making of bleaching powder, will in time become a thing of the
+past, as the manufacturers who require this material for the bleaching
+of goods and of paper pulp will make their own bleach liquors by means
+of the electric current passed through the salt solution, and so avoid
+the necessity of producing the same on a large scale. This industrial
+revolution will take time. Meanwhile the manufacture of bleach remains
+a difficult problem for those who wish to see the occupation healthier.
+
+I have suggested that more might be done by increasing the number of
+inspectors under the Alkali Acts so as to protect the workmen from
+the injurious fumes. While the present small staff of inspectors do
+all they can to carry out the Act, they are not sufficient in number.
+It would be necessary to appoint several new inspectors, so as to
+arrange for constant surprise visits to the works, especially at night.
+Furthermore, in this and many other industries where the general
+conditions of life are unhealthy without the presence of any specific
+cause of poison, such as lead, the best remedy will be the reduction of
+the number of hours of work. If the men were working for eight instead
+of twelve hours a day, their health would be enormously improved. This
+has been clearly shown in the case of the works of Messrs Brünner Mond,
+where it was found that the conversion of the twelve to the eight
+hours’ day reduced the number of men who were attended by the doctor
+by nearly 50 per cent. The actual figures given are as follows:--In
+the year 1889, 10.12 per cent. were attended by the doctor; in the
+year 1893, under the new system, 5.1. Where an industry is successful
+and making large profits, as in the case of Messrs Brünner Mond’s
+works, such changes can be made; but where the industry is struggling
+against severe competition and vanishing profits, such an alteration
+would be disastrous. It is therefore not a matter which can be done
+with a stroke of the pen, but if some understanding could be come to
+of an international character, chemical industries might make a move
+in this direction. The number of works engaged in alkali manufacture
+in America, Germany, Belgium, France, and England is after all not so
+very large. At the same time the capital required to make a change
+in this direction is very large, so that it ought to be possible to
+come to some understanding, though it would be very difficult in the
+case of industries carried on in small workshops. The effect of the
+shorter hours would ultimately be the moral as well as the material
+improvement of the workmen. It is impossible that a man who is engaged
+in hard physical labour for twelve hours out of the twenty-four, and
+who leaves it too exhausted to do more than eat and sleep, can develop
+intellectually or morally to a very high level, and consequently he has
+small chance of resisting the temptations to drink. With shorter hours
+and more leisure might come an improvement, such as has been the case
+in the mining population.
+
+In conclusion, I may state that the rules for bichromate of potash
+works, published by the German Government, as indicating the kind of
+precautions to be taken in processes of chemical manufacture, are such
+as might well be applied to chemical processes throughout the country,
+with the exception of those special processes like the manufacture of
+bleach, where the conditions seem at present to make improvement almost
+hopeless. The subject, however, is so vast and complex, that I feel
+as if I had simply touched upon many of the problems connected with
+chemical manufacture and the health of the workpeople.
+
+ A. P. LAURIE.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XLI
+
+ EXPLOSIONS AND EXPLOSIVES
+
+
+ _Introductory_
+
+In the following pages I have made no attempt to scientifically
+discourse upon the composition and properties of explosive bodies, nor
+have I endeavoured, on the other hand, to write an elementary treatise
+on the subject; such matters have been fully attended to already by
+Berthelot, Guttmann, Eissler, and others, while much useful information
+is also obtainable in the _Dictionary of Explosives_ and the
+_Handbook of Service Explosives_. My object has rather been to
+offer to such of the educated public as already possess a general
+knowledge of the subject, a few remarks from a point of view from
+which it has never yet to my knowledge been approached except in Blue
+Books, while at the same time I have striven to avoid reiteration of
+information already published in our Annual and Special Reports.
+
+Moreover, I have endeavoured to exclude, so far as may be, all matter
+not entirely germane to the question at issue, viz., the special risks
+connected with the trade in explosives in the United Kingdom.
+
+Until the year 1845 “explosive” and “gunpowder” were to all intents and
+purposes synonymous terms, and even now as an explosive of universal
+application gunpowder stands unrivalled. In these days of specialism,
+however, it is being rapidly ousted from the field of battle, by
+cordite as a propellant, by lyddite as a burster for shells, and by
+gun-cotton as a destructive agent; from the field of sport, by the
+countless nitro-powders; from the quarry and railway tunnel, by the
+gelatine dynamites; and lastly, from the coal mine, by the so-called
+safety explosives. As a coal-getter pure and simple, irrespective of
+the question of danger from fire-damp and dust, it still, however,
+stands unequalled, and in view of the recent vast improvements in its
+manufacture--the result, no doubt, of legislative action--it would be
+exceedingly rash to state that its days are numbered.
+
+The great epoch-marking events in the history of explosives may be
+briefly stated as follows:--
+
+_First_, the discovery of the deflagrating properties of saltpetre
+in admixture with carbonaceous material, and its consequent utilisation
+in the form of Greek fire and such like destructive compounds, date
+unknown.
+
+_Second_, the first use of gunpowder as a propellant, in or about
+1320 A.D.
+
+_Third_, the invention of gun-cotton, in 1845.
+
+_Fourth_, the discovery by Alfred Nobel in 1875, that a variety
+of gun-cotton, or rather nitro-cotton, could be dissolved in
+nitro-glycerine to form the homogeneous jelly-like mass to which he
+gave the name of blasting-gelatine. To these may perhaps be added
+the discovery of the power of transmitting detonation possessed by
+fulminate of mercury.
+
+Although there are doubtless many other important discoveries connected
+with the evolution of our multitudinous modern explosives, yet, without
+belittling the genius of their inventors, they may all be regarded as
+mere episodes, so to speak--the adaptation of existing principles.
+Thus, nitro-glycerine and dynamite followed naturally in the wake of
+nitro-cellulose, just as the gelatine dynamites and more recently
+ballistite and cordite were merely modifications of blasting gelatine.
+Perhaps the most important discovery in addition to those above
+mentioned was Sir Frederick Abel’s process of pulping and cleaning
+gun-cotton, or rather the principle underlying the process, viz., that
+only by thorough cleansing can stability be assured to a nitro-compound.
+
+About lyddite there is little to say which has not already appeared in
+the daily papers, and of that little the greater part is confidential;
+but as regards its effect on the enemy, I have it on the authority of
+an artillery officer who was engaged in every action of the campaign
+which terminated in the relief of Ladysmith, that it was quite
+impossible to obtain reliable information. Even when a rout resulted
+from its use, it is doubtful whether this was not due as much to the
+steep angle of descent of the howitzer fire as to the explosive effect
+of the lyddite. The stories as to the wholesale havoc wrought at
+Omdurman, where entire ranks of horsemen are said to have been laid
+low by a single lyddite shell without a mark being found on them,
+must be accepted with caution. A shell filled with high explosive
+naturally bursts into very much smaller fragments than when filled
+with gunpowder, and the resulting wounds would in many cases no doubt
+be difficult to discern at a cursory examination.
+
+Of all branches of the explosives industry fireworks are perhaps the
+most difficult to control. Not only is it a common custom at North of
+England weddings to improvise amateur displays by filling iron pipes
+with gunpowder and applying a light, but the actual manufacture of
+squibs and rockets is regarded in most quarters as a praiseworthy and
+legitimate occupation, provided there is no question of sale. That this
+is entirely erroneous cannot be too strongly emphasised--the fine on
+conviction being no less than £100 a day. Moreover, since the amateur
+pyrotechnist invariably includes both chlorate of potash and sulphur
+in his coloured fire composition, a mixture entailing grave risk from
+spontaneous combustion, and one which is on this account prohibited by
+Order in Council, a further offence is involved.
+
+
+ I.
+
+ _Accidents in Manufacture and Use._
+
+There is no industry possessing greater possibilities for sudden
+death to its operatives than that connected with the manufacture,
+storage, and conveyance of explosives; and there is no industry of
+an admittedly dangerous nature demanding fewer victims. The reasons
+for this happy result are not far to seek, and may be summarised
+in two words--legislation and self-interest. The destruction of
+property caused by an explosion in a factory is a mere fraction of
+the actual loss; for days or even weeks the employés may not only
+refuse to return to work, but may make use of the accident as a lever
+to obtain a permanent rise in wages. Moreover, in gunpowder factories
+particularly, where every trace is swept away, the cause of the
+explosion is often impossible to determine, and the vague feeling of
+unrest to which this uncertainty gives rise is by no means conducive to
+efficient work. Thus, even the apathetic manufacturer is constrained
+by motives of self-interest to enforce certain precautionary measures
+(which, however, he is quite prepared to relax under the strain of
+competition), while the conscientious trader who really has the
+safety of his workpeople at heart is only too easily persuaded by the
+additional incentive of personal profit to institute and maintain
+a very high standard of discipline throughout his factory. It is,
+however, extremely difficult for either of these individuals to
+differentiate between what may be called essentials and refinements,
+and the unscrupulous trader, in his anxiety to sail as near the wind
+as possible, may neglect some obvious precaution, whereas his less
+reckless rival may be seriously handicapped by a _too_ close
+attention to details. Here, then, is where legislation steps in,
+and by enforcing equal restrictions on all, prevents undue economy
+at the expense of safety--and, moreover, the public are properly
+protected. With the courteous assistance of the trade, I am able to
+give some figures in support of this. The total quantity of explosives
+manufactured per annum in the United Kingdom, exclusive of that which
+is produced in Government factories, is approximately as follows[143]:--
+
+ Classes I. to IV. (_i.e._ gunpowder, other nitrate mixtures,
+ nitro-compounds, and chlorate mixtures), 32,115 tons.
+
+ Class V. Fulminate of mercury being the only explosive of
+ this class made in any quantity, and the manufacture being
+ practically in the hands of two firms, one of which is domiciled
+ in the Channel Islands, I must not for obvious reasons disclose
+ the total output.
+
+ Class VI. (Ammunition). Here again it is impossible to specify
+ with any degree of accuracy the number of the various natures
+ of explosive coming under this head. Fifty million detonators,
+ electric detonators and fuses, and an equal number of yards of
+ safety fuse will not be very wide of the mark, while about 500
+ million cartridges for small arms are turned out by licensed
+ factories during the year.
+
+ Class VII. (Fireworks). About 1788 tons.
+
+In the actual operations of manufacture 4828 persons are employed, the
+total number working within the licensed areas, and therefore more or
+less exposed to the effects of an explosion, being 11,098. During the
+year 1899, 54 accidents occurred in the manufacture of explosives,
+causing the death of 3 persons and injuries to 24, the average for the
+last ten years being 4.4 and 20.4 respectively. Of the 54 accidents no
+less than 32 were unattended with loss of life or personal injury--a
+fact that would be somewhat remarkable were it not that in many
+operations in which the application of force is required, or where the
+explosive is of an extra sensitive nature, accidents are unavoidable
+and provided for accordingly. “Prevention,” in fact, being impossible,
+a “cure” is applied. Among these specially dangerous processes may be
+instanced the “milling” or “incorporation” of gunpowder, the “pressing”
+of detonators, and the mixing of cap composition, during each of which
+the operator is either directly or indirectly specially protected.
+
+In the following table I have endeavoured, by collecting the results
+of the last ten years, to show the relative risk attached to the
+manufacture of various classes of explosives. The classification
+is by no means in accordance with the Order in Council classifying
+explosives, but is better suited to the particular purpose in view.
+
+
+ _TABLE A._
+
+ Showing the Number of Accidents causing Personal Injury, and the
+ Number of Killed and Injured in the Manufacture of the Various
+ Natures of Explosive during the decade 1890–99, and the Number
+ of Persons now Employed.
+
++--------------------------+---------------------------+------------------------------------+
+| | Accidents causing Loss of | Number of Persons Employed in the |
+| | Life or Personal Injury. | Manufacture of the various natures.|
+| +----------+-------+--------+----------+--------+----------------+
+| Nature of Explosive in | No. of | | In the | In | Per 1000 |
+| course of Manufacture. |Accidents.| No. of Persons | Danger |Licensed| per annum. |
+| | +-------+--------+Buildings.| Area. +-------+--------+
+| | |Killed.|Injured.| | |Killed.|Injured.|
++--------------------------+----------+-------+--------+----------+--------+-------+--------+
+|1. Gunpowder | 18 | 10 | 23 | 964 | 1,906 | .52 | 1.2 |
+|2. Nitro-glycerine and | | | | | | | |
+| Cellulose Explosives | 47 | 17 | 58 | 2034 | 4,021 | .42 | 1.4 |
+|3. Ammunition, exclusive | | | | | | | |
+| of Detonators | 39 | 5 | 43 } | | | | |
+|4. Fulminate Compositions,| | | } | 1155 | 4,267 | .23 | 2.2 |
+| in or out of | | | } | | | | |
+| Detonators and Caps | 48 | 5 | 54 } | | | | |
+|5. Fireworks | 23 | 7 | 26 | 675 | 904 | .77 | 2.9 |
++--------------------------+----------+-------+--------+----------+--------+-------+--------+
+| Totals | 175 | 44 | 204 | 4828 | 11,098 | .39 | 1.8 |
++--------------------------+----------+-------+--------+----------+--------+-------+--------+
+
+Under heading No. 2 are included the various smokeless powders for
+sporting purposes, but as a matter of fact no accident causing personal
+injury has occurred in their manufacture during the last ten years,
+and the same may be said of safety fuse, which comes under heading
+No. 3. The explosives of the ammonium-nitrate group also have a
+stainless record up to the present, and they no doubt possess a very
+high degree of safety in manufacture; but those of them which contain
+dinitrobenzol present another kind of risk quite independent of their
+explosive properties. This subject is, however, fully dealt with
+elsewhere by Dr Prosser White, and will not be enlarged on here. As
+regards their apparent safety in manufacture, too much stress must not
+be laid on their immunity from accident in the past. They can most of
+them be exploded by combined friction and percussion, and though as
+a rule only the part affected will explode, this applies also in the
+case of gun-cotton and many other admittedly sensitive compounds, and
+it would be rash to predict the result under circumstances specially
+favourable to the transmission of detonation.
+
+To the accidents in actual manufacture, those occurring during the
+storage and distribution of the finished product must also be added,
+since they may be said to have taken place under conditions to which
+the controlling provisions of the Act are intended to apply. Thus 69
+accidents, causing 32 deaths and injuries to 81 persons, occurred under
+these headings during the decade 1890–1899, making a grand total of 76
+killed and 285 injured in the period named, or an average of 7.6 killed
+and 28.5 injured per annum in that section of the industry which is
+presumably controlled by experts supplemented by Government inspection.
+Briefly, this result has been attained by (_a_) subdivision of risks,
+_i.e._, the number of persons allowed in any one “danger” building is
+strictly limited, and communication of explosion between buildings is
+prevented by the erection of mounds of earth or masonry, and by making
+the quantity of explosive in any building directly dependent on its
+distance from others; (_b_) scrupulous attention to cleanliness; (_c_)
+prevention of the introduction of matches and other dangerous articles,
+by providing suitable clothing without pockets, and by a thorough
+system of searching all those employed in danger buildings; and (_d_)
+the provision of an adequate number of escape doors opening outwards,
+and provided with safety latches so as to yield easily to a push from
+the inside. Many manufacturers of their own initiative go far further
+in these directions than is enjoined by statute, with the result that
+in discipline, efficiency, and immunity from accident, their factories
+compare most favourably with the Government establishments.
+
+On turning to the question of risk in the _use_ of explosives, the
+prospect is not so pleasing; the contempt bred of familiarity is
+something appalling. It is not too much to say that 99 out of every
+100 accidents would have been avoided by the exercise of reasonable
+care and common sense. Scraping out detonators with pins, thawing
+dynamite over the fire in tin dishes, driving gunpowder and dynamite
+with metal rods into roughly drilled holes, and boring out misfires,
+are only a few of the commonest examples of reckless folly. In mines
+alone there were no less than 29 persons killed and 195 injured by
+explosives during the year 1899, and this be it remembered in the
+handling and use of the finished article, each nature of which is
+thoroughly tested for purity and absence of extreme sensitiveness
+before being authorised by the Home Office, whereas in the course of
+manufacture many operations have to be undertaken which are known
+to be dangerous, even with the exercise of the greatest care. Quite
+recently a fatal accident was reported as follows:--“A. B. was charging
+a bore-hole in rock with pellet gunpowder. Finding a difficulty in
+inserting the charge, he was holding the tamping rod on the powder
+while his mate drove it home with a sledge-hammer, when, _for no reason
+whatever_, the charge exploded.” The italics are my own.
+
+
+ _TABLE B._
+
+ Showing the Number of Accidents in the handling and use of
+ the various Explosives during the decade 1890–99.
+
+ +----------------------------+----------+----------------+
+ | | | No. of Persons |
+ | Nature of Explosive. | No. of +-------+--------+
+ | |Accidents.|Killed.|Injured.|
+ +----------------------------+----------+-------+--------+
+ |1. Gunpowder[144] | 244 | 94 | 294 |
+ |2. Nitro-glycerine Compounds| 376 | 135 | 440 |
+ |3. Ammonium Nitrates | 44 | 12 | 41 |
+ |4. Detonators | 143 | 3 | 193 |
+ |5. Fireworks | 41 | 19 | 96 |
+ +----------------------------+----------+-------+--------+
+ | Total | 848 | 263 | 1064 |
+ +----------------------------+----------+-------+--------+
+ |Total in Manufacture during | | | |
+ | same period | 175[145]| 44 | 204 |
+ +----------------------------+----------+-------+--------+
+
+In Table B, I have summarised the accidents which have occurred during
+the ten years 1890–99, in order to give some idea of the relative risk
+attached to the handling of the various explosives. It is, however,
+somewhat misleading in view of the impracticability of forming even a
+rough estimate of the quantity of each description used, and also of
+the fact that ordinary mining accidents with gunpowder are not required
+to be reported.
+
+The accidents with ammunition other than detonators are so
+insignificant in number and effect that I have omitted them from
+the above table, but, on the other hand, the ammonium-nitrates now
+contribute their quota of casualties. Whatever margin of safety they
+may possess alone, it is nullified the moment the detonator is fitted,
+and without this deadly little adjunct they are useless. The ideal
+mining explosive is no doubt one which, while possessing the slow
+action and consequent “coal-getting” properties of gunpowder, together
+with its capacity for exploding without the use of a detonator, shall
+at the same time be as safe to manufacture, store, convey, and use in
+a “fiery” or dusty mine, as an ammonium-nitrate explosive. Moreover,
+it should have the plasticity of gelignite with similar immunity from
+injury by water, should require a bore-hole of but small diameter, and
+lastly, should produce on combustion nothing more harmful than CO_{2}
+and water. If to these advantages cheapness be added, and the inventor
+has sufficient capital to properly exploit its capabilities, such an
+explosive may possibly have a future before it--but the British miner
+is very conservative, and has a deep-rooted affection for gunpowder.
+
+I have already referred to the system by which the quantity of
+explosive allowed in a licensed building is automatically regulated
+by the distance that can be maintained between the building and the
+nearest highway, dwelling-house, railway, etc., and from the social
+aspect the application of this principle is of more importance in the
+case of an isolated magazine or store (of which there are several
+thousand in the United Kingdom) than when only the various buildings
+of an individual factory are involved. Fortunately, owing to the care
+with which explosives of questionable stability are excluded from
+the authorised list, an explosion in a magazine or store is of the
+rarest occurrence in this country (and as regards foreign explosions
+figures are difficult to obtain), but in the following table I have
+been at some pains to set forth the results, from a destructive point
+of view, of a number of accidents with gunpowder and high explosives,
+even though they may not have occurred in magazines or stores, so
+as to enable the public to estimate for themselves the measure of
+risk offered by the unavoidable establishment in their midst of
+so great a quantity of “bottled energy.” I say unavoidable, since
+modern engineering feats would be practically impossible without
+high explosives, and admitting the necessity for their existence, it
+is assuredly safer to keep them stored in specially constructed and
+protected buildings, than to have them continually travelling about
+the country. In Table C “destructive effect” may be taken to mean
+structural damage to ordinary dwelling-houses due to the explosion
+itself, but not to projected débris. Nor does it include broken
+windows; to maintain a radius sufficient to prevent this would be
+practically impossible; at Erith, for instance, in 1864, windows were
+broken up to ten miles. In many cases much protection was no doubt
+afforded by mounds of earth and clumps of trees specially erected and
+planted for the purpose, interfering somewhat with the accuracy of
+the figures, but the margin of safety is in general so ample that no
+apprehension need be felt on this score.
+
+As showing how circumstances alter cases, a comparison of the results
+of the Regent’s Park explosion on 2nd October 1874, with that of
+Craig, near Montrose, on 5th March 1880, is somewhat striking. In
+the former case five tons of gunpowder exploded in the middle of
+London, without injuring a soul outside the barge on which the
+explosive was being conveyed; whereas at Craig, an ounce or two of
+nitro-glycerine--possibly less than an ounce--killed no less than five
+persons, and severely injured another.
+
+To summarise, the explosives industry can scarcely be said to affect
+the health of the operatives, as this word is generally understood,
+although there is no doubt an ever-present risk of sudden mutilation or
+death. I have endeavoured to show, however, that with the precautions
+now universally adopted in this country, this risk is reduced to
+a minimum, and that in all other respects the high standard of
+cleanliness and smartness necessarily associated with the manufacture
+introduces a condition of affairs which cannot be otherwise than
+beneficial to those engaged.
+
+Finally, the fact cannot be too strongly emphasised, that in dealing
+with explosives a policy of pin-pricks is strongly to be deprecated,
+unless the perpetrator is anxious to be translated to a higher sphere.
+In the words of the late Colonel Cundill, “the function of an explosive
+is to explode.”
+
+
+ _TABLE C._
+
+Giving some particulars in connection with the Chief Explosions which
+have occurred in this country.
+
+ KEY TO COLUMN HEADINGS:
+ A: Date of Accident.
+ B: Place.
+ C: Nature of Explosive involved.
+ D: Quantity of Explosive involved.
+ E: No. of Killed.
+ F: No. of Injured.
+ G: Radius of destructive effect in yards.
+ H: Distance in yards from nearest inhabited house, now rendered
+ obligatory for this quantity.
+ I: Cause so far as ascertained, and Remarks.
+
+ +--------+----------------+----------+------+----+-------+---------+----+-------------+
+ | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I |
+ +--------+----------------+----------+------+----+-------+---------+----+-------------+
+ |1/10/64 |Erith |Gunpowder | 51 | A large | 3080 |3500|Unknown. |
+ | | | | tons | number | | | |
+ |11/8/71 |Stowmarket, |Gun-cotton| 12½ | 24 | over | 466 |1030|Malicious |
+ | | Suffolk | | tons | | 50 | | | introduction|
+ | | | | | | | | | of acid |
+ | | | | | | | | | into pure |
+ | | | | | | | | | gun-cotton. |
+ |2/10/74 |Barge on Canal |Gunpowder |5 tons| 3 | 1 | 400 | 525|Ignition by |
+ | | in Regent’s | | | | | | | the cabin |
+ | | Park, London | | | | | | | fire of |
+ | | | | | | | | | benzoline |
+ | | | | | | | | | vapour, |
+ | | | | | | | | | which |
+ | | | | | | | | | communicated|
+ | | | | | | | | | to the |
+ | | | | | | | | | gunpowder. |
+ |21/4/76 |Cymmer, |Dynamite | 160 | 13 | 2 | 37 | 50|Probably due |
+ | | Glamorgan (in a| | lbs. | | | | | to candle |
+ | | tunnel) | | | | | | | falling on |
+ | | | | | | | | | to the |
+ | | | | | | | | | explosive. |
+ |12/5/76 |Herodsfoot, |Gunpowder | 4½ | 3 | | 150 | 470|Workman |
+ | | Liskeard | | tons | | | | | struck a |
+ | | | | | | | | | spark with |
+ | | | | | | | | | wooden |
+ | | | | | | | | | mallet while|
+ | | | | | | | | | “breaking” |
+ | | | | | | | | | press cake. |
+ |30/6/77 |Floating |Detonators| 3300 | 3 | |No houses| 250|Probably due |
+ | | magazine | | lbs. | | | near | | to the fall |
+ | | off Gravesend | | | | | | | of a case |
+ | | | | | | | | | containing |
+ | | | | | | | | | detonators. |
+ | 6/8/78 |Victoria |Gunpowder |1 ton | | 2 | do. | 150|Lightning. |
+ | | Colliery, | | | | | | | The nearest |
+ | | Bruntscliffe, | | | | | | | house at |
+ | | Yorkshire | | | | | | | 220 yards |
+ | | | | | | | | | was quite |
+ | | | | | | | | | uninjured. |
+ |29/11/78|Elterwater, |Gunpowder | 500 | 3 | 1 | 20 | 65|Unknown. |
+ | | Westmoreland | | lbs. | | | | | |
+ |21/2/79 |Hall’s |Gunpowder | 3½ | 1 | 8 | 300 | 360|Probably due |
+ | | Factory, | | tons | | | | | to |
+ | | Faversham | | | | | | | accidental |
+ | | | | | | | | | breaking of |
+ | | | | | | | | | shaft in |
+ | | | | | | | | | “glazing” |
+ | | | | | | | | | house. |
+ | 5/3/80 |Craig, |Nitro- |about | 5 | 1 | | |In a kettle |
+ | | Montrose | glycerine|1 oz. | | | | | placed on |
+ | | | | | | | | | the fire. |
+ |19/3/81 |Blackbeck, |Gunpowder | 1800 | 3 | 3 | 45 | 148|Breaking down|
+ | | Haverthwaite | | lbs. | | | | | “mill cake.”|
+ |21/7/81 |Gatebeck, near |Gunpowder | 1100 | 2 | |Under 50 | 100|Unknown, but |
+ | | Kendal | | lbs. | | | | | while |
+ | | | | | | | | | “pressing.” |
+ |29/9/83 |Furness, |Gunpowder | 2½ | 1 | 3 | 240 | 255|Probably |
+ | | Inveraray | | tons | | | | | spark from |
+ | | | | | | | | | adjacent |
+ | | | | | | | | | chimney. |
+ |17/11/83|Pembrey, near |Dynamite | 300 | 7 | 1 | Only a | 65|Blow on |
+ | | Llanelly | | lbs. | | |few yards| | frozen |
+ | | | | | | | | | dynamite. |
+ |26/7/84 |Blackbeck, |Gunpowder | 1400 | 4 | | 50 | 125|Lightning. |
+ | | Haverthwaite | | lbs. | | | | | |
+ | 3/5/87 |Hounslow |Gunpowder | 7600 | 1 | | 60 | 390|Probably |
+ | | | | lbs. | | | | | fracture of |
+ | | | | (but | | | | | machinery in|
+ | | | | not | | | | | glazing |
+ | | | |all at| | | | | house, or |
+ | | | | once)| | | | | malicious. |
+ |22/6/87 |Cornbrook, |Picric | (?) | 1 |Several| 180 | (?)|Formation of |
+ | | Manchester | acid | | | | | | picrate of |
+ | | | | | | | | | lead during |
+ | | | | | | | | | a fire. |
+ |7/11/87 |Kennall Vale, |Gunpowder | 1050 | 2 | | 30 | 100|Spark in |
+ | | near Redruth | | lbs. | | | | | “pressing.” |
+ |22/1/90 |Roslin, near |Gunpowder |2 tons| 6 | 1 | 120 | 200|Probably |
+ | | Edinburgh | | | | | | | matches in |
+ | | | | | | | | | mixing |
+ | | | | | | | | | house. |
+ |22/10/90|Roslin, near |Gunpowder | 2500 | 2 | | 150 | 160|Repairing |
+ | | Edinburgh | | lbs. | | | | | glazing |
+ | | | | | | | | | reel. |
+ |11/1/92 |Floating |Fireworks | 10 | | |No houses| 525|Friction |
+ | | magazine, | | tons | | | near | | light. |
+ | | Gravesend | | | | | | | |
+ | 3/9/92 |Barque |Gunpowder | 20 | | | Nearest |1525|Fire on |
+ | | “Auchmountain,”| | tons | | |house at | | board, not |
+ | | off Greenock | | | | | 1¼ | | known how |
+ | | | | | | | miles | | originated. |
+ | | | | | | |uninjured| | |
+ |24/2/97 |Ardeer, |Nitro- |about | 6 | 8 | 200 | 200|Unknown. |
+ | | Stevenston, | glycerine|1 ton | | | | | Damage was |
+ | | N.B. | | | | | | | to _wooden_ |
+ | | | | | | | | | buildings |
+ | | | | | | | | | only. |
+ |19/1/98 |Blackbeck, |Gunpowder | 1¾ |None| None | 60 | 187|Fall of roof.|
+ | | Haverthwaite | | tons | | | | | Damage small|
+ | | | | | | | | | on account |
+ | | | | | | | | | of good |
+ | | | | | | | | | position. |
+ |26/5/00 |Blackbeck, |Gunpowder | 1800 | 2 | |Building | 148|Probably |
+ | | Haverthwaite | | lbs. | | | at | | failure of |
+ | | | | | | |100 yards| | one of the |
+ | | | | | | |uninjured| | columns of |
+ | | | | | | | | | press. |
+ |30/5/00 |Huddersfield |Picric | (?) |None| None | 140 | 400|Probably due |
+ | | | acid | 6800 | | | | | to formation|
+ | | | | | | | | | of picrate |
+ | | | | | | | | | of lime |
+ | | | | | | | | | during a |
+ | | | | | | | | | fire. |
+ +--------+----------------+----------+------+----+-------+---------+----+-------------+
+
+
+ II.
+
+ _Products of Combustion: Fumes._
+
+All explosives in practical use contain carbon. If there be also
+present a sufficiency or an excess of oxygen this carbon is generally
+burnt on explosion to carbonic anhydride, CO_{2}. This is a poisonous
+gas. If, on the other hand, there is a deficiency of oxygen the carbon
+is only partially burnt and carbon monoxide (CO) is formed. This is a
+vastly more poisonous gas. But in any event the products of combustion
+are distinctly harmful, and it is misleading and mischievous to
+assert of any explosive that it gives off “no noxious fumes.” Some
+are, however, as already stated, worse than others in this respect.
+Gunpowder, gun-cotton, and lyddite (picric acid) are all deficient
+in oxygen. The two latter, being chemical compounds, are of constant
+composition, viz.:--
+
+ C_{12}H_{14}O_{4}(O,}NO_{2})_{6} and C_{6}H_{2}(NO_{2})_{3}OH
+
+respectively, and their lack of oxygen can be seen by inspection
+of their formulæ; but the ingredients of gunpowder, being merely
+mechanically mixed, may be varied at will so as to produce on
+combustion the minimum of CO compatible with other requirements.
+In blasting, for instance, where there is no outlet for the gases
+formed except by disruption of the rock or coal, the production of
+a large volume of gas at high temperature is in theory all that
+is necessary--the time taken to attain maximum pressure is of
+comparatively little importance. When there is a deficiency of oxygen
+a proportion of the carbon is converted into CO, giving for equal
+weights of oxygen double as much gas as is produced in the formation of
+CO_{2}, and thus, although the heat evolved in conversion to CO_{2} is
+more than half as much again as in conversion to CO, yet the maximum
+pressure is theoretically about the same. Calculations of maximum
+pressures are, however, somewhat unreliable, owing not only to the
+fact that at the high temperature of explosion the complex potassium
+salts found in the cooled residue undoubtedly undergo dissociation, but
+also to the uncertainty which exists as to whether gases, especially
+compound gases, obey, at very high temperature and pressure, the usual
+law as to the relation of pressure to volume. Practical experience
+would certainly seem to contradict the theory of equality in blasting
+efficiency between high and low grade powder, since far better results
+are undoubtedly obtained with the former. For use in fiery or dusty
+coal mines or in confined spaces there is, of course, no comparison
+between them. According to Noble and Abel the percentages of CO evolved
+by Curtis’s and Harvey’s best sporting powder, containing 75 per
+cent. of saltpetre, and by ordinary blasting powder, containing but
+62 per cent. of this ingredient, are as 2.47 to 15.22; the hydrogen
+sulphide, another poisonous gas, being also increased from .83 per
+cent. in the case of the former to 3.89 per cent. in the latter. On
+the occasion of the peculiar accident at Crarae Quarry, Lochfyne, in
+September 1886, when no less than 40 persons were rendered insensible
+(7 of whom succumbed) by the fumes from a monster blast, the powder
+used contained 74 per cent. of saltpetre, and only yielded 3.6 per
+cent. of CO on combustion. Since 150 persons were present, it is more
+than probable that, had gunpowder of inferior quality been used, the
+mortality would have been very much greater. Gun-cotton is an even
+worse offender in this respect, yielding on detonation, according to
+different authorities and according to the pressure under which it
+is exploded, from 28 to 45 per cent. of CO. For mining purposes this
+percentage has been much reduced by the admixture of a due proportion
+of barium nitrate to supply the necessary oxygen for theoretically
+complete conversion of the carbon to CO_{2}, and although this happy
+consummation has not been fully attained, yet this explosive, under
+the name of tonite or cotton powder, has been used in mines with
+good results, the products of combustion, according to Sir F. Abel,
+furnishing little or no carbonic oxide. Prior to the introduction of
+this modification, several fatal accidents had already occurred in the
+use of gun-cotton by itself. For instance, no less than 12 persons were
+injured, one fatally, in April 1878, by the fumes from a gun-cotton
+blast during the construction of a mine tunnel at Halkyn, Flintshire.
+
+Lyddite, on the other hand, of whose fumes we have been hearing a
+good deal of late, yields not only a large proportion of CO, but also
+a notable percentage of free carbon, as is evidenced by the black
+smoke arising on detonation. In small quantities, however, complete
+detonation is somewhat difficult to achieve, a yellow deposit being
+the result. This deposit, mingling with the black smoke tinged with
+the blue-grey of the pulverised rock, may possibly have given rise to
+the “green fumes” which were, according to eye-witnesses, a marked
+feature at Paardeberg and elsewhere. The proportion of CO formed is
+doubtless greatly in excess of that evolved by gunpowder--especially
+of the good quality alone used by the War Department--but it is
+difficult to believe that even in the most favourable circumstances
+the atmosphere could be rendered unfit to breathe by the bursting of
+lyddite shells. If this possibility existed half Huddersfield must
+have been asphyxiated by the recent explosion of picric acid at the
+works of Messrs Read, Holliday, & Sons. Owing to its exceedingly bitter
+taste, the sifting of the dry acid gives rise in some cases to sore
+throat and distressing cough, necessitating the use of a respirator
+by those employed in this operation, but that these symptoms are mere
+inconveniences not affecting in any way the general health of the
+operator is shown by the fact that the workers complain that they
+cannot keep themselves on account of the tonic and appetising effect of
+the acid! It is also, in solution, an excellent cure for burns.
+
+Into the question of the physiological effect of CO poisoning I do not
+propose to enter, but would refer the reader to the reports and papers
+on the subject by Dr Haldane, whose classical investigations in this
+connection are unrivalled; but it is of importance to note that all
+explosives, except nitro-glycerine (_i.e._ Kieselguhr dynamite),
+and certain of the ammonium nitrates, produce on explosion a proportion
+of this deadly gas. Nitro-glycerine, or glyceryl tri-nitrate, as it
+might more properly be called, contains, as shown by its formula,
+C_{3}H_{5}(O,NO_{2})_{3}, more oxygen than is required for complete
+combustion. The manner in which it decomposes on detonation may be
+expressed according to the majority of authorities by the equation:--
+
+ 2C_{3}H_{5}(O,NO_{2})_{3} = 6CO_{2} + 5H_{2}O + 6N + O
+
+giving the following percentages--
+
+ Carbonic acid 58.15
+ Steam 19.82
+ Nitrogen 18.50
+ Oxygen 3.52
+ -----
+ 99.99
+ =====
+
+the products thus contain nothing more deleterious than carbonic acid
+gas. Even if, as is possible, the excess of oxygen combines with
+nitrogen to form nitrous oxide, the proportion of NO formed can only
+amount to 6.60 per cent., a quantity which, under no conceivable
+circumstances, could produce fatal effects.
+
+If; however, nitro-glycerine be decomposed by simple combustion, not
+detonation, the nitrogen and oxygen in the NO_{2} molecules do not
+appear to be dissevered, the result being that not only are highly
+poisonous nitrous fumes given off, but the proportion of available
+oxygen is also so much diminished that a considerable quantity of
+CO is formed. Many instances are recorded of fatalities due to the
+inhalation of these nitrous fumes, and there is also at least one case
+(in September 1892) when the symptoms pointed to CO, or rather to a
+combination of CO and CO_{2} as the cause of death, the two victims
+being rendered unconscious on the spot, and dying before help could
+arrive. In cases where death has resulted from breathing nitrous
+fumes only, the end has generally been deferred for some considerable
+time, amounting in one instance to no less than 40 hours after the
+inhalation. The symptoms are identical with those observed in cases of
+poisoning from nitric acid vapour, viz., very little inconvenience is
+felt at the time,--in fact the person affected has generally partaken
+of food, and in one recorded case, enjoyed a smoke, before noticing
+anything wrong,--subsequently difficulty in breathing, accompanied by
+violent coughing, is then experienced, which increases until death. An
+accident from these fumes, which occurred in September 1879, during the
+construction of the Severn Tunnel, by which two men lost their lives,
+has been very fully reported on by Col. Ford, late Chief Inspector
+of Explosives, in Special Report No. XXVI., dated 30th October 1879,
+and he there quotes several other interesting cases brought to his
+notice by Dr Dupré. Moreover, since the issue of that report, several
+instances have occurred where dynamite has been accidentally ignited in
+a mine gallery, and has caused fatal injuries, not by explosion, but by
+the fumes given off.
+
+The notorious “nitro-glycerine headache” must not be forgotten.
+This is due to dilation of the capillary blood-vessels, or rather
+of the arteries, by which means the circulation is largely and
+suddenly increased. This effect is achieved either by inhalation of
+nitro-glycerine vapour, or by absorption through the skin, so that it
+results from handling the manufactured compound, as well as from being
+present in a building in which the hot explosive is deposited. No one
+can enter a cordite drying room or “stove” without experiencing a
+peculiar sensation at the heart and at the back of the head, which, in
+the absence of fresh air, soon develops into a headache which reduces
+to insignificance all the other ills of life. Some suffer more than
+others, but in no case, so far as I can gather, has any permanent harm
+resulted from this cause, and on most people the fumes appear to lose
+their effect after a few days. With certain individuals, on the other
+hand, it is a matter of weeks before they become inured, and during
+that period they are never free from sickness and headache; moreover, a
+very few days’ absence from contact with the explosive causes a return
+of the original susceptibility. The best remedies are strong coffee,
+and a linseed poultice applied to the back of the neck. Like most
+poisons, nitro-glycerine is used in medicine, and has undoubtedly been
+the means of prolonging many lives in cases of angina pectoris. Its
+freezing point is high, viz., about 40° F., and once frozen it cannot
+be thawed below 50° F. Thus, nitro-glycerine compounds are frequently
+found frozen hard in June; in fact, for a great part of the year they
+have to be thawed before use, and this process, unless carefully
+carried out in proper warming-pans, constitutes a very considerable
+danger. The lesson is gradually being learnt that dynamite will explode
+at temperatures below that required to ignite it, owing to the heat
+produced by the chemical action set up by the decomposition, which
+commences long before the point of ignition is reached. Three accidents
+in thawing occurred during the year 1899, and between the years 1872
+and 1898 no less than sixty-eight accidents due to this cause took
+place, involving the death of 68 persons and injuries of a more or less
+serious nature to 97 others.
+
+Inasmuch as nitro-cotton contains too little oxygen for complete
+combustion, and nitro-glycerine contains more than is necessary, it
+may well be imagined that a very powerful explosive would result from
+an admixture of the two in proper proportions. This was first effected
+by Alfred Nobel in 1875, and the invention of blasting gelatine, as
+the resulting compound was named by him, may be said to mark an epoch
+in the history of explosives. Provided the nitro-cotton be in the
+form of the penta-nitrate only, 100 parts of nitro-glycerine would
+theoretically be required to satisfy 10 parts of nitro-cellulose, but
+in actual practice it is impossible to ensure the absence of lower
+nitrates, and as the degree of nitration of the cellulose decreases
+the necessary proportion of nitro-glycerine increases. If, however,
+the percentage of nitro-cotton is reduced too low, it is impossible
+to comply with the Home Office conditions as to exudation. Thus, in
+this country, where the usual proportion is 9 of nitro-cotton to 91 of
+nitro-glycerine, a certain quantity of CO is invariably produced by
+the explosion of even the best blasting gelatine; and cordite, which
+contains 37 per cent. of cellulose hexa-nitrate to 58 per cent. of
+nitro-glycerine, the balance consisting of vaseline, produces no less
+than 32 per cent. of CO. The gelatine dynamites, a most popular class
+of blasting explosive, and the majority of smokeless powders, may be
+said to be based on blasting gelatine.
+
+As regards those ammonium-nitrate explosives, of which dinitrobenzol
+forms the combustible ingredient, several fatalities have occurred
+in their manufacture, generally from neglecting to make use of the
+respirators and gloves supplied to prevent introduction of the poison
+into the system. In one recorded case, however, viz., on 6th June 1889,
+at the Roburite Company’s Works, a workman was engaged in cleaning
+out an air flue through which the fumes from three mixing pans were
+discharged, and owing to the admittedly ultra-dangerous nature of
+the work, wore a handkerchief over his respirator, and was entirely
+clothed in indiarubber, but in spite of these precautions was fatally
+injured by the fumes. According to the manufacturers, the injury to the
+health of the workpeople in the ordinary process of manufacture is more
+apparent than real, but the wish may possibly be father to the thought,
+and the industry has not been in existence long enough to provide
+reliable statistics.
+
+
+ III.
+
+ _Explosives in Coal Mines._
+
+Reference has already been made to the dangers attending the use of
+certain explosives in fiery and dusty coal-pits. In view of the vast
+quantity used in coal-getting, and of the somewhat complex nature of
+the problem presented, also having regard to the wholesale destruction
+of life, and consequent widespread misery entailed by a pit explosion,
+originating perhaps in quite an insignificant ignition of fire-damp
+or even of coal-dust, the question as to what does or does not
+constitute a “safety” explosive has been discussed in all its bearings
+in every civilised country. The results obtained are, however, hardly
+satisfactory--no two experts, or rather groups of experts, appear to
+agree. The systems by which increased safety is sought to be obtained
+may be dubbed for general purposes the French, German, and British.
+It would be quite impossible in the space at my disposal to trace the
+gradual development in each country of the researches, theoretical
+and experimental, which have in each case culminated in legislative
+action. Other countries have, so far as I can gather, adopted one or
+other of the above systems, or modifications of them, but, so far as
+general principles are concerned, the above classification may be
+accepted as correct. Thus, in France, the criterion of safety is the
+_calculated_ temperature of explosion, which must in no case
+exceed 1500° C.; in Germany, increasing quantities of the explosive
+under examination are fired unstemmed in a regulated mixture of
+pit-gas, coal-dust, and air, and no charge may be fired in practice
+exceeding the maximum weight shown to be safe under the above
+conditions; lastly, in this country, an arbitrary but semi-practical
+test has been established, and in the prescribed mines no explosive may
+be used, until it has satisfied this test. Having been connected with
+the Woolwich Testing Station since its inception, any comparison by me
+of the merits or demerits of the three systems would be worthless, but
+I venture to hope that it will be conceded that the _principle_
+underlying our own method is sound, however defective the details may
+be considered by rival investigators. The truth of the matter is,
+that the whole question is most involved, safety depending not on one
+condition but on many. The temperature, the time, and the products,
+gaseous and solid, of the explosion, the weight of the charge, the
+depth and diameter of the bore-hole, the quantity and quality of the
+stemming, the position of the bore-hole with reference to surfaces or
+obstacles on which the hot gases may impinge, the composition of the
+atmosphere of the mine, the meteorological conditions, the structure
+of the rock or coal in which the shot is fired, and last but not
+least, the means of firing--all have their say in the matter; and it
+is ridiculous to attribute to the inherent qualities of an explosive
+a calamity really due to the negligent or reckless misuse of it. An
+analysis of the official reports on mine explosions caused, or rather
+probably caused, by shot firing during the last twenty years, is
+somewhat instructive in this connection, and may be deemed worthy of
+perusal, with this preface, however, that the information has been
+obtained from the published reports only, and with no facilities for
+reading between the lines (see pp. 617–618).
+
+The natural inference to be drawn is, that if a “permitted” explosive
+alone is used, and the charge properly stemmed with suitable material,
+and if, moreover, a very moderate quantum of judgment and common sense
+is used in selecting the position of the bore-hole and the weight of
+explosive necessary to do the work, the risk of an accident under this
+head is practically eliminated.[146]
+
+
+ _TABLE D._
+
+ A List of Explosions of Gas and Dust in Coal Mines caused
+ by Shot-firing, on which Reports have been published, with
+ Explanatory Extracts from these Reports.
+
+ +--------+------------+----------+----------------------------------------+
+ | Date. | Place. |Nature of | Remarks and Extracts. |
+ | | |Explosive.| |
+ +--------+------------+----------+----------------------------------------+
+ | 21/1/80|Fair Lady | Blasting |62 killed. Caused by a blown-out shot |
+ | | Pit, | gunpowder| in a particularly fiery and dusty mine|
+ | | Leycett, | | in which, on the initiative of the |
+ | | Staffs. | | owners themselves, steps had already |
+ | | | | been taken to substitute “wedging” |
+ | | | | for “blasting.” |
+ | | | | |
+ | 8/9/80 |Seaham | (?) |160 killed. Cause of explosion doubtful,|
+ | | Colliery, | Blasting | but if due to a shot, there is |
+ | | Durham | gunpowder| no evidence to show carelessness in |
+ | | | | charging and firing. In other words, |
+ | | | | the accident could only have been |
+ | | | | avoided by the prohibition of |
+ | | | | explosive--or, at any rate, of |
+ | | | | gunpowder--throughout the mine. |
+ | | | | |
+ | 27/1/84|Pen-y-craig,| Dynamite |14 killed. The conditions were such as |
+ | | Rhondda |(probably)| “in the opinion of all the skilled |
+ | | Valley | | witnesses would have deterred any |
+ | | | | prudent man from firing a shot on |
+ | | | | 27th January in the place where the |
+ | | | | explosion originated.” |
+ | | | | |
+ | 2/3/85 |Usworth | Blasting |40 killed. “In my opinion to fire a |
+ | | Colliery, | gunpowder| shot at such a place was a breach of |
+ | | Durham |(probably)| General Rule 8, sub-section 2, of |
+ | | | | Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1872.” |
+ | | | | |
+ | 8/4/85 |Great Fenton| (?) |8 killed, 5 injured. “The error of the |
+ | | Colliery | | fireman in boring the shot-hole into |
+ | | | | the ‘fast,’ and thus causing the shot |
+ | | | | to ‘blow out,’ was the immediate |
+ | | | | cause of the explosion.” |
+ | | | | |
+ | 2/10/86|Altoff’s | Blasting |22 killed. “Three consecutive shots |
+ | | Colliery | gunpowder| fired in the same part of the |
+ | | | | pit--the third causing the accident. |
+ | | | | Watering quite inadequate, since the |
+ | | | | mine was very dusty.” |
+ | | | | |
+ | 18/2/87|National | Gelatine |39 killed, 6 injured. The shot was |
+ | | Colliery, | dynamite | fired in the roof pointing towards |
+ | | Tnyshir, | | very dusty floor. Also, although it |
+ | | Glamorgan | | was only considered safe to use |
+ | | | | “water cartridges,” the water had |
+ | | | | in this case been omitted. |
+ | | | | |
+ | 10/3/90|Morfa | Blasting |87 killed. No watering done, |
+ | | Colliery, | gunpowder| notwithstanding that “blasting was not|
+ | | Port | | generally allowed in the colliery. |
+ | | Talbot | | The manager was much averse to |
+ | | | | shot-firing, and ... it had been |
+ | | | | entirely dispensed with in |
+ | | | | coal-getting for a number of years.” |
+ | | | | Again, “permission to fire shots was |
+ | | | | reluctantly given.” |
+ | | | | |
+ | 2/4/91 |Apedale | Gelignite|10 killed. Shot fired by fuse and blown |
+ | | Colliery, | | out. The jury at the inquest were |
+ | | Staffs. | | of opinion “that the explosion was |
+ | | | | caused by a blown-out shot, and that |
+ | | | | we are strongly of opinion that the |
+ | | | | management of the colliery has been |
+ | | | | most lax and negligent; leading, in |
+ | | | | the opinion of the jury, to the gross |
+ | | | | carelessness shown on the part of |
+ | | | | their subordinates.” |
+ | | | | |
+ |13/11/93|Camerton | Blasting |2 killed. Overcharged shot, fired in |
+ | | Colliery, | gunpowder| roof pointing at very dusty floor. |
+ | | Somerset | | Shot-hole only 10 inches long and |
+ | | | | 1⅞ inches in diameter, so that the |
+ | | | | charge of about ¾ lb. of powder |
+ | | | | could not have been properly |
+ | | | | stemmed--the cartridge would occupy |
+ | | | | 8 or 9 inches. |
+ | | | | |
+ | 23/6/94|Albion | Gelignite|290 killed. Shot ignited by safety fuse |
+ | | Colliery, | | and fired, probably unstemmed, in |
+ | | Pontypridd| | _timber_. These facts strongly |
+ | | | | commented on by jury at inquest. |
+ | | | | |
+ | 6/2/95 |Timsbury | Blasting |7 killed. Shot fired by squib or |
+ | | Colliery, | gunpowder| straw--in the roof--and stemmed very |
+ | | Radstock | | probably with an inflammable mixture |
+ | | | | of clay and oil. Road watered |
+ | | | | two or three days before the |
+ | | | | explosion. Shot overcharged owing |
+ | | | | to a joint. |
+ | | | | |
+ | 15/3/95|Malago Vale | Blasting |2 killed. Improperly stemmed shot |
+ | | Colliery, | gunpowder| fired by fuse in a dry and dusty |
+ | | Bristol | | place. |
+ | | | | |
+ | 27/1/96|Tuberstoun | A high |57 killed. Very little watering done, |
+ | | Pits, |explosive,| shot fired by fuse, and so much gas |
+ | | Ferndale | probably | found close to shot-hole that one |
+ | | Collieries| Bellite | fireman refused to fire the shot, |
+ | | | or | there being more than ⅜ inch of |
+ | | | Ammonite | “cap” in his lamp. |
+ | | | | |
+ | 13/4/96|Brancepeth | Blasting |20 killed. The shot was badly put in. |
+ | | Colliery, | gunpowder| The direction of it was bad, it was |
+ | | Durham | | overcharged, and there was an unseen |
+ | | | | joint behind it. No watering |
+ | | | | had been done on the sides and roof. |
+ +--------+------------+----------+----------------------------------------+
+
+In the year 1899, during which period an increased amount of attention
+was paid to the above points, out of no less than 147 ignitions of
+fire-damp or coal-dust only 6 were caused by the flame from explosives
+used in shot-firing.
+
+I will conclude with a very concise description of a few of the best
+known explosives in common use, other than gunpowder.
+
+
+ (_a_) MILITARY.
+
+_Cordite._--Nitro-glycerine, gun-cotton, and vaseline, reduced by
+means of acetone to a gelatinous paste, which is then “squirted” into
+cords through dies of varying diameter by hydraulic or screw pressure.
+The rate of combustion depends on the diameter of the cords.
+
+_Gun-cotton._--Cellulose hexa-nitrate--pure cotton or cellulose
+steeped in a mixture of the strongest nitric and sulphuric acids, and
+thoroughly washed.
+
+_Lyddite._--Trinitrophenol or picric acid, a mixture of carbolic
+acid (phenol), and concentrated sulphuric acid treated with strong
+nitric acid, picric acid crystallising out.
+
+
+ (_b_) SPORTING.
+
+The name of these is legion. The best known are _Amberite_,
+_Ballistite_, _Cannonite_, _E.C._, _Schultze_, _S.S._, and _Walsrode_,
+and the vast majority are based on nitro-cellulose. This is mixed
+with other comparatively unimportant ingredients, and granulated,
+gelatinised, and hardened in a suitable manner, the method of
+manufacture varying according to the explosive.
+
+
+ (_c_) BLASTING.
+
+_Ammonite_, _Amvis_, _Bellite_, _Electronite_, _Roburite_, and
+_Westphalite_, form with a few others seldom met with in this country
+a group of explosives derived from the admixture of ammonium-nitrate
+with various carbonaceous substances, such as dinitronaphthalene,
+dinitrobenzol, starch, and resin. They are comparatively safe to handle
+and convey, but suffer in keeping from the hygroscopic nature of the
+ammonium-nitrate, which necessitates their enclosure in absolutely
+waterproof cases.
+
+_Blasting Gelatine._--Nitro-cotton dissolved in nitro-glycerine to
+form a jelly. This is probably the most powerful explosive in general
+use.
+
+_Carbonite._--About 27 per cent. of nitro-glycerine absorbed in a
+“dope” of woodmeal and saltpetre or nitrate of barium.
+
+_Dynamite._--75 per cent. of nitro-glycerine absorbed in 25 per
+cent. of an infusorial silicious earth called “Kieselguhr.”
+
+_Gelatine Dynamite._--Nitro-glycerine thickened by the addition of
+nitro-cotton, and combined with woodmeal, charcoal, or certain other
+non-explosive ingredients.
+
+_Gelignite_, the most commonly used of all the high explosives, is
+practically gelatine-dynamite with the addition of saltpetre.
+
+_Tonite_ or _Cotton Powder_ is a mixture of equal parts of
+gun-cotton and nitrate of barium.
+
+_Fulminate of Mercury_, used for detonating nearly all high
+explosives, is a grey precipitate obtained by treating with alcohol
+a solution of mercury in nitric acid. It is extremely sensitive to
+percussion or friction.
+
+ A. COOPER KEY.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XLII
+
+ ANTHRAX
+
+ _Hides and Horsehair._
+
+
+The disease to which the term anthrax is at the present time usually
+applied, in this country, is fortunately of rare occurrence in man,
+mainly affecting, as it does, cattle, sheep, swine, and horses. In
+1891, it may be noted, there was an outbreak among deer, and in certain
+foreign countries attacks among goats and camels appear to be not
+uncommon. The disease may be transmitted by direct inoculation of a
+scratch or wound of the skin, by inhalation into the lungs, or by being
+introduced into the alimentary canal with the food. The last-named
+mode of infection is that which appears to be most common in the lower
+animals, and the disease produced in them, accompanied as it is, as
+a rule, by marked enlargement of the spleen, is sometimes referred
+to as splenic fever. The infective property clings pertinaciously to
+certain fields and pastures, so that in America, and on the continent
+of Europe, the risk incurred by allowing animals to graze in particular
+localities is definitely recognised, while a similar phenomenon has
+also been observed in this country. The risk in question appears
+to be greater at certain times of the year. In the Western States
+of America it is said to be inseparably connected with the highest
+temperatures of summer, and to occur only when the surface soil has
+been thoroughly warmed; a certain degree of moisture is also believed
+to be necessary. Power of transmitting infection is maintained in
+these particular localities, and conveyed to others, by allowing the
+discharges from infected animals, and the blood of such animals, if
+they are slaughtered or cut up after death, to obtain access to the
+soil. Hides, skins, hair, and wool, which have become smeared with
+such blood or discharges, retain the property of conveying infection
+after drying, and exposure to light and air for prolonged periods; even
+after transportation for thousands of miles the manipulation of such
+infected products is attended with serious danger.
+
+In man the disease assumes generally what is known as the _external
+form_, the poison obtaining access to the body through some abrasion
+of the skin. At the site of inoculation a small vesicle may be detected
+at the outset: this vesicle speedily develops into a _malignant
+pustule_, _i.e._, an inflamed area presenting a dark centre,
+surrounded by a ring of vesicles with a crenated margin. At this
+stage, which is that in which attention is usually first drawn to the
+disease, the appearances are generally quite characteristic, and if
+skilled advice is obtained, and the nature of the mischief realised,
+the pustule can be excised and there is comparatively little risk of
+a fatal issue. The term pustule, it may be noted, is a misnomer, as
+pus (_i.e._ matter) is not formed in the local manifestation of
+anthrax as in the case of an ordinary boil or carbuncle. A variety of
+external anthrax occasionally met with (erysipelatous or œdematous
+anthrax) is referred to elsewhere. Again, in some instances, usually
+in connection with the manipulation of wool, anthrax in man assumes
+the _internal form_ (_vide_ Anthrax in relation to the wool
+industry). This last-named form of the malady is also met with among
+workers in horsehair, but is very uncommon in persons who manipulate
+hides and skins.
+
+_History of the Disease._--Little is known as regards the
+prevalence of anthrax in man and in animals in past times. It has
+been suggested that the grievous murrain which destroyed the cattle
+of the Egyptians, and which was succeeded by a “breaking forth with
+blains” upon men, and upon horses, asses, camels, oxen, and sheep, was
+anthrax. Again, numerous instances of the concurrence of murrain in
+cattle with pestilence in man have been recorded from time to time,
+and some of these may conceivably admit of similar interpretation. At
+the present day the name _anthrax_ is commonly given, in some
+parts of the world, to what in England is known as carbuncle, and
+there is room for difference of opinion as to the meaning of the word
+when it occurs in old records. It may be sufficient to note in this
+connection that it has been contended that in ancient Greece the term
+was applied to smallpox. Towards the end of the last century, however,
+the occurrence of what would now be termed in this country “anthrax”
+seems to have been observed in the human subject, in association
+with the manipulation of raw animal products. Thus Fournier of Dijon
+in 1769 referred to the transmission of disease to men engaged in
+handling hair and wool. Similar cases were recorded by Montfils in
+1776; moreover, the subject of anthrax in animals was, it may be noted,
+discussed by Chabert in a work published in Paris in 1780. It was not,
+however, until the latter part of the nineteenth century that any
+considerable amount of attention was attracted by the malady.
+
+In 1847 cases of “malignant pustule” were described by Lawrence in
+connection with a hair factory; a series of cases was collected and
+published in 1852 by Mr Harvey Ludlow; and in 1862 the history of some
+30 cases, one of which occurred in a tanner, and one in a person who
+had been employed in loading hides, was given by Dr William Budd.
+
+Growth of knowledge concerning anthrax was much stimulated by the
+discovery of the anthrax bacillus. This organism had been observed
+by Pollender in 1849; it was shown to be the actual cause of the
+disease, however, by the researches of Davaine, and knowledge of
+its life-history was subsequently greatly extended by Koch. The
+discovery of the comparatively easily destructible bacillus, and its
+ability to produce highly resistant spores, afforded explanation of
+the pertinacity with which raw animal products retain the power of
+transmitting infection, and led to appreciation of the difficulty
+of dealing with contaminated material. The researches of Pasteur,
+concerning attenuation of the anthrax organism and protective
+inoculation, moreover, opened up a most interesting and important field
+of inquiry.
+
+_Anthrax Statistics._--It was not until 1863 that “malignant
+pustule” began to appear as a cause of death in the Registrar-General’s
+returns. During the fourteen years 1863–1876, three or four deaths on
+an average were registered annually. Then, for a time, in addition
+to the heading “Malignant Pustule,” the headings “Charbon” and
+“Wool-sorters’ Disease” were officially recognised, and the number
+of deaths registered under the three headings had, in the year 1880,
+increased to eighteen. From 1881 onwards, all anthrax deaths have been
+included by the Registrar-General under the heading “Splenic Fever,”
+and the number registered was, it may be noted, as small as three
+in the year 1891, as high as eighteen in 1884, 1897, and 1898, and
+twenty-one in 1899.
+
+Brief as has been the period in which records of the disease in man
+have accumulated, and imperfect as these records doubtless still
+are, anthrax statistics relating to other animals are, as might be
+expected, still more imperfect. Returns for Great Britain, which are
+only available from 1887 onwards, are given in the annexed table, taken
+from the annual report on proceedings under the Diseases of Animals
+Acts, compiled for the Board of Agriculture.
+
+
+ Number of Counties in Great Britain in which Anthrax was
+ reported by the Inspectors of the Local Authorities, with the
+ Number of Outbreaks reported, and the Number of each kind of
+ Animal returned as attacked in each year.
+
+ +------+---------+---------+-----------------------------------+
+ | | | | Animals attacked. |
+ |Years.|Counties.|Outbreaks+-------+------+------+-------+-----+
+ | | |reported.|Cattle.|Sheep.|Swine.|Horses.|Deer.|
+ +------+---------+---------+-------+------+------+-------+-----+
+ | 1887 | 51 | 236 | 415 | 37 | 184 | [147]| |
+ | 1888 | 49 | 180 | 280 | 45 | 76 | [147]| |
+ | 1889 | 45 | 167 | 236 | 4 | 69 | [147]| 461 |
+ | 1890 | 48 | 152 | 253 | 72 | 210 | [147]| |
+ | 1891 | 50 | 226 | 300 | 15 | 156 | [147]| |
+ | 1892 | 60 | 289 | 445 | 11 | 190 | [147]| |
+ | 1893 | 68 | 563 | 833 | 108 | 313 | 46 | |
+ | 1894 | 64 | 494 | 625 | 125 | 188 | 62 | |
+ | 1895 | 66 | 434 | 604 | 158 | 140 | 32 | |
+ | 1896 | 64 | 488 | 632 | 34 | 200 | 38 | |
+ | 1897 | 67 | 433 | 521 | 39 | 284 | 38 | |
+ | 1898 | 73 | 556 | 634 | 22 | 161 | 39 | |
+ | 1899 | 67 | 534 | 634 | 69 | 253 | 30 | |
+ +------+---------+---------+-------+------+------+-------+-----+
+
+As time goes on the value of these returns will no doubt be enhanced.
+At present veterinary opinion rather suggests that too absolute
+reliance must not be placed upon the figures given. It may be taken
+for granted, however, that the system of reporting outbreaks has led
+to increased attention being devoted to anthrax in animals, and to an
+appreciation of the fact that the disease is more prevalent in Great
+Britain than had been supposed. The particulars collected, moreover,
+show that those counties in which foreign animal products, hides,
+hair, wool, etc., are manipulated, are specially prone to suffer from
+outbreaks of anthrax in animals. It may be mentioned that an inquiry
+was made a few years ago by Dr Ravenal of Pennsylvania as to the
+influence of tanneries in spreading anthrax among cattle feeding on
+pastures watered by streams contaminated by tannery refuse. The result
+of this inquiry is given by Dr Legge in a report, which appears in the
+Annual Report for 1899 (p. 325) of the Chief Inspector of Factories.
+It seems that in 1897, 12 men and 60 head of cattle died of anthrax
+near tanneries in the State of Pennsylvania.
+
+Of the prevalence of anthrax in other parts of the world, it is
+difficult at the present time to obtain precise knowledge. In some
+parts of Europe (France, Germany, Russia, and Italy) the malady appears
+to be more prevalent than it is in this country; the same remark may
+perhaps be said to hold good for Persia, India, Siberia, China, and
+parts of Africa, and North and South America. It is stated that in the
+district of Novgorod, Russia, in the four years 1867–70, 56,000 horses,
+cattle, and sheep perished from anthrax.
+
+_Outbreaks Recorded during Recent Years._--During the last twenty-five
+years several detailed reports on outbreaks of anthrax in man,
+attributed to the handling of particular raw animal products, have
+been made. Thus Dr Russell, in 1878, published the history of an
+outbreak of this kind, which was attributed to the manipulation of
+“raw Russian manes” in certain horsehair factories in Glasgow. In
+his report (appended to the Annual Report of the Medical Officer of
+the Local Government Board for 1878) Dr Russell discusses certain
+previously recorded instances of anthrax in association with horsehair
+manipulation in Paris, Metz, Leipzig, and Massachusetts. From 1878
+to 1899 no further cases of the disease were noted in workers in the
+horsehair industry in Glasgow; in 1900, however, three such cases were
+reported, and similar cases have been observed in several instances in
+London (_vide_ Annual Reports of the Medical Officer of Health of the
+County of London and of H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories). Outbreaks
+on a more extensive scale have been reported in Germany (_vide_ Report
+of Dr Kubler in _Arbeiten a. d. Kaiserlichen Gesundheitsamte_, 15 Band,
+3 Heft, 1899). It may be noted that raw Russian and China manes have
+fallen especially under suspicion in connection with several of the
+recorded outbreaks, and these kinds of raw material seem particularly
+prone to be contaminated with dirt, and when combed or “willeyed,”
+to give rise to dust, which it is presumed is the medium by which
+infection is conveyed to workers in horsehair.
+
+At about the time when the publication of Dr Russell’s report drew
+attention to horsehair, the question of wool-sorters’ disease (_vide_
+Anthrax--its relation to the Wool Industry) also came to the fore.
+Again, in 1882–83, Mr Spear, on behalf of the Local Government Board,
+carefully investigated the circumstances of an outbreak of anthrax
+in connection with the hide and skin industry in London, affecting
+persons who had manipulated certain bales of hides from China, either
+at the warehouse in which they were in the first instance stored,
+or subsequently at the tannery to which they were conveyed and in
+which they underwent the process of conversion into leather. Mr Spear
+published, in an appendix to his report, a table giving particulars
+as to cases of anthrax which he had traced as having occurred in
+London between 1873 and 1883. This table was subsequently extended,
+and further cases have been recorded from time to time in the Annual
+Reports of the Medical Officer of Health of the County of London. These
+reports show that between 1873 and 1896 there were recognised, in the
+metropolis and its neighbourhood, in all 148 cases of the disease. Of
+these:--
+
+ 108 occurred among persons engaged in the hide and skin trade;
+ 5 occurred among persons engaged in slaughtering animals; 18
+ occurred among persons engaged in the manipulation of horsehair,
+ or in the manufacture of brushes; 1 occurred in a person
+ employed in a bacteriological laboratory; finally, 16 occurred
+ under circumstances in which the source of infection was not
+ traceable.
+
+_Anthrax Notification._--Sect. 29 of the Factory and Workshop Act
+of 1895 made notification of a case of anthrax occurring in a factory
+or workshop compulsory, and under this section there have, during
+recent years, been notified the following cases:--
+
+ In 1896, 13 cases.
+
+ In 1897, 23 cases, including 14 in connection with hides and
+ skins and 9 in connection with wool.
+
+ In 1898, 28 cases, including 8 in connection with hides and
+ skins; 16 in connection with wool; 3 in connection with
+ horsehair; and 1 in connection with other industries.
+
+ In 1899, 55 cases, including 16 in connection with hides and
+ skins; 18 in connection with wool; 17 in connection with
+ horsehair; and 4 in connection with other industries.
+
+ In 1900, 37 cases, including 9 in connection with hides and
+ skins; 9 in connection with wool; 12 in connection with
+ horsehair; and 7 in connection with other industries.
+
+In 1897 an important report by a Departmental Committee appointed
+by the Home Office to inquire into the “Conditions of Work in
+Wool-sorting and other Kindred Trades” was issued. In this report
+existing knowledge concerning the subject was summarised and special
+consideration was devoted to the discussion of possible preventive
+measures. Dr Whitelegge, now H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories, was
+one of the members of this Committee, and since his appointment to his
+present office he has, in his annual reports, published a summary
+of the facts ascertained with regard to anthrax in each year since
+1897. Dr Whitelegge’s more recent reports contain also the results of
+the inquiries made by Dr Legge, the Medical Inspector of Factories.
+This series of Home Office reports is from year to year, adding
+materially to our knowledge of the disease and the methods which may be
+advantageously used in checking its prevalence. In Germany, moreover,
+the reports of the Imperial Health Office have of late years contained
+frequent references to the subject, and a new era may thus be said to
+have commenced as regards the study of the malady in its relation to
+industry.
+
+Having regard to the recent introduction of compulsory notification,
+and to the larger measure of importance which is attached to anthrax,
+it is now unlikely that cases of the disease will escape notice, as
+they have doubtless in some instances done in the past, and as more
+and more complete records of the circumstances of anthrax outbreaks
+are obtained, there seems reason for hoping that it may be possible to
+obtain fuller knowledge concerning the history and antecedents of the
+material which has conveyed infection. If this proves to be the case,
+preventive measures may be thus greatly facilitated.
+
+_Grouping of Anthrax Cases._--That investigation of this kind
+may prove of importance seems clear from the evidence of grouping of
+cases which has been forthcoming, even from such inquiry as it was
+possible to make in past years, and in the absence of the more precise
+information which compulsory notification may, in future, be expected
+to afford. The following instances observed in the metropolis and its
+neighbourhood may be referred to in illustration of this point.
+
+(1) In the year 1895 a number of cases of anthrax occurred among
+persons employed in manipulating horsehair and in brushmaking. Thus
+three cases occurred in Southwark, and in each instance the persons
+attacked had manipulated horsehair, in connection, however, with
+the establishments of three different brushmakers. A fourth case
+occurred in a dresser of horsehair employed in St Luke’s. Two cases in
+Shoreditch appeared to be traceable to a brushmaker’s at Tottenham,
+and it was found, on making inquiry there, that two other cases had
+occurred among employés at this particular workplace. Two further
+cases occurred in East London affecting men who worked with horsehair
+at a bass and fibre dresser’s in Mile End Old Town. In all, ten
+cases occurred between May and December 1895, in association with
+the manipulation of horsehair. The facts as to the distribution of
+horsehair to the various establishments concerned could not be fully
+ascertained; so far as the question could be followed up, it appeared
+quite possible that some particular consignment of horsehair had been
+handled by all the affected workers, and that this consignment had done
+all the mischief. Having regard to the distribution of the cases in
+time such an hypothesis seemed a likely one.
+
+(2) On the last day of January and the first four days of February
+1896, six men were admitted to Guy’s Hospital suffering from malignant
+pustule. Five of the men had recently been engaged in manipulating
+goatskins at a leather-dressing establishment, and the sixth man was
+employed at a warehouse from which goatskins had been supplied to this
+establishment. Every facility was given by the firm employing the
+five men with a view to enabling the particular consignment of skins
+implicated to be traced, but it was not found possible to ascertain
+all the facts with regard to these skins. There was, however, evidence
+pointing to two conclusions respecting them. In the first place, some
+of them were “sea damaged,” and secondly, they were brought to England
+by a vessel which had touched at certain Mediterranean ports.
+
+On investigation of previous occurrences of anthrax in London it was
+found that a case had occurred in December 1895, the patient being a
+man employed in a tanyard. This man had on 29th November and succeeding
+days handled goatskins, which, inasmuch as they were a salvage lot from
+a ship on which a fire had broken out, had “been sold cheap.” Some of
+these goatskins which were described as “sea damaged,” were regarded as
+unfit for treatment, and were sent away; the others were converted into
+leather. The ship by which they were brought to this country had come
+from the Mediterranean. Again, a dock labourer who had unloaded goods,
+among which were goatskins, in St Katherine’s Dock during the first
+week of December, developed on 7th December a malignant pustule. The
+skins concerned possibly came from the Mediterranean.
+
+Thus within a period of a few weeks three distinct occurrences of
+anthrax had been observed in London, apparently attributable to one
+common cause, the manipulation of goatskins. On the information to
+hand, the three consignments of goatskins could not be traced to one
+and the same source--indeed a distinct ship was apparently implicated
+in each instance, the only feature in common being that two of these
+vessels were definitely stated to have come, and the third may have
+come, from the Mediterranean. It was further noteworthy that several
+cases of anthrax had occurred in recent years at the wharf from which
+one of the consignments referred to above had been supplied. Thus a
+case occurred at this wharf in September 1893, another in March 1894,
+and in each of these cases the man who was attacked had manipulated
+goatskins. In September 1894 another man working at this wharf was
+attacked; there was, however, no information as to goatskins in this
+instance. Again, in October 1895, two cases occurred in men who had
+manipulated goatskins at the same wharf.
+
+This series of events is suggestive of one or other of two
+explanations. Either the wharf may have been supplied from time to
+time with infected goatskins, and in that case the possibility of some
+particular anthrax-infected locality being the source of supply and
+the cause of all the trouble naturally suggests itself; or the wharf
+premises, having themselves become infected, may have served as a
+means of re-infecting from time to time batches of skins. The former
+hypothesis seems to best fit in with the facts. That premises may,
+however, at times become infected and again convey infection at a later
+period seems not improbable. Such was indeed proved to be the case
+by Professor Boyce (_vide_ Annual Report of the Medical Officer
+of Health of Liverpool for 1899). It may be noted in this connection
+with regard to the five cases of anthrax mentioned above, as having
+occurred in January and February of 1896, that three further cases
+developed which may possibly have been attributable to the same source
+of infection. Two of the cases occurred in persons who may have been
+brought in contact with the skins implicated in January and February;
+a third case was that of a man who had worked at the leather-dressing
+establishment, and on a part of the premises in which the skins
+implicated in the earlier part of the year had been placed.
+
+_Grouping of Cases considered in Relation to Preventive
+Measures._--The occurrence of such groups of cases as those above
+referred to merely repeats the experience of Glasgow in 1878, when
+Russian manes were at fault, and that of Bermondsey in 1882, when
+certain Shanghai hides fell under suspicion. If careful inquiry were
+made concerning every case of anthrax, it appears not improbable that
+all the cases occurring during a series of years could be referred to a
+very limited number of consignments of raw material, and if the origin
+of the goods were followed up in each instance, it might be found that
+a considerable check could be placed upon the introduction of infected
+raw products into this country. In some cases workmen have been led to
+suspect that they were incurring special risk from something unusual
+in the appearance of the hides, skins, or horsehair, with which they
+were dealing. It has been already said that the hides suspected in
+the historic outbreak in Bermondsey in 1882 came from Shanghai; a
+considerable number of these were ascertained to have been “light,”
+“dirty,” “stale,” and “much tainted,” “many were in fact ‘dead’ hides,”
+_i.e._ those of animals that had not been slaughtered, but had
+died, possibly, of course, of anthrax. In a particular instance, in
+connection with a more recent occurrence of a case of the disease in
+question in London, it was found that a small quantity of suspected
+material had been retained at the broker’s warehouse, the bulk of the
+consignment, of which the said material formed a portion, being sent
+abroad. The small quantity in question, which consisted of scabbed
+and worthless skins, was handed over, at the request of the Medical
+Officer of Health in whose district the warehouse was situated, to
+be destroyed; but that officer had no opportunity afforded him of
+examining the bales which were not disposed of in London. There can
+be no doubt that there would be less likelihood of suspected material
+being placed upon the market, if it were definitely realised that the
+source of infection would be traced in all cases of anthrax which
+occur. Veterinary experts in this country have long insisted that “no
+attempt should be made to utilise any part of the carcase of an animal
+which has died of anthrax”; and M. Chauveau, in a paper read before
+the seventh International Congress of Hygiene and Demography in 1891,
+argued that only by convincing those concerned with the disposal of
+raw material, to which suspicion attaches, that to destroy it is the
+only course open to them in order to safeguard their own interests,
+will it be practicable to exercise any really efficacious check upon
+production of disease. M. Chauveau urged that effort should be made to
+cause this fact to be generally appreciated, and he added, “L’effet de
+cette propagande devrait être renforcé par une bonne organisation des
+services de surveillance sanitaire, et par une application sévère des
+pénalités contre les délinquants.”
+
+Mr Spear, in his report in 1883, referred to the possibility of “the
+establishment of an organisation by which this country may be warned of
+the existence of the disease among cattle,” with a view to prohibiting
+the import of suspected hides. He pointed out, moreover, that if the
+practice of dealing separately with “dead” hides, from their first
+shipment at the port of export, were to become established, such a
+system would “result in the limitation of dangerous material mainly to
+one class of goods, instead of its distribution throughout the entire
+bulk.” These suggestions seemed, perhaps, when they were made, to be
+“counsels of perfection,” but if the material conveying infection is
+in the future traced in a growing proportion of cases, and if, armed
+with knowledge of all cases of anthrax which occur, inquiry as to
+the antecedents of implicated material is more and more sedulously
+prosecuted, it seems probable that it will increasingly become the
+practice of owners of diseased animals to destroy infected hides,
+skins, hair, etc., instead of attempting to dispose of them.
+
+Against the prospect of diminution of risk from the growth of a desire
+on the part of dealers in raw animal products to safeguard their own
+interests, it may be urged that anthrax is so common a disease that
+the wholesale destruction of the skins, hides, hair, etc., of infected
+animals would mean great loss; that in many instances the existence
+of diseased conditions cannot be detected; that even with the best
+intentions on the part of the dealer much dangerous material must
+necessarily be placed on the market; and that in any event all that
+is needful in the case of suspected raw products is that they should
+be adequately disinfected. Further experience will no doubt throw
+more light on these questions, but the history of cases in London and
+elsewhere, so far as it is known, suggests that the amount of dangerous
+material exported to this country is very small in proportion to the
+total bulk, and that, with the devotion of an increasing amount of
+attention to the matter, it will become more and more usual for the
+origin of consignments of such dangerous material to be traced. If this
+should prove to be the case, it may be that the prevention of anthrax
+infection will be worked out very much upon the lines indicated by M.
+Chauveau.
+
+_Disinfection and Other Measures of Precaution._--As regards
+disinfection it has been, until quite recently, assumed that exposure
+to steam, or to reliable chemical disinfectants, was quite out of
+the question. So far as the leather trade is concerned this doctrine
+is still generally accepted, but, as regards the horsehair industry,
+experiments have shown that disinfection is practicable under certain
+conditions. It appears from a recent Report of the Medical Inspector
+of Factories (Dr Legge), that in this country a steam disinfector
+is in use in a particular establishment for dealing with mane hair
+from Russia and China, and that in other establishments all mane
+hair is boiled or dyed before being used for curling purposes. In
+Germany careful experiments have been made with a view to determining
+how disinfection can be carried out with a minimum of damage to raw
+material, and an account of the results obtained is contained in the
+_Arbeiten a. d. Kaiserlichen Gesundheitsamte_, 15 Band, 5 Heft,
+1899. The principal conclusion would appear to be that the pressure
+under which the steam is allowed to enter the disinfecting chamber
+should not exceed 0.15 atmosphere (2 to 3 lbs. to the square inch).
+Higher pressures, such as are commonly in use in steam disinfectors in
+this country, tend to make the ends of the hair (especially of long
+tail hair used for weaving purposes) brittle. A further objection
+to steam is the yellow colour which it imparts to white hair. As
+the outcome of these experiments, special rules dealing with the
+disinfection of foreign horsehair and pigs’ bristles were formulated,
+and came into force throughout Germany in 1899. A report as to their
+operation appeared in 1901 (_loc. cit._, 18 Band, 1 Heft).
+
+The use of steam disinfection in the horsehair industry may,
+therefore, become considerably extended. Dr Legge points out, however,
+that reliance must not be placed upon such disinfection as at
+present practised for dealing with “unopened bales, especially when
+hydraulically pressed.” The fact noted by Dr Legge that, in September
+1899, “the principal horsehair manufacturers, at a meeting held in
+London, passed unanimously a resolution binding themselves from that
+date to buy no Russian, Siberian, or Chinese undyed mane hair, until
+satisfactory guarantees had been given by the sellers that the hair has
+been thoroughly disinfected,” is a significant one. Further, reference
+may be made to a circular letter, addressed to occupiers of horsehair
+works by H.M. Chief inspector of Factories, which deals with means of
+diminishing risk of anthrax in the industry in question (_vide_
+Annual Report of the Chief Inspector for 1900).
+
+In connection with hides, Mr Spear first pointed out the desirability
+of studying, in relation to the process of curing, the question of
+the possibility of favouring the destruction of morbific germs. “It
+might,” he said, “be possible so to treat the skins by a preliminary
+process, as to cause any attached spores to germinate into the easily
+destructible rods.”
+
+Anthrax appears to be rarely, if ever, conveyed by wet hides, and there
+is, therefore, some prospect that the increasing adoption of the “wet,”
+as opposed to the “dry,” cure may prove an important means of obviating
+the spread of infection. The dry cure is said to stand condemned from
+the point of view of producing good leather, but, in places where
+difficulty of transport makes weight an important consideration, it is
+still largely adopted. As long ago as 1894, a writer in the _Leather
+Trades Circular and Review_ urged the merchants engaged in the China
+trade to “establish saladeros (as has been done in South America),
+where all green hides shall, after slaughtering, go through a proper
+system of brining, or arsenic curing, or salting, by which the pelt
+will be preserved.” Arsenic curing, it may, however, be noted, might
+become a source of danger. Experiments made with a view to determining
+whether chemical disinfection of hides can be effected in a practicable
+manner are being carried out in this country at the present time.
+
+Pending the growth of knowledge as to sources of anthrax infection, and
+increase in appreciation of the desirability of destroying infected
+goods, something can be done by advocating cleanliness and enforcing
+the provision of washing appliances, and by urging the great importance
+of alertness as regards detecting the disease at the outset, with a
+view to obtaining proper advice during the earliest stages of the
+malady. In the Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories for
+1899 the special rules issued in 1899, and established in eighty-eight
+works, are published _in extenso_. These rules define both the
+duties of the occupier and the duties of persons employed. In 1899,
+too, it was decided by the Home Office authorities to give facilities
+for bacteriological examination, with a view to the verification
+of doubtful cases of anthrax, and medical practitioners, on making
+application to the Medical Inspector of Factories at the Home Office,
+are now enabled to satisfactorily clear up the diagnosis in doubtful
+cases. This in itself constitutes an important step in advance, and is
+an indication of the growing amount of attention that is likely to be
+accorded to anthrax prevention in the near future.
+
+ W. H. HAMER.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XLIII
+
+ ANTHRAX--ITS RELATION TO THE WOOL INDUSTRY
+
+
+Wool has been woven into the industrial history of the world, and has
+been an important factor in the progress of nations from savagery to
+civilisation. In all ages, “flocks and herds” have represented peace
+and prosperity, and only within recent years has it become known that
+the fleeces, hides, flesh, and other products of animals which die from
+anthrax sometimes convey the disease to man.
+
+The word “wool” in its technical meaning comprises sheep or lamb’s
+wool, goat’s wool or hair (mohair), camel’s wool or hair, alpaca, and
+other allied textile fibres. The quantities and origins of these for
+manufacturing purposes in the year 1900 were nearly as follow, in
+million pounds weight:--
+
+ From the United Kingdom 141
+ „ British Possessions 448
+ „ Foreign Countries 105
+ „ „ Mohair 22
+ „ „ Alpaca 6
+ ---
+ 722
+ Exported in the “raw” state 220
+ ---
+ Balance for home use 502
+ ===
+
+The “clip” of wool of the United Kingdom is practically what it
+was fifty years ago. The total imports of wool, goat’s hair, and
+alpaca, have increased fourfold during the same period. This increase
+represents the growth of the wool industry in the West Riding, there
+having been little increase in other parts of the Kingdom. It is
+probable that “three-fourths of all the wool used in this country is
+consumed within a radius of fifteen miles from Bradford.” The longer
+and finer combing wools, including almost all the mohair and alpaca,
+are manufactured into “worsteds”--stuffs--for which Bradford is the
+commercial centre. The shorter and coarser felting wools are made into
+“woollens”--cloths--of which Leeds and Huddersfield are the most
+important producers; others are used at Halifax and Kidderminster for
+carpets, and also at Leicester for hosiery.
+
+Previous to 1837, when alpaca and mohair were imported from Peru and
+Asia Minor respectively for use as textile fibres, no specific disease
+had been associated with wool. Ten years afterwards, owing to recurring
+deaths of sorters, a suspicion arose that these materials were in some
+way or other the cause of the peculiar, rapid, and fatal illness which
+became known as “wool-sorter’s disease.” When these sudden deaths
+followed each other at several months’ interval they did not attract
+much attention, but when sorters died within a few weeks from a similar
+and unusual disease, the workpeople became alarmed, and their fears
+were increased when no reasonable explanation could be given as to
+the nature of the illness, its prevention or its cure. In the hope
+of solving the mystery, many _post-mortem_ examinations of the
+bodies of wool-sorters were made by leading medical men in the large
+towns of the West-Riding, and the suspected materials and dust arising
+from these were submitted to experts for microscopical examination and
+chemical analysis. These investigations and reports extended over more
+than thirty years without arriving at a satisfactory explanation. In
+1877 a case of this disease came under the writer’s observation; the
+man was apparently well in the morning on leaving home for work, and
+died seventeen hours after the first feeling of illness. It was evident
+that this fatal collapse without pain or distress was not from any
+well-known disease. In 1879, when visiting such a patient--who died
+twelve hours afterwards--he took some blood from the arm, and within
+a few minutes two or three drops of it were injected under the lumbar
+skin of a rabbit, a guinea-pig, and a mouse respectively. The animals
+died within sixty hours, and the blood of each showed the presence
+of bacilli. Another animal was inoculated with the blood from one of
+these, and it died in a shorter time. The fluids from this animal were
+found to be crowded with the _bacillus anthracis_, and the disease
+was recognised to be anthrax. (_Lancet_, vol. ii., 1879, pp. 920,
+959.)
+
+Anthrax is a contagious disease, and of the widest distribution.
+It readily attacks most wool-bearing animals, and is found in all
+countries, being very prevalent on the Continent of Europe, in Asia,
+South Africa, and South America, and occurring less commonly in the
+United Kingdom, North Africa, North America, and Australasia. The
+incidence of anthrax among animals in Great Britain varies very
+much, some counties having no outbreak year after year, while from
+others it is never absent. It is most prevalent in the West-Riding,
+and the counties of Leicester, Northampton, and Norfolk, in all of
+which foreign wool, hair, hides, or other animal products are used
+in industrial processes. The number of sheep and lambs in Great
+Britain in 1900 was 28,000,000, and the number reported to the Board
+of Agriculture to have died from anthrax during the year was 40.
+For 1899 the number of deaths was 69. The risk of infection from
+home-grown and colonial wools is so slight that it may be disregarded.
+The most noxious wools are those from foreign countries where anthrax
+is prevalent, the wool being dry, dusty, of low quality, and having
+very little “yolk.” (Yolk is a peculiar unctuous substance, chiefly
+consisting of a potash soap which pervades the wool and protects the
+animal from the effects of rain and cold; it also nourishes the wool,
+rendering it soft, oily, and pliable.) It is equal in weight to 7 or 8
+per cent. of the “raw” fleece. Alpaca, mohair, camel’s hair, Persian,
+and inferior dry Eastern wools have very little yolk, and are dangerous
+to handle if they contain “fallen fleeces.” The greater amount of yolk
+or grease in South American and other foreign wools appears to fix the
+anthrax spores, and renders the wool almost innocuous to the sorters.
+
+The essential cause of anthrax is a micro-organism, the _Bacillus
+anthracis_, the spores of which can only produce their specific
+effect when they gain access to the circulating blood by way of the
+skin, the lungs, or the stomach; hence there are three types of the
+disease: the cutaneous, the pulmonary, and the intestinal.
+
+1. _Cutaneous Anthrax._--This presents two varieties, viz.,
+malignant pustule and erysipelatous anthrax. The malignant pustule was
+first noticed in England in 1854, and recorded in 1863. It must have
+occurred frequently in the Bradford Worsted District for more than
+thirty years before it was diagnosed as anthrax in 1880. This form of
+cutaneous anthrax in wool-workers is very much the same as that which
+appears in hide-dressers and others.
+
+_Erysipelatous anthrax_, of which _œdematous anthrax_ is a
+milder manifestation, has, until recently, escaped recognition in this
+country. It was first noticed by Bourgeois in Provence, France, in
+1834, and his observations were published in 1843. He wrote afterwards
+a very complete account of it in his book on _La Pustule Maligne et
+L’Œdème Malin_, 1861. Subsequent writers have been almost entirely
+indebted to this author for their statements.
+
+_Symptoms._--Bourgeois says: “It begins as a pale swelling,
+soft and without pain. It is only after several days, and when more
+fully developed, that vesicles and eschars form, notably on the
+eyelids, but at the onset the skin is smooth and has no trace of
+a pimple.” The local symptoms are the extensive œdema, in slight
+cases, without redness, vesication, or eschar; in severe cases, with
+redness, vesication, and a gangrenous appearance of the skin. The
+general symptoms are of a negative character; there may be no pain, no
+distress, and no fever. Even in fatal cases these are not very marked.
+
+_Diagnosis._--The appearance of the patient is so like that
+of one with ordinary erysipelas that the differences might easily
+be overlooked, were it not that there is so little constitutional
+disturbance. The absence of injury, pain, and fever will distinguish
+it from acute emphysematous gangrene. The only proof, however, is
+the finding of the characteristic bacillus in the blood or fluids by
+cultures and physiological tests.
+
+_Prognosis._--This form of anthrax is stated to be much more fatal
+than malignant pustule; of seven cases seen by the writer, three were
+fatal.
+
+CASE.--J. G., æt. 29, a willower of low class wools, had
+been ailing several days when visited on 12th March 1899. The right
+upper eyelid was greatly swollen, red, and hard, there were several
+vesicles, nearly the size of kidney beans, which contained a clear
+gelatinous, straw-coloured serum; pulse 88, temperature 100.5°. March
+13th, neither eye could be opened, the right ear was doubled on itself,
+the scalp pitted on pressure, and he was slightly delirious; pulse
+76, temperature 101.8°. March 14th, other vesicles on the cheek, much
+swelling of submaxillary glands and neck; pulse 88, temperature 101.8°.
+After a few days, black eschars appeared on the eyelids, the swelling
+subsided, and he was convalescent. March 17th, pulse 72, temperature
+98.9°. Serum taken on 12th March for cultivation yielded positive
+results.
+
+2. _Pulmonary Anthrax._--“Wool-sorters’ Disease.”--From the year
+1846, when this disease was first noticed in the neighbourhood of
+Bradford, to 1877, it had not been known to attack other persons than
+the sorters of alpaca and mohair. In subsequent years it was found that
+camel’s hair, Persian, and other dry, dusty, low class foreign wools,
+were also infective; and further, that any person might be attacked if
+exposed to the inhalation of anthrax spores in dust arising from the
+products of dead animals.
+
+_Symptoms._--The absence of troublesome symptoms is very
+remarkable. There may be no rigor, pain, cough, vomiting, purging, or
+other distressful conditions. Even when dying, the patient may not
+feel particularly ill. In ordinary cases, at the commencement, there
+is a chilliness or slight shivering, the tongue is moist and thinly
+coated, thirst is present, and the appetite indifferent, with some
+nausea and uneasiness at the stomach; vomiting is common (if this is
+only at the commencement it is not of much moment, but if persistent or
+commencing after two or three days it is of serious import, indicating
+the extension of the disease to the stomach and bowels.) The lungs are
+always affected, although sometimes only slightly. Nearly all patients
+have a feeling of tightness, weight, and oppression about the chest,
+which embarrasses the breathing. Cough is generally present, but never
+very troublesome; in one-third of the cases it was absent, or very
+slight. In most there is no expectoration, but in mixed cases, which
+continue over five days, there is some, which is occasionally rusty
+coloured. The purer the infection, however, the less likely is there
+to be any pneumonia. There is a dusky, leaden hue, with coldness of
+face, ears, and fingers in the collapse stage. Percussion sounds are
+generally clear; occasionally there is some dulness, mostly at the
+base of the right lung; the respiratory sounds are feeble and almost
+inaudible on this side, with some sibilant sounds; moist bronchial
+râles may be present later on, but rarely crepitations. In cases where
+no dulness on percussion was detected a few hours before death, not
+unfrequently a considerable quantity of fluid has been found in the
+pleural spaces at the _post-mortem_ examination. In the early
+stage the pulse may not differ from the normal as regards frequency;
+later it is small, feeble, irregular, uncountable, and out of keeping
+with the apparent slight character of the illness. The heart’s sounds
+are also very weak and may be inaudible. In most cases the mind keeps
+clear to the end; in some with cerebral lesions, there are struggling,
+convulsions, and coma. The skin is always moist and often bathed with
+perspiration. The temperature seldom reaches 103°; when more than
+this, the infection is mixed, causing septic pneumonia. Generally the
+temperature is from 3° to 5° higher in the rectum than in the axilla.
+As the illness advances, the temperature falls. The urine is scanty
+and high-coloured. In one case the sp. gr. was 1040. In several cases
+albumin was found, in one equal to two-thirds of the quantity of urine
+in the test-tube. Sugar is also occasionally present.
+
+The cases clinically arrange themselves into three classes: (1) Rapid,
+in which death takes place within two days, from collapse without any
+reaction. (2) Ordinary, in which the initial depression is followed
+by reaction and death within four days. (3) Prolonged cases, in which
+there is pneumonia from mixed infection, and death after the fourth day.
+
+_Duration of Illness._--Number of cases fatal within--
+
+ 1 day 2 days 3 days 4 days 5 days 10 days over 10 days Total
+ 5 19 19 16 7 7 2 75
+
+_Diagnosis._--In a rapid case this is easy; the patient when first
+visited is seen to be dying from continued uncomplicated collapse,
+which if there has been exposure to infection should not be mistaken
+for any other disease. In ordinary cases during the first two days
+diagnosis is impossible, the symptoms are not severe, and are such as
+are met with in common ailments; it is only when the illness becomes
+more pronounced by the patient’s strength and his heart failing without
+other sufficient reason that a diagnosis may be made. In prolonged
+cases the uncertainty is still greater; the pleuritic and pneumonic
+conditions mask the purely anthrax symptoms so much, that it is only by
+a _post-mortem_ examination that the true nature of the illness
+can be known.
+
+_Prognosis._--In all cases this is unfavourable; symptoms are
+unreliable; what appears to be nothing more than ordinary catarrh
+in a person who has been exposed to anthrax infection may suddenly
+terminate fatally from heart failure. In the more prolonged cases,
+which are mixed with septic pneumonia, death may occur unexpectedly. It
+is probable that many cases of pulmonary infection recover; such cases
+have been reported, but in none has the diagnosis been confirmed by
+exact experimental methods.
+
+_Incubation._--The period of incubation is uncertain. The exact
+time of infection cannot be fixed as in cases of traumatic cutaneous
+anthrax. No case of pulmonary anthrax has been recorded which was due
+to only one exposure to infection. Sorters of noxious materials may
+work exposed to the risk of infection almost daily for years without
+any noticeable effect from it. It is only when the virus gains access
+to the blood stream through some accidentally open gateway that serious
+illness follows. Judging from what takes place in cutaneous cases
+we may presume that when the spores pass the respiratory epithelial
+barrier they will produce some local specific effect within twenty-four
+hours. Infective material may be present on the skin or the mucous
+membranes several days before it gains access to the blood and produces
+any noticeable effect.
+
+_Pathological Changes: External._--The appearance of the body
+twenty-four hours after death varies considerably. The discoloration
+of decomposition appears very soon, attended with more than the usual
+lividity, which is not confined to the posterior surface of the body.
+The face is sometimes very much swollen and discoloured. The cellular
+tissue of the neck and upper part of the chest may be distended,
+gangrenous-looking, and emphysematous. In many cases the cause of
+death may be surmised from the external appearance of the body alone;
+in other cases there is no unusual discoloration excepting that the
+tips of the fingers are cyanosed. Between these two conditions there
+is every gradation of external appearances. _Internal._--On
+cutting the skin of the chest where it is much discoloured serum and
+air bubbles escape. The muscles are dark coloured. On removing the
+sternum the cellular tissue beneath is sometimes emphysematous; more
+frequently there is much gelatinous œdema and occasionally it has been
+seen infiltrated with blood. The pleural spaces almost invariably
+contain a large quantity of clear straw-coloured serum, generally more
+on the right side. Gelatinous infiltration under the serous covering of
+the lungs and between the lobes may be one inch in thickness without
+any plastic inflammatory exudation. On section the lungs are seen
+to be engorged with dark-coloured blood, some portions being more
+solid than others, and of a blacker red colour. It is not uncommon to
+find infarcts of blood in the parenchyma of the lungs, and these in
+prolonged cases may have broken down and become purulent. The bronchial
+glands are enlarged, and more so on the right side; the mass may be
+the size of a hen’s egg. The trachea and bronchial tubes contain
+frothy blood-stained mucus; the mucous membrane is claret-coloured
+and swollen, and beneath it are frequently small infarcts of blood.
+The connective tissue at the root of the lungs and base of the heart
+is sometimes œdematous and extensively infiltrated with blood. The
+pericardium, epicardium, and endocardium frequently show subserous
+petechial spots, and the pericardial fluid may be increased to five
+or six ounces. The blood is nearly always fluid and of a dark, almost
+black colour. The heart may be empty or contain fluid blood in all its
+cavities. The colour of its lining membrane varies from a pale cherry
+red to dark chocolate. The abdomen does not contain much fluid unless
+the intestines have been involved, when the quantity may be from two to
+four pints. The gelatinous œdema is sometimes very considerable in the
+mesentery and the cellular tissue surrounding the kidneys. Extravasated
+blood in small or large quantities is also seen in a few cases in the
+mesentery or in the connective tissue around the kidneys. The stomach
+and intestines frequently show numerous patches of extravasated
+blood; if these are considerable in size they are seen on both the
+mucous and serous surfaces. The spleen, like all other organs in this
+disease, varies very much. It is generally larger than natural, but
+not unfrequently it is unaltered in size and appearance. The liver
+and kidneys are less frequently affected than other organs. The brain
+is occasionally completely surrounded by blood extravasated between
+the membranes. Small infarcts are sometimes seen in the cerebral
+substance. The characteristic changes are: 1. The discoloration of the
+skin, especially about the neck and upper part of the chest. 2. The
+gelatinous œdema under the sternum, about the base of the heart, in
+the mesentery, the omentum, and the adipose tissue around the kidneys.
+3. The extravasations of blood, which may be extensive, in the chest,
+the abdomen, or the head, with smaller hæmorrhagic areas and petechial
+infarcts in any organ or any part of the body. 4. The serous effusions
+into the pleura, pericardium, and peritoneum. 5. The dark colour and
+fluid condition of the blood. Many coarse changes are present in every
+case, but no single lesion is found in all cases. There may be no
+unusual discoloration of the skin, no gelatinous œdema, no large or
+numerous small extravasations of blood, or even serous effusions, but
+one or more of these in various degrees is always present.
+
+3. _Intestinal Anthrax._--Only one case of primary intestinal
+anthrax has been observed in wool-workers, and that recently. A
+wool-sorter, aged 29, on leaving work felt weak and as if he had a
+lump at the stomach. The following day he was sick and restless; on
+the third day the pulse was 86, temperature 99.2°; on the fourth day
+brown-coloured blood was vomited, and several tar-like stools were
+passed. Thirteen hours before death he was in a collapsed condition;
+pulse 112, small and almost uncountable; respiration 26. The lungs were
+not involved. Duration of illness, 4½ days.
+
+_Distribution of the Bacilli._--These are found in the swollen
+mucous membrane of the trachea and larger bronchi, being most numerous
+in the neighbourhood of small hæmorrhages, and only a few in the lung
+tissue. The gelatinous serum never contains large numbers. The serum
+from the chest and abdomen, being a pure cultivation fluid, generally
+contains large numbers of bacilli of shorter or longer lengths. Bacilli
+are very unequally distributed throughout the body; they may not be
+found in the spleen, but in the fluids and tissues near pathological
+lesions.
+
+Inoculations of rodents with blood taken from a patient twelve hours
+before death does not always produce fatal anthrax, a result which is
+inevitable if the blood be taken two or three hours before the event,
+even if on microscopical examination it gives no evidence of containing
+bacilli. Inoculations with gelatinous and pleural serum taken within
+twenty-four hours after death may have no effect on rodents, but
+generally they are fatal. All fluids and tissues which are fresh and
+contain the characteristic bacilli give rise to anthrax when inoculated
+into the blood stream of susceptible animals, but if not used for two
+or three days this effect may not follow.
+
+_Preventive Measures._--Noxious wools of foreign origin sometimes
+include “fallen fleeces,” which are easily recognised; these should be
+picked out, classed apart, and disinfected by steam.
+
+_The Precautionary Regulations_ agreed upon at Bradford in 1884
+were adopted by the Home Office in 1899, and have the force of legal
+enactments. They provide that bales of alpaca, pelitan, cashmere,
+Persian and camel’s hair, shall be opened over a dust-extracting fan,
+so arranged that the current of air shall draw the dust away from any
+workman in the room. Badly-damaged wool or hair, van mohair, “fallen
+fleeces,” and foreign skin wool shall be damped with a disinfectant,
+and then washed without being put through any dust-extracting machine.
+The dust collected by the willows or other dust-extracting machine from
+the open boards--wire-work--shall not be discharged into the open air;
+it shall be removed weekly and afterwards burnt. No person having any
+open cut or sore upon any part of the body shall be allowed to attend
+to any willow or dust-extracting machine. No bale of wool or hair shall
+be stored in a dust-extracting room. Requisites for slight wounds shall
+be kept at hand. Appliances for washing shall be provided for the
+workers in the warehouse and dust-extracting rooms. No meals shall be
+taken in the willowing or carding room. These regulations have had a
+beneficial effect in reducing the number of cases of anthrax, but they
+are not sufficient to eradicate the disease. If bales of noxious wool
+or hair were placed in steamers, and submitted to a steam pressure of
+six pounds to the square inch--230° F.--for a few hours, all bacteria
+would be destroyed. Such a regulation should be enforced wherever
+noxious wools or hairs are used in the United Kingdom.
+
+_Treatment._--It is to be regretted that in such a fatal disease
+so little can be done in the way of treatment. The progress of the
+illness is often so rapid that before a diagnosis can be determined the
+patient is in a hopeless condition. If the patient is seen before any
+signs of collapse are apparent, perhaps the inhalation of non-toxic
+germicides in the form of spray, and the intravenous injections of
+these may give the best chances of success. We may look forward with
+confidence to the time when we shall be able to treat the disease more
+successfully by antitoxines; hitherto these have been used only in
+external cases.
+
+ JOHN HENRY BELL.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XLIV
+
+ RAGS AND THEIR PRODUCTS IN RELATION TO HEALTH
+
+ _Rag-Sorting, Rag-Grinding, Shoddy, Mungo, Flocks,
+ Carbonising or Wool-Extracting_
+
+
+Rags may be roughly divided into two distinct kinds: (1) cotton and
+linen rags; (2) woollen and partly woollen rags. The former are almost
+entirely used by the paper-maker, the latter by the cloth manufacturer.
+It is with the second section that I am here chiefly concerned. Rags,
+as a matter of fact, seem to cause little or no infectious disease to
+those who work among them, except in the case of cotton and linen rags
+used in papermaking, which have been a frequent source of smallpox
+infection. It may be stated that little or no infectious disease is
+introduced among the workers by woollen rags. Woollen rags are of
+two kinds: (1) soft rags, and (2) Mungo rags. Soft rags are largely
+drawn from Scotland. Such rags as stockings, white flannels, stuffs,
+carpets, etc., are included in the term “soft rags.” The “Mungo rag”
+is of two sorts, the “old and the new”: the old, derived from coats,
+vests, trousers, caps, etc., the “new” from clippings of army cloth,
+and tailors’ shreds, etc. The wide world is laid under contribution by
+the rag merchants. Walter White, in his _Month in Yorkshire_, says
+of Batley:--“Hither were brought tatters from pediculous Poland, from
+the gipsies of Hungary, from the peasants and scarecrows of Germany,
+from the frowsy peasants of Muscovy, to say nothing of snips and
+shreds of monks’ gowns and lawyers’ robes, from postillions’ jackets
+and soldiers’ uniforms, from maidens’ bodices and noblemen’s cloaks.
+A vast medley, truly, and all to be manufactured into broadcloth in
+Yorkshire.” Sir George Head, in his _Home Tour_, also alludes to
+Batley and the shoddy trade. This quotation gives one a good idea of
+where rags come from. Rags are collected by travelling tinkers, etc.,
+and by marine store dealers, and by them transmitted to rag merchants,
+who sort them out into different lots according as they are (1) soft,
+and (2) Mungo rags. All linings and seams are removed by the sorters.
+All rags are sorted over what is called a riddle, through which the
+dust falls, at least a part of it. Rag sorters only sit down when
+seaming.
+
+_Effects of Rag-Sorting on Health._--People who sort rags are
+occasionally bronchitic and asthmatic from the dust which rises from
+them, but I have seldom met with this condition in rag sorters,
+although I have known individuals who had to wear respirators when
+sorting. In the case of very dirty rags derived from dust heaps, rags
+which have been exposed to rain in many cases, it is probable that
+after drying, the dust would be of a septic character, and might induce
+sore throat. Rags from surgical hospitals are decidedly dangerous.
+Most persons who work as sorters are infested with fleas, which simply
+swarm among the rags, especially the Mungo variety. Sorters are mostly
+females, and they have sometimes to help to crane up bales of rags into
+warehouses. This frequently produces prolapse of the womb and other
+uterine displacements. It is certainly not suitable work for women. If
+infection ever breaks out among rag-sorters, it generally attacks them
+when a bale is first opened. It is a desideratum that all rags, whether
+of foreign or home origin, should be subjected to disinfection by heat
+before being opened, and this can be effectually accomplished, even in
+the tightly packed bales from abroad. This would have the virtue of
+destroying fleas, while disinfecting the bales.
+
+_Rag-Grinding._--This process is accomplished by means of a swift
+which is really a drum, studded with sharp teeth, which are set very
+close for grinding cloth, and more openly for the transformation of
+soft rags, such as stockings, flannels, etc. These swifts perform six
+or seven hundred revolutions per minute, and the rags are metamorphosed
+into a soft, fluffy, woolly mass. Oil is largely used in this process.
+This prevents dust.
+
+The dust which rises from rag machines consists of particles of wool
+and also of filth adherent to the various kinds of rags. It is highly
+irritating to all the respiratory passages, especially in those who are
+novices at the trade, but older hands become inured to it, and tolerate
+it well. A train of symptoms is developed, called “shoddy fever.” It is
+accompanied by high fever, with nasal catarrh and frontal headache, and
+a certain amount of bronchial catarrh. It is ushered in by shivering,
+malaise, and general muscular pain. It is almost indistinguishable from
+epidemic influenza, and if treated on similar lines, recovery is soon
+secured. The only difference is, that the catarrhal symptoms are the
+result of local irritation, and, consequently, when that is removed,
+the febrile condition soon subsides. Shoddy fever is easily induced
+in persons who have been out of the mill for a few weeks and return
+to work, in persons suffering from general catarrh, or in habitual
+drunkards.
+
+What is known as shoddy is produced from soft rags, and Mungo from
+cloth rags. Flocks of the commoner kind are manufactured from a variety
+of raw material, the refuse of the shoddy trade, while the superior
+qualities are manufactured from a better raw material. For the former,
+the seams of woollen cloth rags, and heavy linsey (mixed wool and
+cotton), such as old dresses, and a variety of other materials, are
+used. The lowest class of flocks are made from old carpets with a
+backing of hemp or other vegetable fibre. Flocks are used for stuffing
+beds and articles of furniture. The raw material is separated in a
+similar manner as in the manufacture of shoddy and Mungo, only in
+flock-making the teeth are shorter and not so sharp. When a shoddy
+machine is worn out, it is sometimes used for flock-making.
+
+_Carbonising._--This process is applied to rags which have a
+certain amount of cotton in them. The cotton is carbonised by means of
+either sulphuric or hydrochloric acid. The former acid is used in a wet
+process, the rags being steeped in a somewhat diluted sulphuric acid,
+at a temperature of 160° to 190° F., then rinsed in water, and dried
+in a stove. In the second or dry process, the rags are heated for some
+hours in an atmosphere of hydrochloric acid gas. By these means the
+cotton fibre is destroyed, and when the rags are beaten it flies off
+as a powdery dust, probably glucose, which is very inflammable, and
+often causes explosions. The above process is also styled “extracting,”
+_i.e._ extracting the wool from fabrics composed of cotton warp,
+and worsted or woollen weft.
+
+Are these various processes inimical to health? Shoddy fever has been
+already considered. Flock fever is also a condition of the flock
+manufacture. Upholsterers, working with flocks, are occasionally
+sufferers from the dust. A few of the workers in shoddy mills suffer
+from bronchitis and emphysema of the lungs, but those who do so are the
+older men who began to work before so much oil was used with the rags.
+The dust is also apt to combine with the wax in the ears and plug them,
+as is the case in any dusty occupation. Granular inflammation of the
+eyelids is also occasionally seen among rag grinders. Acne is common
+through plugging of the sebaceous ducts. Carbonising occasionally
+causes bronchitis and emphysema. Workers in carbonising mills state
+that it is quite the exception for men to be off ill. In one mill which
+I visited, no worker had been off work for more than two days, and the
+mills had been in existence upwards of five years. The glucose product
+from carbonised rags subjected to the “shaking” process is highly
+inflammable, and severe burns are occasioned by the explosion of it in
+the air. These are generally due to carelessness.
+
+_Recommendations._--Dr Parsons, in the Annual Report of the
+Medical Officer of the Local Government Board (Dr George Buchanan) for
+1885, recommends: (1) vaccination and re-vaccination of rag workers;
+(2) ventilation, cleanliness, and avoidance of dust in rag factories;
+(3) disinfection or purification of rags, preferably in the bale.
+Disinfection of rags is at present not very satisfactory, as the steam
+used for disinfection in the bale condenses and ruins the stock. Many
+men in the trade say that no disinfection is necessary, as infection
+seldom or never comes from woollen rags.
+
+ JOHN A. E. STUART.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XLV
+
+ BLANKET STOVING
+
+
+The men who are employed in this branch of blanket making are a fine,
+stalwart set of fellows, broad-set, muscular, and well-coloured in
+complexion, the healthiest-looking workmen, apart from teamers, to
+be seen in the Heavy Woollen District. It is a hereditary occupation
+as a rule. Most of the men are connected by ties of kindred, for
+intermarriage is prevalent. Blanket raisers are, as a rule, long lived,
+the mean age at death of 28 workmen whom I attended in their last
+illness was 64.1 years.
+
+In winter-time, blankets are exposed in a stoving house to brimstone
+fumes. This is intended to bleach the blanket. In summer-time, most
+of the blankets are dried outside. The fixing of these on the tenter
+posts involves an immense amount of stretching. There is considerable
+exertion involved in the raising process, and getting the pile on the
+fabric. In fine weather, the men are in the open a great part of the
+day; but in winter, the stoved blankets are taken out to the tenters,
+when the change from the close, sulphurous atmosphere to a cold and
+damp tenter field is found to be trying even to a strong constitution.
+At some mills, fans are inserted in the roofs of the drying houses to
+take away the fumes; in others, the tenters in the drying house are
+on wheels, and run on rails. These are ladened with blankets in the
+open, and then run in to the sulphurous atmosphere, and after being
+sufficiently dried, are again drawn out to the open, where the blankets
+are taken off the frames without causing the irritating cough and
+semi-suffocation which ensues when men have to enter the dry house
+to remove them. I am informed that, under this last system, it is no
+uncommon thing for a raiser to cough and sneeze until blood comes from
+his mouth or lungs.
+
+The question of whether blanket stoving with brimstone is a dangerous
+trade or not was answered in the negative by the Commissioners
+appointed by Mr Asquith, Home Secretary, before whom I gave evidence
+about five years ago.
+
+As there is a considerable number of these men living near me, and I
+have often conversed with them about the brimstone and the healthiness
+of their occupation, certain matters of interest have come to my
+knowledge. Among these is the fact, that the men almost never die
+from tuberculosis. They seldom, if ever, contract infectious disease.
+As a rule, they imbibe beer very freely, owing to the dryness of the
+mouth and throat produced in the drying house, and by the tremendous
+sweating which results from the enormous loads which they take on their
+shoulders to the tenter field.
+
+Bronchitis and emphysema are the most common diseases among them.
+Of the 28 deaths which I certified among raisers, 10 were due to
+bronchitis; the mean age at death was 64 years. Heart disease
+accounted for 4 deaths, at a mean age of 69.3 years. Three succumbed
+to pneumonia, at a mean age of 49. Two died from phthisis, mean age
+51.5 years. There were two deaths from senile decay, mean age 72 years.
+Influenza claimed 2, mean age 68.5. Typhoid caused one death, at 60
+years; as did prostatic disease, at 68 years. Apoplexy caused death in
+two, mean age 75.5 years. Cerebral softening claimed one at 68 years.
+
+The 28 deaths are as follows:--
+
+ Bronchitis 10
+ Heart Disease 4
+ Pneumonia 3
+ Senile Decay 2
+ Phthisis 2
+ Influenza 2
+ Apoplexy 2
+ Typhoid Fever 1
+ Prostatic Disease 1
+ Cerebral Softening 1
+ --
+ 28
+ ==
+
+Seeing that the mean age at death at all ages in England is 29 years,
+and that of blanket raisers is 64.1, one is scarcely justified in
+regarding it as a trade which is injurious to health.
+
+Efficient ventilation and the establishment of the running tenter
+described above, and figured in the Blue Book issued by the Commission,
+are all that is necessary.
+
+ JOHN A. E. STUART.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XLVI
+
+ JUTE
+
+
+The commercial fibre jute is obtained from the following species of
+Corchorus--_Corchorus Capsularis_, grown mostly in Northern, Central,
+and Eastern Bengal, and _Corchorus Olitarus_, raised in the vicinity of
+Calcutta. The great bulk of the fibre is obtained, however, from the
+former variety.
+
+The plant may be described as a long wand, from 8 to 10 feet in height,
+and of the thickness of one’s finger at the bottom. The stem is smooth,
+and more or less branched towards the top, bearing vivid green leaves
+and yellow flowers. It possesses an outside covering of hard bark;
+underneath this is the commercial fibre, and within the latter a pithy
+stick.
+
+Jute is an annual, and appears to be capable of cultivation in almost
+any kind of soil, but is grown to best advantage upon that of a loamy
+nature, or on rich clay and sand. The coarser and larger plants are
+cultivated chiefly upon the “churs” or mud banks, and islands formed
+by the rivers, while others are raised upon submerged lands and in
+salt-impregnated soils. A hot, damp climate, such as is found in the
+vast delta of the Ganges, and Brahmapootra, with annual heavy rains
+and inundations, fulfils the conditions under which jute can be
+successfully cultivated. In November or December the soil is ploughed
+over five or six times, the clods broken up, pulverised, and at the
+final ploughing the weeds are collected, dried, and burned. The seeds
+are sown during the months of April, May, and June, according to the
+district, and covered over with a thin sprinkling of earth. Germination
+takes place in from three to seven days, and when the plants rise a
+few inches above the ground, the cultivator weeds and thins them out,
+ultimately leaving a space of, approximately, 6 inches between each.
+
+The crop is considered to be in season for cutting when the flowers
+appear during August and September. By this time the plants have
+attained a height of from 8 to 10, or even in some instances, 17 feet.
+The stems are cut with knives close to the ground, tied up in bundles,
+and removed to the steeping or “retting” pond.
+
+The system of “retting,” as practised by the natives of India, consists
+in steeping the plants in stagnant pools or tanks for from two to
+twenty-five days. Weights are placed above the bundles to ensure that
+all the material may be submerged. The stagnant water thus used for
+steeping purposes has a strong and somewhat offensive smell, which,
+however, is not remarked in the fibre itself, and the fetid liquid is
+valuable as a manure.
+
+To ascertain that the process is complete, the cultivator has to
+visit the tank daily, and test the fibre to see that it has begun
+to separate from the stem or pith. In removing the fibre from the
+woody portion the operator, standing waist deep in the tank, seizes
+a bundle of stems in his left hand, beats the ends out flat, turning
+the bundle deftly meantime, and then breaks the stems about eighteen
+inches from the point, first one way and then another. A little more
+manipulation, and the short sticks at the end fall out, leaving the
+fibre clear. The remaining portion is separated in a somewhat similar
+manner. The operator then, striking the surface repeatedly with the
+fibre, and drawing it through towards him, relieves it of any remaining
+impurities. By a dexterous throw he next spreads it on the surface of
+the water, and picks off any remaining black spots or hard patches.
+
+It is then wrung out and hung on bamboos to dry in the sun, when it is
+ready for the market.
+
+The fibre for exportation is bought by dealers, shipped to Calcutta,
+and made up into hydraulically-compressed bales of about 400 pounds
+weight, lashed round with ropes made of strong jute, the various
+qualities being distinguished by different marks affixed to the bales.
+
+Jute is now a source of considerable revenue to the Indian Government,
+about 3,500,000 bales being exported annually to Europe and America,
+and over 2,900,000 bales manufactured into cloth and sacks in and
+around Calcutta. The distribution of the exported material is
+approximately as follows:--
+
+ To the United Kingdom 1,900,000 bales.
+ To the Continent 1,000,000 „
+ To America 500,000 „
+
+Dundee is the chief seat of jute manufacturing in the United Kingdom,
+only a very small proportion of the material imported being operated
+upon elsewhere. According to the latest procurable statistics there
+are slightly over 43,000 persons employed in the industry, and of
+this number quite 40,000 are engaged in and around Dundee, almost
+three-fourths of these being women. The figures do not include several
+hundreds who make up cloth into bags--a separate industry. Indirectly,
+the staple trade gives employment to a considerable number of persons,
+such as shuttle-makers, bobbin-turners, hackle-makers, yarn-bleachers,
+etc., and practically supports about 1000 sack-sewers who are
+out-workers.
+
+Jute as imported consists of coils or bundles of fibre of a pale
+yellowish colour, and possesses a faint yet not unpleasant, though
+characteristic, smell. It cards and spins easily when properly treated
+with oil and water, the yarn produced being relatively coarse, fairly
+strong, and is much sold as twine, the output of this article amounting
+to hundreds of tons per annum. The bulk of the yarn spun, however, is
+woven into what are termed “Hessians,” plain jute cloth of various
+widths up to four yards. This material is seen everywhere, and is
+constantly used for packing and wrapping goods of all descriptions. A
+certain amount of cloth is cut up into suitable lengths and sewn into
+sacks.
+
+Jute sacks are required for holding all kinds of material; they are
+cheap and strong, and although they rapidly deteriorate if exposed to
+wet, they are, owing to their low price, easily replaced.
+
+Jute fibre takes kindly to most dyes, and this characteristic allows
+of its being largely used in the manufacture of carpets and rugs. A
+large trade has grown up in this department, fabrics being produced of
+beautiful designs and brilliant colouring. Jute is also interwoven with
+cotton and other textiles, but it does not readily spin with any fibre
+of an elastic nature.
+
+The inelasticity of the fibre is a distinct drawback, affecting the
+utility of the articles manufactured, and although the durability of
+the fabric is great if kept dry, the colours are fugitive.
+
+The first operation in the process of the manufacture of jute consists
+in cutting the binding ropes of the bale, and opening out the hard,
+compressed material. This is invariably done by hand, and immediately
+afterwards the fibre, still in a compressed state, is passed through
+between four heavy deeply-fluted rollers intersecting each other,
+which open the material somewhat and facilitate its disentanglement,
+before it is placed on the feeding table of the softener. During these
+processes, while the fibre is in a dry condition, a considerable
+quantity of dust is shaken out, much of it being of a gritty nature,
+and consisting largely of fine particles of the sand or mud in which
+the plant grows. The latter impurities adhere to the rooty portion
+of the plant, but become dispersed when the fibre is shaken out and
+disturbed. It is in this dust that tetanus spores have been found in
+very considerable quantities.
+
+Once placed on the softener, the fibre passes through a long series
+of spirally fluted rollers, pressure being brought to bear on the top
+row by means of springs. Hot water and oil are applied to the material
+during the progress along the machine, care being taken to spread the
+liquids evenly.
+
+This moistening of the fibre is rendered necessary owing to its
+inherent brittle nature. Although this application of oil and water is
+to facilitate the subsequent manipulation of the material, it serves a
+beneficial purpose in reducing to an enormous extent the quantity of
+dust which would otherwise be diffused in carding and other processes.
+As matters at present stand, the preparing operations in jute factories
+are much more dusty than subsequent processes, but the particles thrown
+off in carding, drawing, and rove-spinning are more of a light fluffy
+nature, and prove less irritating to the respiratory organs than the
+gritty dust evolved in handling the dry jute. After the material has
+been effectively softened, and while in a slightly moist condition,
+it is fed into the “breaker” card. Here, owing to the splitting and
+combing action of the rapidly running card teeth, many rooty particles
+and other impurities are removed, but the heavier matter falls below
+the machines, from which it is taken away periodically, so that only
+the lighter dust rises, and is breathed by the operators.
+
+When delivered from the “breaker” it is passed over the “finisher”
+card, but less dust if possible is evolved in the second carding. To
+equalise the thickness of the jute sliver as it emerges from the cards,
+and to lay the fibres parallel, the material is passed over drawing
+frames, and, when delivered, is spun by roving machines into “rove,”
+that is, thick loosely-twisted yarn. The twist given is just sufficient
+to keep the fibre together during its treatment in the spinning frame,
+before the actual twist is administered which completes it as finished
+yarn.
+
+The operations subsequent to carding evolve little dust relatively, but
+owing to the excessive speed of spinning frame flyers, and the friction
+on the yarn, very light fluffy particles are continually rising in
+spinning rooms, so that the atmosphere becomes charged with extremely
+fine portions of fibre. All horizontal surfaces, and the clothing and
+hair of the workers in these departments, soon become coated with this
+dust.
+
+The yarn intended for weft is never dressed, but is wound or built up
+into solid “cops” for insertion in the shuttle. It is so coiled in
+the cop as to unwind regularly and easily when in the shuttle, but is
+still of sufficient firmness to withstand handling without collapsing.
+The warp yarn is wound into solid balls, or on large bobbins, and
+thereafter arranged upon angular frames at each end of the dressing
+machines.
+
+The dressing, the basis of which consists mostly of flour, is contained
+in troughs affixed to the machines, the yarn passing through the
+liquid, and then round steam-heated cylinders to ensure its thorough
+dryness before being wound on the weaving beam. As in the dressing
+of linen yarn, considerable heat is constantly maintained in the
+departments of factories apportioned for this purpose. The cylinders,
+round which the damp yarn passes, radiate heat, and where the ceilings
+of the rooms are low, or the cubic capacity restricted, much discomfort
+is occasioned in summer, unless exhaust fans, or wide-opened windows,
+are arranged for. The beams when filled are removed, and inserted in
+the looms, the “dressed” or starched yarns constituting the warp of the
+woven fabric.
+
+The weaving of jute cloth calls for little comment or description, the
+process being of the simplest character, except where figured carpets
+are woven. This work is comparatively pleasant and clean. To give
+finish to the cloth, calendering is necessary. The webs are passed
+through ponderous machines, known as either calenders or mangles; hot
+rollers and heavy pressure, combined with the dressing in the yarn,
+effecting an evenness to the fabric, and, if necessary, a gloss to the
+surface.
+
+
+ _Health Conditions._
+
+The factories in Great Britain engaged in manufacturing jute are,
+with few exceptions, rather superior. Many of them are on the shed
+or one-floor system. They were built at a time when the industry was
+extremely remunerative, and much capital was sunk in substantial and
+well-designed premises. The shed construction with the saw-tooth roof
+is advantageous from many standpoints, facilitating the maintenance of
+an equable temperature, the free ingress of air through roof openings,
+while providing an abundance of light throughout. The latter advantage
+is important, when one considers the liability to accident which
+constant attendance on, and manipulation of, intricate mechanisms
+necessitate. Jute machinery is very similar to that utilised in the
+manufacture of flax, the various machines (with the exception of
+softeners and openers) differing only in small details, necessary owing
+to the greater length and relative coarseness of the former fibre.
+The liability to accidents is slightly greater in the manufacture
+of jute than in any other textile industry, to judge by the annual
+returns of casualties. This is partially due to the fact that the
+older types of machines have been fitted with crude and ineffective
+protections, to improve which requires much careful and systematic
+supervision, and partially to the proportionately large number of
+insignificant accidents, hitherto found unpreventable, occasioned by
+the oscillating slays of looms, which, though slight in themselves,
+are yet sufficiently serious to bring them just within the category of
+reportable accidents.
+
+By slight alterations in the construction of certain machines and
+additions to the existing fencing of spinning, drawing frames and
+cards, certain kinds of accidents have been completely stamped out.
+Thus, since the insistence on travelling feed and delivery sheets
+or webs for jute softeners, a type of accident always severe, and
+often fatal, has entirely disappeared. Before these safeguards were
+introduced the operatives were frequently entangled in the long
+jute fibre in feeding or attending the delivery end of the machine,
+and instantly drawn forward and mangled by the rapid-running fluted
+rollers. As might be expected young persons are the commonest victims
+of factory accidents, owing to their ignorance and indiscretion. A
+careful note of all such casualties has revealed lurking dangers in
+certain machines, and where these have been effectually protected,
+accidents decrease in number and in seriousness. Since shuttle-guards
+have become universal, the annual return of injuries from flying
+shuttles has decreased to less than half the former figure. The
+liability to tetanus of persons injured in jute manufactories makes the
+adequate and effective protection of all dangerous mechanism, even to
+the minutest details, of the utmost importance.
+
+The dirtiest and most objectionable processes in the manufacture of
+the material are undoubtedly those of preparing and spinning. The
+remuneration of the operatives in these departments is considerably
+less than that earned by the weavers. Thus a distinctly lower class
+of employés engage in the former processes, the more self-respecting
+taking up weaving as a means of livelihood.
+
+Where the finer qualities of fibre are treated, the amount of dust
+evolved is comparatively small, and the factories fairly clean; but
+in the coarser varieties it becomes excessive, and the whole premises
+assume a dirty and objectionable aspect.
+
+It may be of interest to observe here that many women engaged in the
+preparing and spinning operations of jute manufacture habitually snuff,
+presumably to rid the nostrils of dust. The custom is rarely observed
+among women outside Dundee.
+
+The prevention of the dispersal of dust in carding and spinning is
+extremely difficult, for it appears to rise, more or less, from the
+fibre, wherever it is sufficiently disturbed, and from any number
+of points, even in one room. Exhaust fans, however, when placed
+immediately above the softening machines, and properly erected,
+undoubtedly remove much of the fine gritty particles shaken out of the
+raw material, and where a hood is arranged above the exact seat of dust
+production, and communicates with a fan, there is little to complain of.
+
+This particular dust from the raw material is most irritating to
+breathe, and is presumably injurious, but fortunately few persons in
+any one mill come in contact with it.
+
+The ample cubic space of most carding departments greatly counteracts
+the injurious effects of this ever-present dust; and indeed, in
+establishments where very fine material is spun, it is scarcely
+noticeable. The prevailing high temperature of spinning departments,
+together with the crowded arrangement of the frames and the number of
+workers congregated in a limited floor space, makes such rooms somewhat
+disagreeable to work in, and the occupation is increasingly unpopular.
+The friction of the numerous small bearings, and especially that
+generated by the temper bands on the bobbins, raises the temperature to
+30 or more degrees above that existing outside, and maintains it thus
+even when the outer air has fairly free ingress. This over-heating of
+the spinning room is a constant source of trouble, and is difficult
+to regulate. A temperature of 80° is common in the coldest weather,
+and persists at times, even when many windows are open. The provision
+of exhaust fans in premises where high temperatures were hitherto
+troublesome has, however, effected a distinct improvement. The
+application of oil, already referred to, reduces the tendency of the
+material to give off dust, but the subsequent operations disperse fine
+particles of fibre throughout the workrooms. The oily jute gives to
+the preparing departments a somewhat peculiar and rather offensive
+odour, and where the atmosphere is abnormally heated, creates a feeling
+of closeness.
+
+During the month of March 1900, samples of air were taken from
+three selected mills in Dundee, at various times, and in different
+atmospheric conditions. Two of the selected establishments were
+considered as typical of badly ventilated premises; the third, for
+contrast, was one of the most modern and airy factories in the
+city. Although the high winds which prevailed during the period
+of testing may detract from the assumption that the figures are
+really representative of the usual conditions, still after making
+all allowances it must be presumed that they approximately indicate
+the true condition of the inside atmospheres. Samples were procured
+from two of the mills on a Sunday about mid-day, a period of about
+twenty-four hours having elapsed since any workers had been in the
+premises.
+
+The windows in both cases were all closed, and, on the day in question,
+a fresh cold wind prevailed.
+
+The result showed a very pure atmosphere--3.1 and 3.3 volumes of CO_{2}
+respectively per 10,000 volumes of air.
+
+The following day, samples were secured in the two establishments and
+from a third between 1 and 2 P.M. (the meal hour being from
+2 to 3 P.M.), and again just before the factories stopped
+running, namely, between 5 and 6 P.M.
+
+The following table gives the results:--
+
+ +--------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+
+ | | No. of Samples. |
+ | +---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
+ | | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
+ +--------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
+ |Time |1.30 p.m.|1.40 p.m.|1.55 p.m.|5.15 p.m.|5.30 p.m.|5.50 p.m.|
+ |Selected room |Spinning |Spinning |Spinning | Spinning| Spinning| Spinning|
+ |Total cubic contents| 462,840 | 100,383 | 83,856 | 462,840 | 100,383 | 83,856 |
+ |Number of Persons | | | | | | |
+ | employed | 300 | 150 | 83 | 300 | 150 | 83 |
+ |Cubic space per | | | | | | |
+ | head | 1542 | 669 | 1010 | 1542 | 669 | 1010 |
+ |Temperature:-- | | | | | | |
+ | Inside | 70° | 77° | 77° | 75° | 81.5° | 83° |
+ | Outside | 41° | 41° | 41° | 40° | 40° | 40° |
+ |Ventilation | Natural | Natural | Natural | Natural | Natural | Natural |
+ | | windows | windows | windows | windows | windows | windows |
+ | | ¼ open | ½ open | ⅓ open | ¼ open | ⅓ open | ⅓ open |
+ |No. of Factory | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
+ |Carbonic acid in | | | | | | |
+ | 10,000 vols. of | | | | | | |
+ | air | 5.4 | 7.0 | 7.5 | 7.0 | 9.8 | 9.0 |
+ +--------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
+
+Factory No. 1 was of modern construction and built on the one-floor
+system. The relative purity of the sample is noticeable as compared
+with Nos. 2 and 3, both old premises with low ceilings. There was no
+artificial lighting in either case, consequently the carbonic acid
+present must have been entirely due to respiration. Other examinations
+of samples obtained from both spinning and weaving rooms show almost
+similar results, except that the weaving sheds were purer, owing to
+their ample cubic space, and the temperature, as is always the case,
+considerably lower.
+
+In the instance of factory No. 1, carding, spinning, and winding
+were all proceeding under one roof, 300 persons being at work, as
+will be seen from a reference to the table. Had gas as an illuminant
+been burning for even a short time in any of the premises examined
+the proportion of CO_{2} would presumably have been higher. This is
+supported by the analysis of air in a dressmaker’s workroom, selected
+at 8 P.M. There were ten persons at work, three large gas jets
+burning (lit for two hours), and 259 cubic feet capacity per head.
+An examination of the sample showed the proportion of CO_{2} to be
+26.4 per 10,000 volumes of air: temperature inside 73°, outside 41°F.
+Electric light is now the illuminant in almost all the jute factories
+of any size, and a distinct improvement in the condition of the inside
+atmospheres has resulted. Unquestionably the high temperatures of
+spinning rooms are distinctly harmful, perhaps more so than is usually
+imagined; in fact, the writer from close observation of operatives in
+various parts of the country and in dissimilar industries, exposed
+persistently to warm atmospheres, is of opinion that a general lowering
+of the health (in certain instances marked) very frequently follows
+such employment. The effects of constantly breathing warm air, quite
+apart from the liability to chills which such atmospheres engender, are
+worthy of closer study and scientific investigation. Certainly exposure
+to great radiated heat, if the air is not particularly warm, does not
+affect workmen in a similar manner.
+
+As has been already remarked, the weaving of jute is apparently
+a healthy occupation, judging from the general appearance of the
+operatives. The wage of the weaver enables her to occupy a comfortable
+home, and ensures a sufficiency of suitable food. The same may be said
+of the sack-sewers, who, like the weavers, usually work in premises
+kept at a reasonable temperature, and present a ruddy and robust
+appearance.
+
+With reference to the subject of tetanus, no more authoritative
+statement can be submitted than that of H.M. Medical Inspector of
+Factories, Dr T. Morison Legge, and his remarks are accordingly quoted
+from the Annual Report of H.M. Chief Inspectors of Factories for the
+year 1899:--
+
+“When visiting Dundee in February, my attention was called by the
+district inspector, Mr Wilson, to the fact that within the preceding
+twelve months two fatal cases of tetanus had occurred in one jute
+mill. It occurred to me that possibly the soil of the alluvial land in
+which the jute was grown in Bengal might be rich in tetanus bacilli,
+and the incidence of tetanus on jute workers in Dundee therefore be
+attributable to spores brought over in the mud adhering to the jute
+fibres.
+
+“In April a woman climbed up upon the travelling feed-sheet of a
+jute-softening machine while it was in motion. Her foot was caught
+between the ingathering fluted iron rollers, and was severely crushed
+and lacerated. Tetanus ensued on about the sixth day after the
+accident, and proved fatal within twenty-four hours. A sample of dust
+was collected from under the machine, and was submitted to Dr Andrewes
+of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, for bacteriological examination. He
+found tetanus bacilli undoubtedly present in the dust, probably in
+considerable numbers, and stated that it was unusual to be able to
+demonstrate tetanus bacilli in such numbers, and with such ease as he
+had been able to do.
+
+“The point having considerable scientific interest, as showing possibly
+the same connection between tetanus and jute as is known to exist
+between anthrax and wool-sorting, and further in emphasising the
+necessity of careful fencing of machinery, I collected, eight months
+later, four other samples of jute from factories in Dundee, and one
+sample of Russian hemp dust to serve as a control. In three of the
+samples of jute dust, Dr Andrewes reported that tetanus bacilli were
+present, but that he could not demonstrate their presence in the sample
+of hemp dust.
+
+“One of the samples in which the bacilli were present was taken from
+under the same machine where eight months previously the accident had
+occurred. During the interval the original sample, which Dr Andrewes
+had retained, appeared to have lost its virulence.
+
+“At the end of December an accident occurred in a jute mill resulting
+in severe injury to the wrist of a worker. Tetanus developed twenty-six
+days later, and as has frequently been
+
+noted in cases where the incubation period is prolonged more than three
+weeks, did not prove fatal. Some dust was collected six weeks after the
+accident from near the place where it occurred, and was examined with
+negative results.
+
+“Dr Andrewes’ experiments prove unquestionably that tetanus spores
+must be present in incredible numbers in much of the dust in jute
+mills. Fortunately, the disease cannot be brought about like anthrax by
+inhalation, nor does it develop, as a rule, except as the result of a
+mixed infection.
+
+“In the ten years 1890–99, 11 fatal cases of traumatic tetanus have
+been recorded in Dundee. Five of these were workers in jute mills. Of
+the remaining six, one, aged six, was the son of a yarn-dresser, a
+second, aged eight, the son of a mill overseer, and a third, aged one,
+the daughter of a yard-beamer. The possibility of the tetanus in their
+cases having been brought about by the dust in their parents’ clothing,
+or in jute material worked at home, is not excluded. In the other three
+cases there does not appear to have been any connection with jute.
+
+“While not wishing to lay too much stress on the matter, seeing that
+tetanus germs are to be found in almost every sample of garden mould,
+I think the figures do show a special incidence of tetanus on jute
+workers, and I attribute it, as I have said, to the soil in which the
+jute is grown being particularly rich in the bacilli.
+
+“In India, tetanus is much commoner than it is in this country, and I
+am informed that one of the most prominent fears before the surgeon’s
+mind in treating a severe lacerated wound is the possibility of tetanus
+supervening. Inquiry is being made in India as to the incidence of
+tetanus among jute workers there.”
+
+Investigations reveal a predisposition among factory workers, and
+particularly those employed in spinning and preparing rooms, to
+develop respiratory troubles--broncho-pneumonia, chronic bronchitis,
+and pulmonary emphysema, being the most prominent. There is also a
+singularly large number of patients admitted to the local infirmary
+suffering from lobar pneumonia. Rheumatism is an extremely common
+ailment, and can be partially accounted for by the great variations of
+temperature which operatives have frequently to withstand. Multiple
+tuberculous lesions are frequently observed in the children of the
+poorer operatives, and thus one finds from time to time young persons
+at work, with portions of the hands amputated on account of scrofulous
+or tuberculous diseases of the bones. Slight deafness is widespread
+among
+
+jute operatives, but other textile workers may be afflicted in a
+similar degree. The excessive noise of jute-weaving looms, and the
+persistent loud hum of spinning frames presumably account for much of
+this. The looms, owing to their large size, and the weight and high
+speed of the shuttles, are particularly noisy. The possibility of the
+dust inducing the formation of an obstruction with the waxy secretion
+of the ear is not excluded; indeed the fine light particles of fibre
+readily accumulate in the external auditory canal.
+
+A hoarseness or huskiness of voice is met with frequently, and is
+especially marked in preparing and spinning operatives. Whether
+this is due to overstraining of the voice, shouting above the noise
+of the machinery, or to dust irritation of the vocal chords, has
+never been clearly demonstrated. Anæmia in its commonest forms is a
+frequent ailment among all the operatives, but doubtless careless and
+injudicious feeding contributes to this condition of health.
+
+An illness locally known as “mill fever” attacks about one-fourth of
+the persons who commence labour in factories for the first time. The
+symptoms make their appearance a few days after work is started, and
+take the form of one or more of the following: headache, backache,
+lassitude, thirst, and slight fever. The attack lasts about from three
+to four days, and yields to antifebrile medicines followed by tonics.
+It has been observed that the patients are usually young people, and
+are frequently of weak constitution, or badly nourished.
+
+In drawing definite conclusions as to the incidence of these
+ailments in jute operatives, one is confronted by the difficulty of
+differentiating between what is caused by the industry, and what is the
+natural result of poor feeding and bad housing. No absolutely reliable
+statistics have yet been compiled relating to the health conditions of
+the workers; indeed there is much scope for further research in this
+direction.
+
+The low physical and social condition of a section of the operatives is
+a marked feature of this industry. The class alluded to is generally
+distinctly diminutive in appearance, being of light weight as well as
+of short stature. For the most part they are employed in the relatively
+disagreeable processes, namely, preparing and spinning, and, as before
+mentioned, they earn smaller wages than weavers. It is needless to say
+that most of this class are indifferently housed. At the census return
+of 1891 there were 22,206 persons living in single-roomed houses in
+Dundee, an
+
+average of 2.6 per house. Of two-roomed houses there were 17,834,
+containing 81,488 inmates, an average of 4.56 per house. Generally
+speaking, the single-roomed abodes shelter the worst paid operatives.
+These single rooms are at times badly crowded, and the sanitary
+accommodation, if such exists at all, in spite of extensive
+improvements effected in recent years, is often an open manure heap,
+the tenants using pails for house refuse, etc.
+
+Typhus fever is almost constantly prevalent in Dundee, 39 cases
+occurring in 1899, with 5 deaths, and up to the 13th November 1900, 49
+cases, 6 terminating fatally. These figures may indicate to a certain
+extent the amount of destitution and overcrowding which exists.
+
+The infantile death-rate is high, the figures for the last few years
+being as follows:--For 1897, 194; 1898, 181; 1899, 169 per 1000 births.
+The lamentable neglect of young infants leaves its impress on the
+children who survive, many of them presenting a puny and delicate
+appearance when applying for employment at twelve years of age.
+
+The poverty or greed of the parents drives these children, the most
+undersized and least able to withstand the injurious effects of a
+factory life, to work at the earliest possible age, and the indoor life
+discourages growth and development.
+
+The reports of the inspectors of jute mills in East India show that
+the industry is considered there to have no particularly deleterious
+effects on health. The mills, however, are built with very high roofs,
+and are largely open to the sky. The climate permits of this, and
+accordingly the ventilation gives no trouble. Another fact has to be
+borne in mind in comparing Indian operatives with those employed at
+home. The former are migratory, only remaining a year or two at the
+industry, and, presumably, insufficient time is given for any injurious
+effects to betray themselves; whereas in Scotland, the bulk of a
+lifetime is spent by a worker in a jute factory.
+
+ HARRY J. WILSON.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XLVII
+
+ LAUNDRY WORKERS
+
+
+Thousands of women and girls are employed every week in the useful
+office of cleansing and making fresh the garments stained in the
+daily stress and toil of life, and the impression is probably a
+correct one--though it is impossible to support it by statistics--that
+“washing,” in the sense of laundry work, affords occupation to at least
+as large a number of women as does any other industry in the country.
+
+The industry embraces perhaps as wide a range of methods as any other
+that could be mentioned. The disparity between that of the woman who
+“takes in a little washing” and that of the huge “Sanitary Laundry”
+owned by a Limited Company, and equipped with power-driven machinery
+which yearly becomes more complicated, is indeed great. But the engine
+wins, and it seems clear that before long the whole industry will
+become one of organised factory-labour with some survivals of the other
+system, just as in the textile trades a few rough wooden hand-looms
+and picturesque spinning-wheels still linger in the more out-of-way
+districts.
+
+“To take in washing” has for so long appeared to be an occupation
+mainly reserved as a resource for the woman bereft of her
+“breadwinner,” or deprived by circumstances of other means of
+livelihood, that many people still look on “laundry work” from this
+point of view. It is perhaps difficult to realise that the radical
+change which has everywhere transformed industrial conditions has
+already affected this occupation also, and that for good or for
+evil the washerwoman is passing under the influences which have
+so profoundly modified the circumstances of her sister of the
+spinning-wheel and the sewing needle. When the first washing machine
+and ironing roller were applied to this occupation, alteration in the
+conditions became as much a foregone conclusion as it did in the case
+of the textile or the clothing manufactures, when the spinning frame,
+the power loom, or the sewing machine appeared.
+
+Meanwhile, few industries afford at the present time a more interesting
+study. From a simple home occupation it is steadily being transformed
+by the application of power-driven machinery and by the division of
+labour into a highly organised factory industry, in which complicated
+labour-saving contrivances of all kinds play a prominent part. The
+tremendous impetus in the adoption of machinery, and the consequent
+modification of the system of employment so striking in the large
+laundries, is not greater than the less obvious but even more important
+development in the same direction among small laundries. Indeed the
+difference is rapidly becoming one of degree only. In the large
+laundries may be found perhaps more machinery and a greater number
+of the newest devices, but the fundamental change has affected all
+alike. “At one time it was only in a few large steam laundries that
+machinery was to be met with, now it is no uncommon thing to find a row
+of houses in separate occupation, the back yard of each of which is
+roofed in and packed with laundry machinery, all driven by an engine
+installed at one end of the row. The old-fashioned ‘washerwoman’ is
+fast disappearing, and is superseded by the enterprising young ‘laundry
+proprietor,’ who, turning the tubs out of the back kitchen, fills their
+place with ‘washing machines,’ and connecting them with a little gas
+engine (tightly wedged into the dark broom cupboard under the stairs),
+blossoms forth as the owner of ‘a factory laundry,’ ready to deal with
+six times the amount of work that his predecessor could hope to cope
+with, and to compete feverishly with scores of similarly equipped
+rivals.”[148]
+
+One result of this haphazard adaptation of old conditions to new
+circumstances is an undesirable anomaly between the two. The small
+unsuitable premises, never designed for house machinery, quiver and
+shake under the unaccustomed strain; and the little rooms, “ventilated”
+by windows only, are ill suited for operations which produce quantities
+of steam and an abnormal temperature. Not seldom the ambitious
+“proprietor” himself is lamentably ignorant of the capacities and
+possibilities of the machinery of which he is the proud possessor.
+“Since the guv’nor tied the old box-mangle up to the new engine,
+she has taken to leapin’ back and forrards that alarmin’ and that
+sudden-like, that it’s a wonder I’ve not been caught out sooner nor
+I was.” The remark, which is recorded by the Factory Inspector who
+investigated the resulting accident, epitomises quaintly the situation
+in many a small laundry. Everywhere machinery is to be found, even in
+the smallest hand laundry. The hand-turned washing machine stands among
+the wash-tubs, and as soon as funds permit will be coupled up to a tiny
+gas engine, which in time will give place to a larger one.
+
+“Side by side with this development in the smaller laundries is to
+be found the rapid multiplication of large laundry companies and
+syndicates, certain of which own as many as a dozen or more fine
+well-equipped steam laundries fitted up with the latest ingenious
+inventions in labour-saving machinery, and organised into ‘departments’
+in which the division of labour is at least as marked a feature as
+it is in the majority of non-textile factories. In such places a
+single shirt will pass through seven or eight different machines in
+the process of ironing alone. In place of the elderly married woman
+or widow, we find skilled engineers in charge of a shed full of
+machinery still called familiarly the ‘wash-house,’ while scores of
+girls and young women, from thirteen years upwards, tend the various
+kinds of ironing machines, with exactly the same mechanical precision
+and routine as in any other factory. Even in those departments where
+machinery is not required, the labour is organised and regulated as in
+an ordinary factory, the sorters have their staff of ‘markers,’ and the
+‘dryers’ fill and empty with almost automatic regularity the series of
+drying closets through which hot air is driven by propulsion fans. With
+this advent of machinery and subdivision of labour, the whole character
+of the industry has changed. It is becoming more and more evident that,
+from the smallest to the largest laundry, the industry is passing--has
+indeed in some respects already passed--out of the peculiar position
+which it has hitherto occupied, and is taking its place alongside
+ordinary trades.”[149]
+
+The manufacture of laundry machinery, to which much energy and capital
+is devoted, is every year increasing. New and ingenious inventions and
+improvements constantly appear, many of which come from America, whence
+a considerable amount of this machinery is imported. The adaptation to
+laundry work of the “hydro-extractor,” a powerful drying machine much
+used in bleaching and dye-works, has greatly expedited the laundry
+process. This machine consists of a round perforated metal “cage”
+or “basket,” which revolves at an enormous speed (500 to over 1500
+revolutions a minute) inside an iron or steel case, in shape like a
+huge round pot standing 2 or 3 feet high; the wet clothes are packed
+into the “basket,” and during its rapid revolutions the water is
+driven out of them by centrifugal force through the perforations into
+the outer casing, on the same principle as water from a mop which is
+trundled. As may be imagined, the terrific velocity and vibration of
+such a machine is an element of danger, and in the event of a cast-iron
+case bursting, the fragments are hurled with a force which will wreck
+the room or shed in which it stands, and prove fatal to any bystander.
+
+In the same way the “calender machine” has been adapted to laundry
+work, and is now commonly found in quite small laundries; it consists
+of huge steam or gas heated cylinders, varying from 4 to 8 or 9 feet
+long, either revolving singly in a metal bed, as in the case of the
+“decoudun,” or on each other, as in the case of the multiple-roller
+calenders. The machine is tended by quite young girls from thirteen
+years old and upwards, who stand in front to “feed” the edge of the
+material into the “bite” of the rollers or over the “lip” of the
+decoudun. The linen is gradually drawn in under the hot, revolving
+rollers, which thus “iron” it smooth and glossy, a cloud of steam
+arising as each damp article passes under the roller. Constant care is
+required to so put the work under the machine that the hands are not
+also drawn under; want of attention may be followed by an accident, and
+even where care is exercised the fingers may be entangled in a string
+or hole in the material and the hand thus drawn in. The heat given off
+by these machines is sometimes very great; a temperature of over 90° F.
+may be registered even in winter on the feeding-step in front of this
+machine, at which little girls stand all day long.
+
+It would be difficult to enumerate in detail all the various machines
+and appliances now used in laundries; washing machines in endless and
+bewildering variety, hydro-extractors, mangling and starching machines,
+calenders, collar and cuff-ironers, shirt-bosom polishers, blouse
+ironers, skirt ironers, body-linen ironers, curling machines (to give
+the desired curl to collars), gophering-machines (which give the wave
+to frills), electric or gas-heated irons and drying closets, through
+which hot blasts are driven by mechanical “fans,” are some of the
+contrivances which are in common use.
+
+The change in the nature of the occupation is naturally accompanied
+by a change in the conditions of work which now assimilate in all but
+the degree of legislative regulation to those in ordinary factories
+or workshops. As in other industries, the adoption of machinery
+has resulted in a large increase in the employment of young and of
+comparatively unskilled labour, for girls of fourteen or sixteen years
+can tend machines, the operations of which, if accomplished by hand,
+could only be undertaken by older or more skilled workers. Where only
+one girl under eighteen years was employed eight or nine years ago, now
+dozens are to be found as machine tenders.
+
+In endeavouring to present as saliently as possible the most striking
+feature of the present position of this trade, namely, its development
+into a factory industry, and the strides with which it is ranging
+itself alongside others in this respect, reference has been purposely
+delayed to that section which, though relatively decreasing, is
+still of course large, in which only hand labour is employed. Here
+the interesting feature is the steady decrease in the size of the
+average hand-laundry. Large hand-laundries are becoming rare, for,
+unless they do a peculiar class of work, they cannot hope to compete
+with similar or smaller-sized ones in which mechanical power is
+employed. On the other hand, the very small hand-laundries, where
+from one to five or six women are employed, still of course exist
+in large numbers, and are for the most part carried on in little
+dwelling-houses. The house-mother who endeavours to support her
+family by tailoring, shirtmaking, boot-closing, knitting, artificial
+flower-making, or by handwork of any kind carried on in her own living
+rooms, may feel assured that, uncomfortable and wretched as her home
+may in consequence become, it is and must be infinitely less wretched,
+unhealthy, and disorganised than the home of the woman who in a small
+town dwelling-house takes in washing as a means of livelihood. The
+discomforts of the family “wash day” are extended to all the other
+days in the week, and are increased tenfold. It is impossible to wash
+without creating steam, which makes the air heavy and condenses on
+ceilings, walls, and furniture, saturating them with a clammy moisture.
+It is impossible to “dry” in smoky towns during the greater part of the
+year except under cover, and the flapping wet material hung all day
+and all night across the rooms, the passages, or the tiny backyard,
+excludes air and light, even apart from the other objections. It is
+impossible to iron without fire or stoves which raise the temperature,
+until not only the tiny room but the whole house becomes oppressively
+hot, and the “close” smell, always so noticeable in small town houses,
+is seriously aggravated when piles of soiled linen are sorted and dealt
+with.
+
+Sometimes the washing is done in a basement room, to light or ventilate
+which is practically impossible; and one has only to stand in such a
+place where, with the best will in the world, proper drainage of the
+sloppy floor is impossible, where the heat in summer and the damp in
+winter are alike excessive, to realise vividly that of all industries
+laundry work is perhaps the least suitable to the home. A common plan
+in certain crowded parts of London, and one much favoured by foreign
+immigrants, is to let in lodgings the single rooms on the floors above
+the ground, and to carry on such a “laundry” below, with the help
+of one or two other women. The steam, heat, and smell are sometimes
+overpowering, while the work is continued till far into the night.
+
+The effect of the occupation on the health of those engaged in it is
+not very easy to gauge, because most of the diseases to which such
+persons are rendered peculiarly liable by the nature of the occupation
+are those which might be induced by many other causes. It is much to be
+hoped that before long the registration of the occupation of women as
+well as of men, in all hospitals and infirmaries, and in certificates
+of death, will make the comparison of this with other industries
+possible in this respect.
+
+It is impossible that the heat and steam, the exhausting manual labour
+(all of which is done standing), and above all the excessively long
+hours of work in this ill-regulated industry, can fail to have a
+marked effect on the health of the workers as a class. In 1893 and
+1894, when inquiry as to these conditions preceded the passing of the
+Act of 1895, the periods of work of women and young girls were found
+to be excessively long--and they are still not only very long, but
+extraordinarily irregular. The most immediately obvious effect on
+health is to be found in the prevalence, among these workers, of ulcers
+on the legs and varicose veins. It would perhaps be hardly credited by
+any who are not intimately acquainted with them, to what extent these
+poor women suffer in this respect. To stand at work all day is the lot
+of many industrial workers, but in no other woman’s industry is this
+form of suffering so serious. In certain well-defined laundry districts
+in West London an inquiry at the Poor Law Infirmaries, to which, and
+not to the Hospitals, the poor women suffering from this troublesome
+and painful ailment most naturally resort, demonstrated the peculiar
+liability of laundry workers in this respect.
+
+The districts to which the following figures (taken from the Report of
+the Chief Inspector of Factories) relate are those in which industrial
+workers--although not perhaps _employed_ to the same extent as
+laundry workers--_reside_ in greater numbers, and to the Poor Law
+Infirmaries, to which they therefore gravitate to even greater extent.
+
+
+ _TABLE A._[150]
+
+ Wandsworth: Clapham Infirmary (including Battersea).
+
+ +----------------+----+------------+-----------++------------+-----------+
+ | | | Suffering | || Pulmonary | |
+ | 1899. | No.| from Ulcers|Proportion.||Consumption.|Proportion.|
+ | | | of Legs. | || | |
+ +----------------+----+------------+-----------++------------+-----------+
+ |Laundresses | 247| 36 | 1 in 6 || 21 | 1 in 11 |
+ |Women other than| | | || | |
+ | Laundresses |1171| 50 | 1 in 23 || 63 | 1 in 19 |
+ | | | | || | |
+ | 1900. | | | || | |
+ |Laundresses | 199| 27 | 1 in 7 || 18 | 1 in 11 |
+ |Women other than| | | || | |
+ | Laundresses |1127| 41 | 1 in 27 || 59 | 1 in 19 |
+ +----------------+----+------------+-----------++------------+-----------+
+
+
+ _TABLE B._
+
+ Isleworth Infirmary (includes Acton, Chiswick, Brentford).
+
+ +----------------+----+------------+-----------++------------+-----------+
+ | | | Suffering | || Pulmonary | |
+ | 1898. | No.| from Ulcers|Proportion.||Consumption.|Proportion.|
+ | | | of Legs. | || | |
+ +----------------+----+------------+-----------++------------+-----------+
+ |Laundresses | 58| 9 | 1 in 6 || 6 | 1 in 10 |
+ |Women other than| | | || | |
+ | Laundresses | 179| 7 | 1 in 25 || 7 | 1 in 25 |
+ | | | | || | |
+ | 1899. | | | || | |
+ |Laundresses | 79| 13 | 1 in 6 || 9 | 1 in 9 |
+ |Women other than| | | || | |
+ | Laundresses | 218| 7 | 1 in 31 || 11 | 1 in 20 |
+ +----------------+----+------------+-----------++------------+-----------+
+
+The transference of most of the work in laundries from comparatively
+elderly women to quite young girls, who are thus at an immature age
+brought under conditions which no thoughtful or educated person will
+deny are in every respect trying, is an aspect of the subject to which
+it is important to direct attention; seventy, seventy-two, seventy-six
+hours a week, exclusive of meal times, are not uncommonly worked by
+girls of fourteen, fifteen, or sixteen years of age, and although these
+long hours are nominally illegal, it is practically impossible to
+give general effect to the law. This work is not the light and often
+pleasant occupation of sewing or folding. It is not done sitting down.
+From morning to night these young girls are constantly standing, they
+are generally tending machines, the majority of which are specially
+heated, and they work in an atmosphere in which steam, which is nearly
+always present, makes the high temperature far more oppressive than
+would be the case if the air were not thus artificially saturated to
+an excessive degree with moisture. Steam rises from the calenders and
+various machines. It is given off also by the damp clothes, which in
+many laundries, even large ones, hang drying or airing overhead or on
+“horses” in the room. The conditions in this respect are often at least
+as trying as in any spinning-mill, and the hours, during which the
+girls are exposed to them, very much longer.
+
+Ironers suffer from headaches and sore eyes, which result from
+constantly bending over the gas-heated irons in general use. The fumes
+from the tiny gas-jets--unless these and the air supply to each iron
+are very carefully regulated--are disagreeably noticeable on entering
+the room, and sometimes even the laundry, and are of course worst of
+all just above the iron so heated. It is to be remembered that the
+material handled is not new or in the first instance clean, and unless
+sufficient care is taken to keep the “sorting” room in laundries in
+proper condition, the result is sure to be insanitary.
+
+In small hand and “factory” laundries, a practice is to be found which
+cannot be too severely deprecated, of employing as a “drying-room”
+for the washed linen the same little room in which the foul linen is
+sorted on its arrival. The room has a stove in the middle of it, and
+the washed linen is hung on lines drawn across it, and, with door and
+window closely shut, is left all day and often all night till dry.
+
+It may be taken as an axiom that when on entering the premises the
+peculiar “close” smell is noticeable, there the conditions are bad. Of
+all the disagreeable smells that are to be found, the heavy odour of an
+ill-ventilated laundry or wash-house is one of the worst; “it seems to
+cling to one’s lips till one tastes it,” was the expression used by one
+who frequently visits laundries. To this discomfort the “sorters” are
+peculiarly exposed. As Miss Squire says: “It is hardly perhaps realised
+how great are the demands that this branch of laundry-work makes upon
+the physical and mental powers of the workers, usually young women of
+good education, and the constant standing, the unpleasant, if not the
+insanitary nature of the work for the first part of the week during the
+“sorting” process, and the great care and attention required during the
+latter part, when collecting, checking, and packing separately each
+customer’s linen.” “I visited,” says Miss Anderson, “one hand laundry
+in London where a packer and sorter had been driven into a hospital
+with sores on her legs from long standing; every day in the week she
+had been working from 8 A.M. to 10 P.M. with indefinite meal-times, and
+on Sundays the whole morning, giving out parcels to customers. This
+girl eventually left the hospital on crutches, and at that time I found
+her successor in a fair way to losing her health also.”[151]
+
+The reply of the women themselves, when questioned on the subject, is
+nearly always the same, and its reiteration is impressive: “I don’t
+know that it’s anything particular as carries us off; but we are just
+wore out in no time.” “There’s nothing like this life for wearing you
+out.” “We’re old women at forty.” “It’s a harder life than any, is a
+laundry; it wears you out very soon.” “For one strong one that’ll stand
+it, there’s a many and many fair wore out by it before they’ve lived
+half a life.”
+
+It would be interesting to test the accuracy of this general impression
+which is shared by many medical and philanthropic persons who are
+interested in laundry-workers, if figures were available on which to
+base a calculation of the “expectation of life” among these women.
+“Worn out while still young,” is the expression constantly used by
+those whose professional work brings them into contact with these women
+when speaking of the effect of the occupation on health.
+
+It is frequently asserted that laundry women as a class are intemperate
+and rougher than most industrial workers. That they are peculiarly
+irregular in their habits it is impossible to deny; and that the long
+hours, the discomfort and exhaustion due to constant standing in wet
+and heat, discourage the entrance into the trade of a better class
+of worker is certain. This latter cause, however, will operate less
+and less strongly as the environment improves. They may at present
+be characterised as a hard-working, impulsive, short-tempered body of
+women, the control of whom, under the existing irregular conditions
+which have been thoughtlessly and unnecessarily encouraged, is not to
+be lightly undertaken by a man without a fair amount of physical and
+moral courage. The prevalence of the drink habit among many of them,
+of which so much is said, is not difficult to account for: the heat
+of an atmosphere often laden with particles of soda, ammonia, and
+other chemicals, has a remarkably thirst-inducing effect; the work is
+for the most part exhausting, even apart from the conditions, and the
+pernicious habit of quenching the thirst, and stimulating an overtired
+physical condition, with beer. The ten minutes or quarter-hour “lunch”
+of “beer” is common, and the “beerman,” who goes his rounds at 10 A.M.
+and 6 or 7 P.M. to all the laundries, delivering his cans of beer
+from the nearest public house, is an institution which is, I believe,
+unknown in any other trade. Imagine the amazement of the master of a
+mill or weaving factory if his employés were to stop in a body for a
+quarter of an hour twice a day between meals to drink beer! Yet in many
+laundries the beer is kept on the premises for the purpose, and it
+is certain that as long as time thus wasted (to put it on the lowest
+grounds) can be made up by each separate woman “working it out” at
+the end of the day, irregular dawdling and intemperate habits will be
+encouraged. On the other hand, a woman who is expected on Thursdays or
+Fridays to be in the laundry from 8 or 8.30 in the morning till 9 or 10
+or 11 at night, may claim with some show of reason that only by some
+kind of spur can she keep her overtired body from flagging.
+
+None deplore this discreditable and unsatisfactory practice more than
+the better and more progressive among the laundry employers, but the
+abolition of it rests practically with them.
+
+Little has been said about the legal regulation of hours of work. Were
+the conditions in this trade to be raised by the exercise of modern
+ingenuity and wise organisation--above all, by whole-hearted adoption
+of effectual means of counteracting the very trying conditions, which
+it is best frankly to own are otherwise an essential accompaniment of
+the work--there is no reason why it should not rank as one of the best
+of the non-textile industries.
+
+ LUCY A. E. DEANE.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XLVIII
+
+ FISH-CURING AND FRUIT-PRESERVING
+
+
+It would probably seem to the casual observer that of all industries
+in which women are employed, none are less likely to cause injury to
+health than those connected with fish. Visions arise of the fisherman’s
+wife, who from the minute the fishing-boat grates on the beach relieves
+her husband of all labour, taking the burden of the active work and the
+sole responsibility for all connected with the fish and the nets; of
+the Newhaven fishwife, so familiar in the streets of Edinburgh, as she
+trudges from door to door bearing with apparent ease the enormous creel
+of fish, and her almost equally surprising burden of petticoats, and
+of everything one has heard or read of the fisher lass. These visions
+and traditions would seem to justify the view that whatever there may
+be in her life that is hard, and for which the dweller in towns might
+be found unfit, the woman who has from her infancy been accustomed to
+an outdoor life and to constant exposure to wind and weather, will, in
+this work, have fitness and endurance which it would be difficult to
+overtax.
+
+Yet it is not inappropriate to give some space to this industry in
+a book on Occupation Diseases, and in order to arrive at the reason
+for its inclusion, it is necessary to look at the history of the
+development of the fish-curing industry and the conditions of work.
+
+Far away in remote districts of Scotland and Ireland, there may still
+be found surviving the hand industry of wool-carding and spinning,
+carried on often by the crofter’s or shepherd’s wife as she sits,
+singing no doubt appropriate songs, on the hillside or at her peat
+fire, but in nothing can this be compared with the great wool-spinning
+industry of the Yorkshire mills. Similarly in the fish-curing trade,
+the work of the women who concern themselves only with the catch of
+one small fishing-boat is totally different from that of those who are
+centred round a fish market, who go from port to port, and to whom the
+trawler, the drifter, the steam liner, and a huge fleet of sail boats,
+bring in daily tons of fish.
+
+In a country with such a coastline as ours, with its shores washed
+by many seas, it follows as a matter of course that all parts of the
+United Kingdom are industrially interested in fishing, but in Scotland
+chiefly it is a staple industry; and the Scots, in some parts of the
+country, might be called a nation of fisher folk, so large a proportion
+of the population depend, if not for their entire living, at least for
+the chief part of it, on the harvest of the sea. The figures given in
+the last published report of the Scotch Fishery Board show that almost
+90,000 Scots were employed in connection with the various branches
+of the sea fisheries, of whom probably at least a fourth are women,
+constantly or intermittently engaged in fish-curing.
+
+The industry, leaving out of account the packing of fish for sale
+fresh, which is done from the market, not the workshop, may be divided
+roughly into two varieties, the one dealing with herring, the other
+with haddocks, cod, and other white-fleshed fish. It is with the former
+I wish to deal chiefly here, although the latter has also a record of
+injury caused by overwork and bad conditions.
+
+There does not appear to be reason to fear that the demand both at
+home and abroad for Scotch-cured herrings will diminish. The industry,
+while fluctuating yearly, both locally and generally, grows as a
+whole in extent, and is largely in the hands of Scotch workers,
+even in the ports in England in which it is carried on. There is a
+huge trade to foreign ports in cured or pickled herrings, for which
+there is apparently an unlimited demand in Russia and Germany; and
+an immense quantity are exported also to the Mediterranean ports.
+The women employed (if we consider, as the English curer does, that
+Northumberland is part of Scotland as far as the fishing industry is
+concerned) are practically all Scotch. They are engaged by the curer
+for the season as long as that lasts in one port, or may be engaged
+for a longer period, or indeed for the whole “herring” year by the
+same curer. At any rate, they find little difficulty in securing
+engagements, and, in May and June, we find them very far north:
+Stornoway and Thurso being the centres of the industry. In July, there
+is a move eastwards on the part of the herring, and consequently of
+the herring curers, and for two months Shetland, Wick, Fraserburgh,
+and Peterhead are the chief headquarters. Later, the same women may
+be found doing the same work on the Yorkshire and the Lincolnshire
+coasts, and in October they move to Lowestoft and Yarmouth, where their
+season probably ends about Christmas time. A certain number also may be
+found in Hull, kippering herrings in the early part of the year, before
+making their way home north for a sight of friends and home, before
+beginning the work of a new season.
+
+The chief causes of injury to health in the industry are two: (1) long
+and irregular hours of work; (2) exposure. Uncertainty of supply,
+both of fish and of wind, are of course important factors in the
+trade; and, so far, little enterprise has been shown in overcoming the
+resulting difficulties by adopting even such methods as are known to a
+careful housekeeper, of keeping the fish, which undoubtedly, when left
+unprotected and piled in heaps, soon begin to deteriorate. The curer’s
+object is to have the fish dealt with as soon as possible after they
+are landed, both to prevent deterioration and in order to be ready for
+the next supply. Hence the long hours, the night work, the absence of
+regular hours or of intervals sufficient for meals.
+
+The method of housing the workers adds to the discomforts occasioned
+by the methods of work. In Scotland it is customary for the curer to
+utilise for this purpose the sheds used in winter as stores, handing
+them over unfurnished, save for grates and rough boards put together
+to form bedsteads, in the proportion of one bedstead for one crew. The
+workers bring their own furniture, bedding, and cooking utensils, and
+live as they work, in crews of three; generally six, nine, or twelve in
+a room according to its size. It is not surprising that the frying-pan
+and the tea-pot fill a large place in their domestic arrangements,
+and that their diet is as a rule as expensive as it is indigestible.
+If they are not so housed, the probability is that their lodging is a
+long way from their workplace, too far to admit of them returning for
+meals, and they take these in the wet and unwholesome atmosphere of the
+fish-house.
+
+The second drawback to this work is the exposure. In early summer in
+Lewis (where the absence of any real darkness makes it easy to continue
+work all through the night), with the rain falling softly probably, as
+is its custom in the west, but none the less effectively; later on in
+the east, exposed to the scorching mid-day heat; and still later on,
+on the Norfolk coast in frost, wind, and rain, working far into the
+night, by the light of flaring torches, such is the yearly experience
+of the herring curer. The reason given for the present conditions in
+each place is that the season is short, a month or two out of the year
+only. True, the season is short for the town, but it is long for the
+worker, living a nomadic life for eight to ten months out of twelve,
+either in barracks or in lodgings, too often enduring the maximum of
+discomfort both in and out of her working hours. Since the work, unlike
+most of an outdoor nature, can be carried on in bad as in good weather,
+it is reasonable to expect that some covering should be provided, so
+that the worker shall not be wetted through and through, and compelled
+to stand in mud as she works. Should the occupation be ever transformed
+from an outdoor to an indoor industry, there would necessarily be a
+loss of those picturesque sights with which many of us have become
+familiar, but there would be a distinct gain in improved health to the
+workers, for the unsatisfactory health of many of the women is the
+direct result of the conditions under which their work is carried on.
+Rheumatism, bronchitis, and the pulmonary troubles, from which so many
+of them suffer, are consequent upon exposure to inclement weather,
+but the derangements of the digestive organs and the tendency for the
+workers to contract, often too in a severe form, epidemic diseases with
+which they are brought into contact, are the result of their generally
+lowered physical condition, due to their unhealthy mode of living.
+The very ground they stand on is often a menace to health, for in the
+absence of proper paving and drainage, the earth becomes impregnated
+with decaying organic matter, which “smells to heaven,” and creates a
+constantly foul atmosphere not completely counteracted by the open-air
+surroundings. The long spell of work, the irregular and hastily cooked
+and eaten meals, and overcrowded rooms, all tend to lower vitality and
+render the system an easy prey to disease. No one will deny that an
+allowance of 250 cubic feet of space for each person, in a room which
+serves as a living room, as well as bedroom, for six to twelve persons,
+is too small, yet a smaller allowance of space is frequently found.
+
+I have spoken of the workers at the pickling or gutting and packing
+process, leaving out of account the numbers employed in kippering,
+who, while also nomadic, yet work on different terms as regards wages,
+etc. Each worker is engaged separately, not as part of a crew, and as
+a rule she has to find her own lodgings. The nature of the employment
+obliges the kipperer to work in a covered place, but she, equally
+with the “gutter” working outside, is injuriously influenced by the
+imperfect sanitary conditions dependent upon unpaved or badly-paved
+floors that cannot be _cleansed_ by simply being flushed with
+water. Only properly constructed floors with good means of drainage
+are of value here, and these are seldom seen. Ventilation and daylight
+are acknowledged to be desirable to maintain health, but the little
+kippering shop is too frequently without them. As a set-off against the
+unhealthiness of the trade, it is urged that the season is short, but
+if we take the interests of the workers into account, the season, as I
+have shown, is not short, and there can be no justice in depriving the
+woman who works in a trade which requires her to be in several places
+in a year, of those privileges to which she would be entitled were she
+working in one which permitted her to live always at home.
+
+Among the minor ills from which the herring curer suffers, are the
+severe cuts which it is impossible to avoid, and which are rendered
+exceedingly painful by the constant use of salt, necessary in her work.
+This often causes sores which take a long time to heal. Cases of mild
+forms of blood poisoning are not infrequent, caused chiefly by the
+sting of the jelly-fish, which is often found with its tentacles wound
+round the herring.
+
+In considering this question, it must be remembered that this branch
+of the industry is not one in which young girls work. I am of opinion
+that not more than 3 per cent. are under eighteen years of age. Were
+it otherwise, there would undoubtedly be a much darker picture to draw
+of ill-health, for the adult is able to withstand more than the young
+undeveloped girl, and the evil effects are not so rapidly apparent.
+The subject is one on which anything more than general statements are
+difficult to make, for only a little of the injury is discoverable at
+any one of the curing stations. When ill-health overtakes her, the
+thought of the worker turns to home, and it is to the little fishing
+villages, and among the crofters of the north, that one must go to
+learn the full record of the fisher woman’s life. It is impossible to
+doubt that the fish-curing industry has much to answer for, possessing
+as it does, in addition to the unfavourable surroundings of insanitary
+districts, evils peculiar to itself. The history of many a worker is
+one of steady deterioration of health during the time of her employment
+in this industry.
+
+In the other branches of the trade, such as the curing and smoking of
+haddocks, cod, ling, etc., and the preserving and tinning of fish, the
+workers are drawn much more generally from the immediate locality. It
+is in these that young labour is found, especially and increasingly
+in the processes in which the hours and conditions are not regulated
+by law, the period of employment at times abnormally long, and the
+conditions of the workplaces far from satisfactory. Trying as these are
+to every one, it is to the young and undeveloped workers that they most
+often cause lasting injury. The employment of children, too, out of
+school hours and during school holidays, in these laborious processes,
+is not to their physical advantage.
+
+The hopeful feature is that the evils are avoidable. The exemptions
+from Public Health and Factory and Workshop Acts, which the fish-curer
+has been allowed, have not been for the benefit either of the worker
+or the consumer. With definite enactment and administration, with
+regulated hours and sanitary workplaces, impetus would be given, I
+believe, to better regulation of the industry itself, and there being
+nothing necessarily unhealthy in the work, we should gradually find our
+fisher population becoming what with their ancestry and industry they
+ought to be--worthy successors of those who, in the annals of history,
+have never been found wanting in strength and endurance.
+
+
+ _The Preserving of Fruit._
+
+The preserving of fruit has only of recent years become an industry of
+any importance. The costliness of sugar made jam formerly a luxury for
+which the demand was small, and the great bulk of it used was made not
+in the factory or workshop, but in the domestic kitchen. Few housewives
+would, in those past days, admit the use of bought jam; now its
+reduced price has brought it within the reach of all who are without
+the appliances or knowledge to make it, or space in which to store
+it. The industry is carried on in all varieties of workplaces, from
+the large country factory in a fruit-growing district, to the little
+dingy workshop in a crowded city street, and largely by women and young
+girls. Jam-making is not an intricate process, whether made outright
+in the fruit season, or only partially, to be completed as required
+during the remainder of the year; it is simple and easily carried on,
+for the most part, by unskilled workers. Still the work is not light,
+and although there are many appliances which help to render it less
+hard and exhausting, these are not in general use, and the workers are
+exposed, as a rule, to danger both to health and limb. Burns and scalds
+from the boiling mixture, and injury from falls on slippery floors, may
+not be wholly unavoidable in this trade; but the risk from them can
+be reduced greatly by using proper means of pouring and conveying jam,
+and by limiting the amount which a worker shall be allowed or expected
+to carry. One cannot but view with concern the increasing number of
+youthful workers now employed, especially during the summer months,
+when, owing to a relaxation of the Factory Act, the industry is largely
+outside the sphere of legislative control. Long hours, too, go, as is
+often the case, hand in hand with bad conditions.
+
+In quite a number of industries among which jam-making may be included,
+wetness really forms the chief menace to health. In the textile
+industry the danger from this cause has been so much recognised, that
+by means of the Cotton Cloth Act and by Special Rules, provision is
+made for the health of the workers where they are exposed to moisture.
+In the law relating to steam laundries, the removal of steam is
+specially provided for. In jam manufacture, there is of necessity the
+production of moisture. Where the means for removing it are effective,
+little discomfort or injury may result, but unfortunately in the rapid
+development of the industry, buildings unsuitable for the purpose have
+often been chosen; disused factories, intended primarily for quite
+other purposes, and not easily adaptable to their present use. In
+these, consequently, the work is done at a risk to health.
+
+When you enter the boiling-room of one of these factories, you are
+often conscious only of steam, steam which cannot be seen through,
+which envelopes you, wetting and chilling at the same time. As you
+penetrate it you find that there are workers there, young girls often,
+thinly clad, thin and pale, and as you stand and talk to them, the
+condensed steam drops down on you and them from the roof, so that
+you are not surprised that the thin cotton dresses they wear are
+saturated, and even their hair is dripping wet. In the resigned manner
+characteristic of this class of worker, they admit that it is “a bit
+steamy,” possibly assuring you at the same time in husky voices, which
+go far to belie their words, that it has never done them any harm.
+Under foot there is again wetness, partly due to the steam, partly to
+the water, hot and cold, which must be used with some lavishness, and
+which in factories, not constructed with a special view to such an
+industry as this, lodges in pools, lies between the flags and bricks of
+the floor in crevices, to which much of the refuse of the factory finds
+its way. There it lies decomposing, affecting injuriously the health
+of the workers, and hastening the deterioration of the fresh fruit.
+
+Jam-making is classed as a season trade, and although employment for
+the permanent workers is usually continuous throughout the year, it is
+in the summer months that there is the greatest pressure, and large
+numbers of casual workers are employed. To meet this pressure, the
+usual limits set by the Factory Acts have been relaxed, and long spells
+of work, with shortened meal-times, are further elements in rendering
+the worker less efficient and more liable to contract disease. The
+effects of these conditions are not seen at once, they are gradual and
+insidious in their action, but it is only the constitution much above
+the average which can withstand them. The prevalence of bronchitis
+and other chest diseases, and of rheumatism and lumbago of a chronic
+character, although often not of a specially severe type, is due to
+causes which are, or should be, preventable.
+
+The two industries, fish-curing and fruit-preserving, have many points
+in common, notably that in both: (1) the material dealt with is of a
+perishable nature, liable to deterioration; (2) the pressure of work
+is not continuous throughout the year; (3) the industry is not fully
+controlled by the Factory Acts. To the effects from these causes all
+that renders these trades at present dangerous or injurious to health
+may be attributed. If the economic value of the health of the worker is
+recognised, it will not be impossible to secure conditions which, being
+primarily intended for her benefit, shall incidentally tend also to the
+improvement of the industries.
+
+_Note._--This chapter was written before the Factory Bill of 1901
+passed into law. It should, owing to the provisions of that Bill, be
+possible in future for H.M. Inspectors to exercise some control over
+some of the conditions relating to health in these trades.
+
+ MARY M. PATERSON.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XLIX
+
+ WOMEN’S LABOUR IN TINPLATE WORKS
+
+
+Tinplates, the material of which canisters, tin boxes, etc., are made,
+are plates of iron or of steel, which have been dipped in baths of
+molten tin; the tin unites by this process with the iron or steel,
+and coats it completely. The secret of tinning plates was brought
+into England from Saxony at the end of the seventeenth century, and
+the first works were opened at Pontypool. South Wales still retains
+the chief part of this trade; a few tinplate works are to be found
+on the banks of the Severn and in the Midlands, but the majority are
+in Monmouthshire, Glamorgan, and Carmarthen. In these counties great
+tinplate works, either singly or in groups, or in a long line at
+intervals of a mile or so down the still beautiful valleys, are to be
+seen and heard, pouring out volumes of smoke from tall chimneys, and
+sending up the ceaseless clang and roll of resounding metal--literally
+ceaseless, for the work goes on night and day, with shifts of men and
+boys. More unlikely places in which to find women and girls than these
+iron and steel works where tinplates are made it would be difficult to
+imagine, yet there are hundreds of them in those of South Wales, and a
+few in some of the works in England. Before the Factory Acts restricted
+their hours of labour, women and girls worked all night through in
+tinplate works with the men and boys, and such employment seems to
+have lingered long in these out-of-the-way places, for the older women
+remember the night alarm of the inspector’s visit and the rush from the
+works out into the darkness, and the quiet stealing home so as not to
+be caught. Now, boys working in a night-shift take the place of women
+and girls in the continuous processes. The actual manufacture of the
+tinplate as distinct from the manufacture of the material is divided
+into two distinct departments: (1) The preparation of the iron or steel
+into plates of the required size and thickness, or rather thinness, and
+the smoothing and cleaning of their surfaces; (2) the tinning of the
+plates and their subsequent cleaning, polishing, and packing up.
+
+The first set pf processes is carried on in the mills, the second in
+the tinhouses; the chief part of the work is done by men and boys, but
+in both the mills and the tinhouses women and girls find occupation.
+Their labour falls into five main divisions; in some tinhouses there
+are also found others subsidiary to these five:--
+
+(1) _Opening._--Separating the plates which have in the process of
+rolling been almost welded together.
+
+(2) _Washing._--Cleansing the plates in water.
+
+(3) _Pickling._--Lading and unlading the cradle with plates for
+the pickler (a man) to immerse in dilute sulphuric acid.
+
+(4) _Rubbing or Dusting._--Rubbing the tinned plates with bran,
+meal, or mineral powder to remove grease and polish the surface.
+
+(5) _Counting and Packing._--Ordinary warehouse processes.
+
+The first three of these processes are carried on in the mills,
+the last two in the tinhouses and warehouses. Different as are the
+conditions of occupation in the various processes, all the employés
+are subject alike to certain conditions: in all departments there is
+exposure to the weather, the works being more or less open on all
+sides; everywhere there is noise which in the mills is deafening,
+danger to life and limb from locomotives and trucks in motion, from
+red-hot metal, from sharp-edged plates, and scraps strewn about, so
+that the whole works appears one vast rubbish heap; in all departments
+alike the lifting and carrying of heavy loads are part of the ordinary
+work. There is also the association of men and women, lads and
+girls, working together in these great open works where supervision
+is impossible, and where, unfortunately, proper provision for
+women’s convenience, often even for elementary decency, is too often
+conspicuous by its absence.
+
+In the Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories for 1888, Mr
+Whymper gives a graphic description of tinplate works and the various
+processes of manufacture, only touching upon the part taken by women
+and girls, and time seems to have made little or no change in either
+works or processes.
+
+A few remarks must now be made on the special conditions of each of the
+processes in which women are employed.
+
+1. _Opening._--Mr Whymper has well described this process as follows:
+“Holding the plate upright on a stand of the proper height, her right
+hand fitted with the much-needed guard, she first breaks down the
+plate’s upper edges with a sort of knife, and starts asunder the tops
+of the layers which the rolling-mill has pressed together temporarily
+into one piece. Then having thus got something to take hold of, she
+wrenches them asunder in their whole lengths, one after another, and
+lays them flat before her. These at last are the required black plates,
+the result of so much and such varied labour.” Strength and skill are
+required for this work; there is some danger of overstrain in lifting
+the heavy plates, but an opener is more at liberty to suit her load to
+her strength than are the women and girls in the other departments.
+The sharp edges of the plates inflict nasty cuts upon the hands in
+spite of the guards worn, and serious accidents have occurred by women
+stumbling and falling against the upright plates; one young woman
+had her arm cut open from wrist to elbow in this way. Fine particles
+of steel and iron fly off in the forcing open of the layers, and it
+is surprising that injuries to the eyes are not more frequent. Some
+doctors well acquainted with these works consider that much injury is
+caused to the men by inhaling these particles of metal present in the
+air of the mills, and that the women are more injuriously affected than
+they themselves know, chest diseases in later life resulting from this
+cause. The openers are a somewhat superior class to the other women in
+tinplate works, from whom they hold themselves aloof: their hours, too,
+are much shorter than those of the others, usually from 9 A.M. to 2
+P.M., and they come and go as they like.
+
+2. _Washers._--These women wash the metal plates in large tanks
+of water; they carry loads of these heavy, sharp-edged plates, and
+immerse them in the tanks, the displaced water splashes over the edge
+of the tank upon the washer, and falls upon the floor. With sleeves
+rolled up above the elbow, bending over the tank, the woman raises
+the plates again, and carries them to stack at a little distance, the
+water pouring from her load down her dress and into her boots. As the
+same process is repeated again and again the whole day long, it is not
+surprising that her clothes are saturated even through the sacking
+tied on as an apron. Nothing more unsuitable for the occupation than
+the dress of the washer could well be imagined--several thin articles
+of clothing hanging wet upon her, the dress and petticoat long enough
+to draggle in the pools of water on the broken flagged or slushy mud
+floor, and flapping heavily against her ankles, and upon her feet men’s
+boots filled with water oozing through the eyelet-holes. Rheumatism,
+colds, and chills are regarded as inseparable, at any rate in winter,
+from the work of washing tinplates, and other ills consequent upon
+this wet condition are complained of. Yet the wearing of a waterproof
+apron (which should be provided by the employer), and of short skirts,
+woollen under-garments, and clogs, would prevent nearly all the
+discomfort and risk to health now endured by all these women. The
+provision of properly paved and drained floors, such as the Factory
+Acts require in all laundries, might reasonably be looked for from the
+occupiers of tinplate works, and were mechanical means employed, as in
+the bottle-washing departments in aerated water works for, lowering
+into the tanks and raising from them the articles to be washed, the
+work would be less unsuitable for women than it is at present.
+
+3. _Pickling._--The roughest and dirtiest, and perhaps the most
+unhealthy occupation for women in the works is that of the “picklers’
+assistants.” These girls work in gangs under the man who has the
+contract for cleaning the plates in dilute sulphuric acid. Their work
+is to lade and unlade the cradles in which the plates placed in racks
+are lowered by the pickler into the steaming tanks of acid. Backwards
+and forwards the girls move with armfuls of plates, carrying each time
+weights of thirty pounds and upwards, first filling the racks and then
+removing from them the wet plates fresh from the tanks. The clothing of
+the girls becomes saturated like that of the washers. It is not only
+their health that suffers; the girls are “soaked through to the skin”
+as they say, not with plain water, but with the “pickle,” which rapidly
+destroys both their upper and under garments, and also the leather of
+their boots and clogs.
+
+The strength of the solution of sulphuric acid used in different works
+varies considerably according to the class of plate manufactured, and
+consequently the degree of discomfort and ill-health to those exposed
+to its fumes varies also. The peculiar smell of the acid pervades the
+entire works, and is encountered sometimes at some distance from them.
+In the pickling department itself it is very strong; here the huge
+tanks of pickle emit volumes of steam, which only under very favourable
+conditions of weather and exceptional structural arrangements rises
+and escapes from the building; usually it hangs about the workers,
+or blows in clouds across the open shed, irritating throat and eyes.
+Where the solution used is a strong one, the workers suffer much from
+running of the eyes, dryness of the throat, and smarting of lips and
+face, from what they describe as a “stifled feeling,” and from nausea
+and giddiness; the teeth become black, and the hair is said by the
+workers to fall out. When the strongest solution is used, the girls tie
+handkerchiefs across their mouths and cover the hair completely. But
+in most cases a weaker solution is employed, and very little complaint
+of ill-health is made; the workers believe that the pickle gives them
+an appetite and keeps off infectious illness. In Switzerland, by a
+decree of 1898, pregnant women are forbidden to work where there is any
+emanation of sulphuric acid, lifting heavy weights, or violent shocks,
+conditions which are combined in the pickling department of tinplate
+works.
+
+The only special health provision of the Factory Acts at present
+applied to tinplate works is the order of the Secretary of State,
+dated December 1882, prohibiting meals being taken in departments
+“where metal is dipped in acid solution.” This excludes women and young
+persons from the pickling department during meal hours, but as no other
+place is provided where meals can be eaten under shelter by those whose
+homes are at a far distance, this rule is frequently disregarded.
+
+4. _Tin-houses._--Large numbers of quite young girls, young
+persons from thirteen to eighteen years of age, are employed in this
+work, which is that of rubbing the tinned plates with bran, meal, or
+fine mineral dust to remove all grease and polish the surfaces of
+the plates. This process is largely done by hand, but machines have
+superseded hand-rubbing in some works. Where they are in use, girls
+are still employed to tend the machines, but fewer are required than
+when all the work is done by hand. The girls work in the tinhouses
+standing, whether at the tables heaped with bran or at the machines, at
+right angles to the tinning stacks where the tinman and his assistants
+are working. The plates are passed on hot from the tinning-pot to the
+girls, who push them backwards and forwards through the heaped “bran”
+before them; or if this first process has been done by the machine,
+the girls pass the plates through the power-driven sheepskin rollers.
+In either case the fine dust rises into the face of the worker, covers
+her hair and dress, and diffuses through the air of the tinhouse, which
+frequently is filled as with a fog with this light, floating dust.
+This being inhaled, produces more or less injurious effects, according
+to the nature of the dust and the susceptibilities of the individual.
+In some works the irritation to the throat is so great as to make
+speech almost impossible, and complaints of cough and “stuffing up” of
+the chest are numerous, while in others, whatever may be the ultimate
+result on the lungs, no discomfort, after once the worker has become
+used to the conditions, seems to be felt.
+
+A most objectionable feature of the employment of young girls in the
+tinhouse is the carrying of heavy loads. As this is not essential to
+the work, and could be done by boy or man with a specially constructed
+truck or trolly, it is greatly to be deplored. The plates which have
+been rubbed accumulate upon the table, and must be removed to the
+warehouse to be weighed and packed, and so at frequent intervals the
+girl, with both her hands (protected by sheepskin gloves), grasps her
+pile of plates, and supporting them upon her hip, staggers along to
+the warehouse. To prevent constant journeys and secure more time for
+wage-earning (for the “rubbers” are paid so much for a box of plates),
+the girls carry as much at a time as they possibly can, carrying loads
+men hesitate to lift. These loads, carried by slight girls of thirteen
+or fourteen, weighed from 40 to 111 lbs. Injuries known, and unknown,
+are done by this unnecessary use of young girls as “beasts of burden.”
+
+ ROSE E. SQUIRE.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER L
+
+ WOMEN’S LABOUR IN AERATED WATER WORKS
+
+
+In the year 1896 the Dangerous Trades Committee appointed by the Home
+Office reported on the manufacture and bottling of aerated waters. As
+a result of this report this industry was scheduled as a dangerous
+trade, and Special Rules were imposed. The danger--for minimising
+which regulations have been framed--in this manufacture is not, as
+is the case with the majority of those to which Special Rules are
+applied, a danger to health, but to life and limb. The danger is
+the risk of cuts, more or less severe, from the glass fragments of
+bursting bottles filled under pressure. The number of such accidents is
+enormous, inflicting every degree of injury from a skin graze to a cut
+artery, or the loss of an eye. The number of accidents reportable to
+the Home Office has been greatly reduced by the wearing of faceguards
+and gauntlets prescribed by the Special Rules, but it is still very
+large. Four classes of workers are specially mentioned in the Special
+Rules as requiring protection by wearing guards--these are bottlers,
+wirers, sighters, and labellers. The first of these four are exposed
+to most danger; the bottles frequently burst while in the machine, or
+more often while being removed from it, but if suitable faceguards
+and gauntlets are worn no serious injury results. Unless the bottling
+machines are, in accordance with the Special Rules, carefully fenced
+off, the danger is very great to all persons in the room; the broken
+glass, sent by the explosion with enormous force to a considerable
+distance, has been known to rebound with terrible effect from an
+object struck in its course, and to hit persons who seemed quite
+safe. Women and girls are largely employed as bottlers in London,
+Birmingham, and a few other large towns, but elsewhere this work is
+done almost exclusively by men; boys are generally employed outside
+London and Birmingham as wirers, sighters, and labellers, in place
+of girls. Wiring has disappeared from most aerated water works, the
+patent stoppers having taken the place of corks in all but a few kinds
+of aerated waters. Sighters, those who examine the filled bottles to
+detect specks by holding them up to the light, wirers (where these
+are employed), and labellers, are the classes of workers who most
+frequently discard the prescribed guards, or wear them under protest
+as interfering with their work. The sighters complain that the wire
+mesh of masks or goggles prevents their seeing the specks in the water;
+wirers and labellers find that the knitted woollen mittens, which
+are the kind of gauntlet commonly supplied, impede the movements of
+the hands; in the one case the handles of the pliers used to twist
+the wire catch in the worsted, and in the other the mitten becomes
+stiff and hard with the paste with which the labels are smeared. A
+satisfactory gauntlet has yet to be invented; the conditions required
+are that they should be of a material impenetrable to flying glass,
+soft and pliable, close-fitting, of a size and shape to keep in place
+over the palm of the hand and up above the elbow; these have not yet
+been found combined. Objection on the part of the women and girls to
+wearing faceguards is only met with where the guard supplied to them is
+unsuitable. The faceguards for girls should be of a smaller size and
+lighter make than those for men, sufficiently bowed out not to press
+upon the nose, and long enough to cover the whole chin, throat, and
+neck; they must be clean, and must be provided with buckle and strap,
+or some other means of keeping them firmly in position on the head.
+A mask that presses against the face, or weighs heavily on the head,
+or shifts from side to side with every movement, or of which the wire
+mesh is clogged with rust and dirt, is sure to be thrown aside whenever
+supervision is relaxed.
+
+Another class of workers employed in aerated water factories who are
+mentioned in the Special Rules as needing to be protected from the
+danger of bursting bottles are the washers. These women, although
+handling the empty, not the filled bottles, generally work in the
+bottling rooms, and unless the bottling machines are well guarded, do
+meet occasionally with serious accidents, such as the loss of an eye,
+or an arm cut open. But this is a risk quite apart from the nature of
+their employment, to which it is most unreasonable that washers should
+be exposed. A far more serious risk, a risk to health, is incidental to
+their work; it is that of being constantly wet. No special rules are
+imposed to protect them from such injury to health arising from their
+employment, as is the case in wet spinning factories, where women are
+exposed by their occupation to being constantly wetted. In wet spinning
+factories the occupier must, unless splashboards are provided, supply
+to all the workers waterproof overalls or aprons, and floors must be
+kept in a sound condition, so as to prevent retention or accumulation
+of water. The bottle-washers stand in great need of protection of
+the kind specified in these rules. They stand at large tanks full of
+water, in which the bottles, returned empty by customers, are washed
+before being refilled for sale. From the point of view of the public
+health, the history of the water used for this purpose would be of
+interest--its source, the frequency with which it is changed, and the
+steps taken to cleanse the tanks. The appearance of the water in the
+tanks is not, as a rule, attractive, and the notices to washers to
+reject bottles smelling of paraffin suggest strange uses to which the
+bottles may be put by customers before they are returned empty. But
+it is the wetness and coldness of the water, and not its purity or
+impurity, which affect the washer. Bending over the tank to lower into
+it or raise from it the bottles being washed, she is very early in the
+day wet to the skin; the water splashes up from the tank and drips
+from the wet bottles, and it is no wonder that the usual description
+given by the washers of their condition is, “We are sopped through
+to the skin soon after we begin in the morning until we get home at
+night.” As a consequence, rheumatism, colds, coughs, aches and pains,
+are the bottle-washers’ constant complaints, and not infrequently one
+and another of them is laid up for some weeks with more serious results
+of their wet condition. The wearing of a waterproof apron seems such
+a simple means of protecting the clothing from getting wet that it is
+surprising how seldom it is adopted, but such aprons are too expensive
+for the washers to provide for themselves, and in the few cases where
+the occupier has supplied them, a small sum has been deducted weekly
+from the wearer’s wages until the article has been paid for. Usually
+the only kind of protection is a number of old sacks tied on as an
+apron; these are better than nothing, but they soon get saturated. In
+the larger aerated water works the bottle-washing tanks are fitted with
+automatic means of lowering the bottles into the water and raising
+them again, and with revolving brushes to cleanse the inside. This
+labour-saving apparatus also reduces the amount of wetting to which the
+washer is exposed, and if a splash-board is fitted to the tank, as has
+been done in a few cases, the women need scarcely get wet at all. Where
+there is no mechanical contrivance to aid the washer, a splash-board is
+impracticable, as she must bend low over the tank to reach deep down
+into it. Grids and boards to stand upon are usually provided, but even
+where the women have these to stand upon it is of importance that the
+floor should be properly paved and drained, and kept in good condition.
+Where this is not done the feet are constantly wet in moving backwards
+and forwards across the pools of water standing in the broken, uneven
+floor. Clogs should always be worn in aerated water works, and are in
+most large factories provided by the employers at the expense of the
+workers, who pay 3d. or 4d. a week towards them. It would be well if
+occupiers were to supply all such necessary articles as part of the
+equipment of the works.
+
+ ROSE E. SQUIRE.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LI
+
+ FLAX AND LINEN
+
+
+ _Historical, Manufacturing, Hygienic, and Medical._
+
+The manufacture of linen cloth from flax was well known to the ancient
+Egyptians and other Eastern nations. Reference to linen frequently
+occurs in the Celtic literature of Ireland. The native Irish usually
+dyed their linen garments of a yellow or saffron colour. The revival
+of the industry in the North of Ireland is attributed to the French
+Huguenots who left France after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes
+in 1685. Several of these refugees settled in Belfast, Lurgan, and
+Lisburn. One name stands out prominently amongst these people, viz.,
+Louis Crommelin.
+
+Crommelin published, in 1705, a short sketch of the Irish linen trade.
+It may be more or less interesting to give a few extracts from it,
+thus:--
+
+ “The people are entirely ignorant of the mysteries relating to
+ the manufacture ... the flax being managed by women altogether
+ ignorant as to their choice of the seed or soil, for which
+ reason their flax is too short, and unfit for making good
+ yarn; they do not know when or how to pull their flax, whereby
+ their seed degenerates, and their flax wants strength and
+ substance.... They have no judgment when or how to water or
+ grass their flax, so as to give it a natural colour; and what
+ is yet worse than all, they constantly dry their flax by the
+ fire, which makes it impossible to bleach cloth made of their
+ yarns; for let all the skill and judgment in the world be used
+ to bleach cloth made of different sorts of flax, you can never
+ bring it to a good colour; for till such time as it is woven
+ and bleached, the best artist in nature cannot discover the
+ mischief.... They also use, in cleaning their flax, things
+ which they call “breaks,” which I can in no way approve of....
+ They spin their long and short flax athwart, which is extremely
+ preposterous, as the flax cannot be spun fine, so the linen is
+ cottony.... The wheels used in spinning are turned by the foot,
+ and have two cords, one going round the wheel and the whirl of
+ the spindle, and the other going round the wheel and the whirl
+ of the spool, which overtwists the thread. Their manner of
+ reeling yarn is one of the greatest grievances, as many honest,
+ industrious men are undone by the deceitful methods now used
+ by the crafty and unfair people in this particular; as, for
+ instance, there is no standard for the measure of reels, and
+ everybody uses such reels as they think fit, for which reason
+ a stranger to the market is imposed upon to his ruin. The cuts
+ and hanks are reeled by several threads, through laziness or
+ wickedness, to the utter ruin of the poor dealers who buy yarn,
+ and think they have good and marketable goods for their money,
+ but find that the whole hank ravels together, and becomes
+ entirely unserviceable, or at the best so troublesome to wind
+ that it is as eligible to lose it as it is to spend so much
+ time and pains to wind it. They ought to mark each cut, or six
+ score threads, as they reel them, and not afterwards, as they
+ now do, which they might do without difficulty. They do likewise
+ intermix, in one and the same hank, yarn of several degrees of
+ fineness, which is a cheat intolerable to buyers.... The looms
+ generally employed in this kingdom for the making of all sorts
+ of linen cloth (excepting diaper and damask) are looms properly
+ disposed, and invented for the making of woollen cloth (save
+ only that they changed the gear, and wrought promiscuously linen
+ and woollen therein). Therefore, it is impossible to use one and
+ the same loom to both material with good success.... The reels
+ are uneven and too thick ... and they make a stuff, of water
+ and meal, without judgment, wherewith they stiffen their warps;
+ and the cloth is made too thin and sleazy, and woven where the
+ weather affects it....”
+
+In 1710 a bleach green, on an improved plan, was established at
+Lisburn, and a Board of Trustees of the Linen and Hempen Manufacture of
+Ireland was formed by Act of Parliament in 1711.
+
+North of Ireland farmers purchase their flax seed from local merchants,
+and it is usually either Dutch or Russian. The farmers never save any
+of their own flax seed, owing to the local custom of “steeping” the
+flax, as soon as it is “pulled,” in ponds of water for a certain length
+of time; it is subsequently removed, spread out in a field to dry, then
+gathered into bundles, stacked, and eventually taken to the scutch
+mill. Here it is run through rollers so as to remove the outer coat or
+bark. The farmer next takes his flax to market, which is visited by
+the flax buyers from the various spinning mills, and after purchase
+conveyed to the store, examined and sorted, so as to be used for
+different kinds of yarn. An analysis of Irish flax fibre made by the
+late Professor Hodges, M.D., of the Queen’s College, Belfast, gave--
+
+ _In 100 parts of Ash._
+ Potash 20.32
+ Soda 2.70
+ Chloride of sodium 9.27
+ Lime 19.88
+ Magnesia 4.05
+ Oxide of iron 2.83
+ Sulphuric acid 7.13
+ Carbonic acid 10.72
+ Phosphoric acid 10.24
+ Silica 12.80
+ -----
+ 99.94
+ =====
+
+The presence of silica causes linen cloth always to feel cool; moreover
+it contains no moisture, thus differing from cotton.
+
+In the “roughing shop” the “rougher” examines a “strick” of flax;
+giving it a quick pull with his right hand, then, swinging his arm, he
+leaves the disengaged portion of the fibre on his bench. This is called
+“piecing,” and its object is to have all the flax as near as possible
+of the same length. After having obtained a sufficient quantity, he
+takes up a piece of flax, throws it out behind his shoulder, and draws
+the same through his “heckle” pins, which are attached to a bench in
+front of the operator. The next process is running the flax through
+heckling machines of different kinds, but they are all more or less
+made on the same principle. These machines are attended to by boys,
+five or six to each machine. Some mills employ “half-timers”; in other
+mills the lads are over fourteen years of age, but they are all under
+the control of a “machine master.” In this department the flax is
+separated into stricks, fastened by means of screws into a clamp called
+a “holder,” which runs along the upper part of the machine, on vertical
+fixed combs. Accidents to the machine boys have been frequent, owing to
+their attempting to remove a “holder” too soon, or in consequence of
+wearing a loose shirt sleeve, they get caught, and have their hand or
+forearm pulled in against the pins. The lads in this room were formerly
+obliged, by the factory authorities, to wear respirators. These were of
+simple construction, for they were composed of two pieces of flannel
+sewed together and fastened by a tape. The boys generally suspended
+them over their chin or neck instead. The respirators were not at all
+suitable; they did not cover the nose, they became damp with saliva,
+foul and malodorous. In frosty weather they irritated the lips. The use
+of respirators has since been abandoned.
+
+The part of the flax taken off by the pins of the machines is known
+as “tow.” The pins are kept clean by a brush and doffer arrangement
+connected with the machine. The boys in a machine room are classified
+into tow-boys, sweepers, oilers, parcel lads, piecers-out, and cutter
+boys. The last-mentioned attend to the flax-cutting machine, by which
+the ends of a strick of flax are cut off by the revolving grooved
+wheels.
+
+The next stage or process in the manufacture is that of “dressing and
+sorting,” which is performed by hand. The men employed are called
+hecklers. In the preparing room, flax is made into _sliver_ by
+being sorted out on the spread-board by a girl, and then drawn through
+pins and rollers to produce a ribbon-like band, which is finally
+deposited in sliver cans. When a bell connected with the drawing
+frame rings, it is the signal for the girl to break off the sliver.
+Occasionally the sliver breaks short in its passage, and it is the duty
+of the attendant then to stop her machine and to put up the end, as
+it is called. Sometimes her hands are injured by doing this while the
+machine is in motion. The roving frame is the last machine in use in
+the preparing department, and has flyers and spindles. The sliver, on
+coming from the boss rollers, goes into the flyer, a small tube of iron
+like an inverted V, fixed to the top of a spindle that revolves, and
+passes through its eye on to a bobbin, revolving on the spindle. This
+gives a twist to the sliver now called by the name of rove.
+
+All small fibres, etc., of the flax that are taken off during the
+heckling processes are called tow. This is put through a somewhat
+different preparation, but eventually it becomes tow sliver and tow
+yarn. The tow from flax scutching mills is also run through a breaker
+card, which is a machine consisting of a cylinder of iron 4 or 5 feet
+in diameter, that turns at a rapid rate of speed, and is covered by
+a quantity of iron pins of varying size. To it the tow is brought by
+means of feed sheets, and removed from the cards by a doffer knife.
+
+The rove is spun into yarn in the spinning-room. A recent writer
+remarks that--
+
+ “The process is nearly entirely mechanical, brass rollers,
+ fluted and revolving, taking the place of the primitive rock,
+ and manipulation between the fingers, as practised by the
+ spinning-wheel. The fact of spinning as it is now, being
+ mechanical, cannot be better illustrated than by mentioning
+ that as much yarn can now be spun under the supervision of
+ _one_ woman called a spinner, as could be turned off 400
+ spinning-wheels by 400 women in the older time.”
+
+The spinning frame has been much improved of late years. The spindles
+have a velocity of 1000 revolutions or more per minute; the yarn as
+it goes through the eye of the flyer attached to the end of each
+spindle is thus properly twisted before it is wound on to a bobbin that
+revolves on a spindle immediately beneath the flyer. There are “wet”
+and “dry” spinning. In the former, the yarn goes through a trough of
+hot water (heated by steam pipes) situated on the top of the spinning
+frame. When the yarn is being twisted round the bobbins, a quantity of
+spray is thrown off that wets the clothes of the spinners and doffers,
+who are obliged to wear waterproof aprons and chest protectors. The
+workers, however, prefer coarse sacking, which they maintain soaks up
+the spray, and prevents the water running down over their petticoats,
+making the lower parts of the body more or less wet. The floor of the
+spinning room is frequently tiled, and is always covered with more or
+less water. The atmosphere of the room from this cause and steam jets
+is thoroughly saturated with moisture. When the bobbins have received
+enough yarn, the doffing mistress stops the spinning frame, and by the
+assistance of her doffers--boys and girls, usually “half-timers”--the
+full bobbins are rapidly removed and replaced by others. The
+temperature of the spinning-room is usually at least 70° F.
+
+The measuring of yarn into hanks is called “reeling.” Some of the
+reeling machines, always tended by women, are moved by steam-power,
+others by hand. When the reel is full, the hanks of yarn are taken to
+the drying-room, and finally to the bundling department, where they are
+put up in bunches.
+
+Before being woven into linen cloth, some yarn is bleached, but whether
+bleached or in the brown state it is taken from the mill to the
+factory, first going to the winders, who put the yarn on spools. These
+are then carried to the warpers, who transfer it on to the loom beams.
+It is dressed or sized and is ready for weaving. The stiffening or
+dressing applied by the tenters to the yarn before weaving is made from
+Irish Carragheen Moss, which is very mucilaginous but free from starch,
+and to it flour and tallow are added. The temperature of the room in
+which this process is conducted is high, generally from 90° to 125° F.,
+so as to dry the yarn as quickly as possible.
+
+At the bleach green, the brown linen is first boiled in water and lye,
+next put out on grass; after this it receives another boiling to remove
+any remaining chemicals, dried, and taken to the beetling engines to be
+beetled. Subsequently it is lapped into parcels, and is then ready for
+the market.
+
+Belfast is the centre of the linen trade. My father, Dr C. D. Purdon,
+formerly Certifying Factory Surgeon for Belfast and the surrounding
+district, wrote several pamphlets on the flax and linen industries.
+Many of his suggestions have been adopted. In 1873 he published a
+pamphlet, “On the Mortality of Flax Mill Workers,” etc., accompanied by
+tables showing the mortality of different classes. In the compilation
+of his statistics he had the assistance of the late Dr Newett,
+Dispensary Medical Officer and subsequently Certifying Surgeon of
+Ligoneill. W. D. Cramp, Esq., at that time H.M. Inspector of Factories
+for Belfast and the North of Ireland, likewise gave valuable assistance.
+
+ “It will be perceived,” he says, “that the flax manufacturing
+ operatives suffer far more from phthisis than the other two
+ classes, nearly three-fifths of those that die annually being
+ taken off by diseases of the respiratory organs, while in the
+ other two classes (artisan and mercantile) the average amounts
+ to about two-fifths. In carrying our investigations into the
+ fatality of the different branches of the manufacture, we will
+ see that the death-rate amongst those employed in the preparing
+ rooms is exceedingly high, and that few of those employed
+ in these rooms live beyond sixty years. The next class that
+ suffers from the same diseases is the ‘hecklers,’ and the rate
+ of mortality among the spinners and weavers is also high. The
+ reason that the ‘machine boys’ appear to suffer so little is
+ that when they become ‘poucey,’ _i.e._ asthmatic, caused
+ by flax dust, numbers of them leave the mills on account of
+ suffering from chest affections, and go to other trades, where
+ they may linger on, or die from phthisis. This fatality I
+ consider arises from four different causes: 1st, commencing to
+ work when too young; 2nd, the unhealthiness of the employment;
+ 3rd, neglect of sanitary laws; 4th, insufficient and impure
+ diet. A fifth might be added--namely, insufficient clothing for
+ the young.”
+
+My own observations lead me to think that the machine boys are the
+hardest worked of any employés in the mill. They seldom have a minute’s
+rest, for they are either charging the holder with flax, or taking it
+out. Although fans have been introduced into the machine room, the
+atmosphere is still laden with more or less dust. I have long had
+the opinion that no boy under at least thirteen years of age should
+be employed in this department. Many of the machine boys work in the
+brickfields during summer, so as to be in the open air. Although
+the half-time doffers in the spinning-room do not suffer from the
+inhalation of dust, they are exposed to an unnatural heat and humid
+atmosphere for several hours daily, whereby they become liable to
+bronchial irritation, especially during cold and frosty weather. The
+weavers are often similarly affected.
+
+The late Mr Baker, M.R.C.S. Eng., H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories in
+the year 1874, introduced a respirator which for a time was worn by
+hecklers in some of the mills, as they derived much benefit from it.
+Many of the men, however, would not wear it, as it prevented them from
+expectorating when chewing tobacco. Some of the owners have introduced
+a new system of ventilating into the hecklers’ shop, whereby all dust
+is carried away at once from the bench by fans.
+
+The hecklers and roughers suffer from dryness of the throat, which
+is one of the first symptoms of “mechanical bronchitis.” This
+is generally followed by cough and dyspnœa, and is occasionally
+accompanied by vomiting. In order to relieve these distressing symptoms
+the men often drink whisky. During cold weather, easterly winds or
+frost, their breathing is worse. Some of the older men are not able
+to follow their occupation during the winter months. The late Dr C.
+D. Purdon, in the pamphlet already referred to, makes the following
+remarks:--
+
+ “The consumption of stimulants is also producing sad havoc....
+ If I may single out a class that injure themselves more than
+ any other, I would mention the ‘hecklers,’ for when they begin
+ to suffer from the effects of dust, they commence to drink, and
+ go on using alcoholic stimulants till at last they die from the
+ effects of drink, or hasten the advance of chest affections by
+ its inordinate consumption.”
+
+At the time this was written, a child under the Factory Act, if ten
+years of age, could be employed for six hours each day, independent of
+school attendance of three hours daily, and was obliged each alternate
+fortnight to commence work at six o’clock in the morning, often
+travelling bare-footed one or two miles before arriving at the mill. At
+present no child in Ireland can work as a “half-timer” unless he or she
+be eleven years of age,[152] and the time of commencing work is in flax
+mills generally 6.30 A.M. In towns most of the workers live
+close to the mills.
+
+The “half-time” children who are employed as doffers in the
+spinning-room do not suffer so much from dust as from the heat and
+steam from the hot water, through which the flax is passed, also from
+their clothes becoming wet in spite of the use of overalls. Hygienic
+rules are ignored in the home. The workers sleep in small overcrowded
+rooms. Nor is the food of the mill workers as nutritious as it ought to
+be. Tea and white bread, potato-bread or oaten-meal bread, form their
+principal food, to which is occasionally added bacon or salt fish. “Tea
+dyspepsia” is common. The children of the millworkers are, I think,
+rather degenerating than improving in physical development.
+
+The diseases from which flax millworkers chiefly suffer are those
+incidental to the preparing and spinning processes. To quote from Dr C.
+D. Purdon’s pamphlet:--
+
+ “In the former (preparing) the lungs chiefly suffer from the
+ constant inhaling of the ‘pouce.’ The irritating quality of
+ the dust is felt on the throat, which soon becomes dry. This
+ irritation creeps to the lungs, which soon manifests its
+ presence by the worker being attacked each morning with a
+ paroxysm of coughing. The dyspnœa is often very severe. Those
+ employed in the roughing and sorting, heckling and preparing of
+ flax suffer from this affection, and in the majority of cases
+ die from phthisis.”
+
+The carders who are employed attending to the carding machines inhale a
+great deal of vegetable dust. Some physicians maintain that vegetable
+dust is more irritating to the lungs than mineral. These workers as a
+matter of precaution wrap round their mouth and nose a lump of tow,
+which makes a kind of respirator. The introduction of fans--Blackman’s,
+Davidson’s, and others--has effected an improvement in clearing away
+the dust of the atmosphere of the carding and machine rooms. A few
+steam jets in these departments would help still further to allay the
+dust and purify the atmosphere.
+
+The late Dr Hamilton, Certifying Surgeon for Cookstown, stated that
+in the scutch mills of Antrim, Down, and Tyrone the workers were very
+prone to ophthalmia, phthisis, and asthma, all due to dust.
+
+The late Dr Arlidge (_Diseases of Occupation_, page 255) has
+remarked:--
+
+ “Organic dusts--some vegetable, others mineral--are encountered
+ in the textile manufactures, and include cotton, flax, hemp,
+ silk, wool, and hair. These in a general point of view are
+ obstructive dusts, nevertheless they are not devoid of irritant
+ properties, and differ greatly among themselves in the latter
+ respect. They further exemplify the fact, that besides
+ mechanical form and action, dust operates by inherent qualities;
+ for dust of linen and hemp develops far more serious symptoms.
+ The degree of dyspnœa varies extremely, and is influenced both
+ by individual peculiarities and also by the properties of the
+ dust. Writers generally concur in the belief that a tonic spasm
+ is set up in the bronchial muscles by the irritation and the
+ reflex action just spoken of, and that in co-operating therewith
+ there is turgescence of the mucous membrane of the bronchi,
+ which interposes a mechanical impediment to the free admission
+ and egress of air to and from the air-cells. This hypothesis is
+ sanctioned by the repeated strong efforts made to inspire and
+ expire.”
+
+The workers employed in the spinning-room are sometimes in summer
+attacked by vertigo and faintness due to excessive heat; also owing
+to their long standing, especially when bare-footed, on a wet floor,
+they are liable to varicose veins, and œdema of ankles followed
+often by an outbreak of eczema. It may be worth while to say that I
+have occasionally noticed eczema rimosum on the hands of spinners,
+especially the right hand. A great many of the workers wear a kind
+of half leather glove on that hand. Heat and moisture may cause
+the disease. Dr Glibert, of the _Ministère de l’Industrie et du
+Travail_ at Brussels, has been good enough to send me some
+photographs showing slight superficial ulceration of skin of palm
+of hand and fingers in flax spinners.[153] I cannot say that I have
+ever noticed this in our Belfast workers, either during the 32 years
+I attended as Physician to the Belfast Skin Hospital, or the 19
+years that I have been Certifying Factory Surgeon. Constipation is
+also common. Enlarged glands are frequent, and the women are of pale
+complexion.
+
+The doffers, especially if young, are frequently, when first employed
+in the mills, attacked by “mill fever” a few days after commencing
+work. The symptoms are nausea and vomiting, followed by pain in the
+head, thirst, and heat of skin. These continue for three or four days,
+when the affection subsides. No treatment is required or sought.
+The cause assigned for its origin is the smell of the oil, along
+with the heat and vapour of the rooms. Irish flax is said to be less
+irritating to doffers than either Dutch or Belgian. Egyptian flax,
+which is occasionally met with, and which has been steeped in a special
+preparing fluid, gives off in the process of heckling more or less
+ammonia; this causes irritation of the mucous membrane of the nostrils.
+
+A peculiar eruption also attacks doffers, and which is evidently due to
+a combination of flax-water and oil. The uncovered parts of the body,
+as forearms, arms, and face, are the parts attacked by this cutaneous
+eruption. It never attacks adults, only the doffers. It is a papular
+rash in the first stage, and is shotty to the touch, like smallpox. The
+papules become larger, and often contain a central plug of sebum. It is
+a _folliculitis_. Some kinds of flax, such as Russian, cause more
+of the eruption than others.
+
+Various trades are known to cause particular kinds of callosities due
+to pressure and constant friction; thus hecklers have frequently a
+thickened or callous condition of the skin of the index finger of the
+right hand due to pulling the flax out of the “pins.”
+
+Another disease, now rare, owing to the spinners wearing boots or
+shoes instead of going bare-footed from home to mill and back in all
+weathers, is onychia, or inflammation of the nail of the great toe.
+Cases of this were very common at the Belfast Royal Hospital thirty
+years ago. The late Sir William MacCormac, Bart., then one of the
+surgeons to the hospital, investigated the origin of the disease and
+introduced the local treatment by nitrate of lead. It seemed to be due
+to the action of the hot and contaminated water lying on the floor of
+the spinning-room, containing flax-water, and probably verdigris, or
+other matter from the brass in the machinery, some of which, finding
+its way under the nail, or from some slight injury to the part, caused
+the painful affection known as onychia.
+
+During late years many improvements have been made in the mills and
+factories as regards ventilation, by the introduction of fans, so
+that there is now little more to suggest. During the 19 years that I
+have been Certifying Factory Surgeon for the city of Belfast, I have
+always found our merchants and employers of labour ready to adopt any
+_reasonable_ suggestion towards improvement of the health of their
+workers. The recommendations I would make are:--
+
+ 1. That no “half-timers” be employed in machine shops; all to be
+ over, at least, thirteen years of age.
+
+ 2. That no “half-timers,” who according to the certifying
+ surgeon appear weakly or not well-developed for their age, be
+ allowed to work in the morning set, especially during the winter
+ months.
+
+ 3. That only the strong and well-developed who are from twelve
+ to thirteen be kept in the morning set, and before being so
+ placed, reported by the surgeon as fit for such work.
+
+ 4. The wearing of a good respirator to cover nose as well as
+ mouth is necessary in the carding and heckling rooms, and should
+ be made compulsory.
+
+ 5. An inspection of the “young persons” and “children” by the
+ certifying surgeon, say every three months, to see what the
+ effect of the work is upon the constitution of those employed.
+ If there are signs of suffering they should cease work.
+
+ 6. That those mills and factories which have not as yet opened a
+ dining-room for use of their workers, do so.
+
+ 7. That in such departments as the carding and machine rooms,
+ where dust is prevalent, a few steam jets be allowed so as to
+ make the atmosphere moist and allay the dust.
+
+ 8. That each room in the mill should have connected therewith a
+ small closet heated by steam-pipes, in which workers can deposit
+ part of their clothing, shawls, boots, etc., so that if the day
+ is wet these will be dry for them on going home for meals or
+ leaving work.
+
+ 9. In conclusion, I quote the following from my father’s
+ pamphlet already mentioned:
+
+ “Another subject bearing on the social state of the workers is
+ the employment of mothers in mills and factories. Now, in order
+ to lessen as much as possible the number of deaths that occur
+ amongst children, each mother ought not to be allowed to resume
+ work for at least two months after the birth of her child, and
+ then should be obliged, when going to work each day, to bring
+ her child to a public _crèche_.... The _crèche_
+ ought to be visited weekly by the certifying surgeon who is to
+ inspect each child.... The _crèche_ to be under Government
+ inspection.”
+
+I am glad to say that, owing to the efforts of Lady Henderson, two
+_crèches_ have been opened in Belfast.
+
+ HENRY S. PURDON.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LII
+
+ MANUFACTURE OF COTTON
+
+
+Although the manufacture of cotton goods is or has been carried on
+under conditions to some extent injurious to health, yet there is no
+definite disease which can be traced to these conditions. There is no
+disease produced which corresponds to wool-sorters’ disease in woollen
+manufacture, or the various forms of tuberculosis of the lungs in
+trades where dust composed of sharp, hard particles is inhaled. If
+it were not for the fact that moisture has for trade purposes been
+artificially introduced into the atmosphere of weaving-sheds, it is
+doubtful whether the health condition of cotton factories would have
+received any special attention beyond that devoted to factories and
+workshops in general. This addition of moisture was carried on in
+a reckless and unscientific manner, and in consequence Government
+investigations were made which resulted in special legislation.
+
+Artificial humidity is the condition which has attracted most
+attention, but it is not by any means the only important factor
+influencing the health conditions of cotton operatives. It is mainly in
+weaving-sheds that artificial humidity is used, and this article will
+be principally devoted to the health conditions of weaving. It will,
+however, be well, for the sake of the few remarks which will be made
+with regard to other branches of the cotton industry, to describe very
+briefly the different processes which the raw material undergoes before
+it is finally turned out as cotton cloth.
+
+Raw cotton, as it is received in bales, is naturally somewhat impure.
+The processes that it undergoes before it is made into yarn are
+somewhat complicated when considered in detail, but they consist
+roughly of cleansing, combing, and twisting.
+
+Most of the dirt in the raw material is separated in the
+“blowing-room.” The cotton is drawn by means of a current of air
+through the blowing machine. The heavier impurities fall out during
+the process, and the cleaned cotton is formed into a more or less
+even layer or lap. It is then taken to the card-room, where it is
+“carded”--a process which combs the fibres so that they are laid
+parallel, and still further cleans the cotton. Before being delivered
+to the actual spinning machinery, the cotton passes through other
+preparatory machines, known as slubbing and roving frames, where it
+is drawn out and slightly twisted. The cotton “roving,” as it is then
+termed, is taken to the spinning-room, to be finally attenuated and
+twisted into the required form of yarn. There are different types
+of spinning machines, known as mules, throstles, and ring frames.
+The attendants on the mules are, as a rule, men, and they have a
+considerable amount of physical exertion in following the movements of
+the carriage, which is constantly moving backwards and forwards. In
+ring spinning, on the other hand, women are almost invariably employed.
+After the yarn has been spun it is wound on to bobbins by “winders,”
+and from the bobbins on to beams by “warpers.” The warp is then sized
+and prepared for the looms by “reachers” and “drawers.” The cotton is
+then ready for the process with which we are mainly concerned, viz.,
+weaving.
+
+The health conditions of these various departments of the cotton
+industry prior to weaving will be dismissed very briefly. The
+workpeople in all of them have an ample air-space, rising in mule
+spinning up to about 10,000 cubic feet per head. In the blowing-room
+there is a moderate amount of dust, consisting almost entirely of
+cotton fibre, but at the same time there is a plentiful supply of fresh
+air. The principal feature with regard to the air of the card-room is
+the amount of dust. This at times is sufficient to cause a distinct
+cloudiness of the atmosphere. This dust is certainly serious, and needs
+special treatment.
+
+Spinning, unlike weaving, is carried on in a many-storied building.
+The light and fresh air for a spinning-room has consequently to be
+obtained entirely from the sides. For several reasons very little fresh
+air is provided. By excluding the outside air, the room can generally
+be kept at a good spinning temperature simply by the friction of the
+machinery, and at the same time particles of soot are prevented from
+entering and damaging the yarn. The result is, that notwithstanding
+the enormous air-space per head in a spinning-room, the atmosphere
+is frequently by no means pure, and it is often excessively hot. The
+temperature is commonly above 90° F., and occasionally above 100° F.
+As no moisture is, as a rule, added, the air becomes very dry. The
+artificial moistening of the air of spinning-mills is gaining ground,
+and there can be little doubt that up to a certain point it will
+be beneficial to the workpeople. The conditions could also be much
+improved by the provision of suitable means of ventilation. On account
+of the large amount of cubic space per head, and the marked difference
+in the temperature inside the spinning-room and outside, it is possible
+that natural ventilation would be sufficient to accomplish all that is
+necessary. In order, however, to obtain a high degree of purity and to
+thoroughly control the air currents, artificial ventilation must be
+employed.
+
+The winders and warpers are subjected to no special conditions. They
+have somewhat less air-space than most other operatives, and there is
+usually no mechanical ventilation. They are not, however, subjected to
+great heat or moisture.
+
+Weaving, the industry which will principally be dealt with, is carried
+on almost entirely in one-storied buildings. In choosing the site of a
+weaving-shed it is usually borne in mind that dampness conduces to good
+weaving. Most weaving-sheds are situated in somewhat damp positions,
+and the floor of the sheds being formed simply of flags laid directly
+on the earth, dampness is not prevented from rising from the ground.
+The walls are without windows, and where openings are provided for
+ventilation, they are usually closed. All the light and most of the
+fresh air have to gain admittance through the roof, which is formed by
+a series of bays, usually running from east to west of the shed. The
+south side of the bay is formed of slate, and the north side of glass,
+so that little direct sunlight is admitted to the shed. The height of a
+shed varies considerably, but an average height is about 11 feet to the
+gutters, and about 15 feet to the top of the bays, and the span of the
+bays is about 10 feet. There is a small space along the gutters left
+open to allow the escape of water which condenses on the glass. The
+roof therefore of a weaving-shed, and usually two or more of the walls,
+are exposed to outside influences, and fresh air can, if desired, be
+admitted through them.
+
+The prominent factors which enter into the health conditions of a
+weaving-shed are:--
+
+(1) Impurity of the atmosphere from: (_a_) respiration; (_b_)
+combustion of gas; (_c_) dust; (_d_) emanations from the soil
+and the sanitary conveniences.
+
+(2) Excessive humidity.
+
+(3) High temperature in summer.
+
+(4) Want of cleanliness.
+
+Although it seems always to have been recognised that a moist
+atmosphere was advantageous to weaving, yet the introduction of
+moisture systematically is a growth of comparatively recent years. In
+the year 1872 Dr Buchanan made a report on certain sizing processes
+used in the cotton manufacture at Todmorden, and their influence upon
+health. He described how the practice of sizing had grown and altered
+much in character owing to the scarcity of cotton during the American
+Civil War. Ten years later, Dr Bridges and Mr Osborn, H.M. Inspector
+of Factories, made a report to the Government on “The effects of heavy
+sizing in cotton weaving upon the health of the operatives employed.”
+This inquiry was instituted in consequence of a representation by the
+Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress in 1882. The
+views of the memorialists with regard to the dangers from the infusion
+of steam are clearly set forth in the following quotation:--“Your
+memorialists desire to draw your attention to a practice that has
+of late years become very common, especially in the making of goods
+known as T-cloths and Indian shirtings. We allude to over-sizing of
+cotton yarns, out of which arises another evil, especially in dry
+weather, viz., the infusion of steam into the weaving-sheds in order
+to soften the stiff, over-sized threads. Your memorialists desire to
+point out that an addition of about 20 per cent. of size, more or less,
+in accordance with the class of goods being made, is required for
+manufacturing purposes; but of late years a practice of adding from
+50 to more than 200 per cent. of an admixture of various ingredients,
+which serve no other purpose than to give a fictitious weight and
+appearance to the cloth, has become very common. Your memorialists
+complain that the extraordinary addition to the yarn of the admixture
+already described, gives off in the process of weaving deleterious
+effluvia, dust, and flocculent matter, which is inhaled by the weavers,
+to the injury of their health.... The manufacturers of this kind of
+cloth in infusing steam into their weaving-sheds have two objects in
+view, viz., (1) to enable more of the admixture to be woven into the
+cloth; (2) to soften the stiff, over-sized threads, and thus render
+them soft and pliable, and less subject to breakages. Your memorialists
+complain that the clothes of the persons, chiefly women and children,
+who are employed in those sheds, are so damped by the warm moisture
+given off by the steam, that, after going out into the open air,
+coughs, colds, and the whole train of lung diseases are contracted; and
+rheumatism and many other bodily afflictions which tend to enervate
+and break up the system at a premature age, follow. Dyspepsia is
+unhappily very often brought on, particularly in the cases of women and
+children. Your memorialists therefore earnestly pray that Her Majesty’s
+Government will adopt some means which in their wisdom may appear best
+by which the health of the weavers, 80 per cent. of whom are females
+and young persons, may be preserved.”
+
+Dr Bridges and Mr Osborn found, that although the scarcity of cotton
+had been completely removed in the years following the American War,
+yet heavily-sized goods were still manufactured, and in fact that the
+amount of size used had increased very considerably. The importance of
+sizing on the health of the operatives is due to two facts: (1) heavy
+sizing requires a very moist atmosphere; (2) the size contributes
+considerably to the dust of the shed.
+
+The practice of infusing steam appears to have continued to grow, and
+in the year 1888 the Health Committee of the Blackburn Corporation
+instituted a public inquiry on account of a very strong report, made
+in the year 1887 by the Medical Officer of Health (Dr Stephenson). The
+Committee came to the following conclusion: “That ventilation in the
+mills is very ineffectually and inefficiently attended to, particularly
+in winter; that heavy steaming had been practised in Blackburn, and
+that the adverse conditions under which the weavers had worked (at
+any rate during the winter months) had had a material influence upon
+the undoubtedly high death-rate of the borough: that the statements
+contained in the last annual report made by Dr Stephenson, as the
+Medical Officer of Health, are, in the main, true, and have been
+supported by the evidence; and that heavy or excessive steaming in
+mills is injurious to the health of those who work in them, but that
+steaming, if lightly performed, with proper attention to ventilation,
+is not injurious.”
+
+As a result of these reports, and of further agitation on the part of
+the operatives, the Cotton Cloth Factories Act, 1889, was passed. By
+this Act manufacturers were required to maintain two hygrometers in
+each weaving-shed, and were prohibited from exceeding certain limits of
+moisture. These limits are shown in the schedule below.
+
+
+ _1889 Act._ _SCHEDULE A._
+
+ Maximum Limits of Humidity of the Atmosphere at given
+ Temperatures.
+
+ +-------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
+ | I. | II. | III. | IV. |
+ | Grains of | Dry Bulb | Wet Bulb | |
+ |Moisture per | Thermometer | Thermometer | Percentage of |
+ | Cubic Foot | Readings. | Readings. | Humidity. |
+ | of Air. | Degrees Fahr. | Degrees Fahr. | |
+ +-------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
+ | 5.1 | 60 | 58 | 88 |
+ | 5.2 | 61 | 59 | 88 |
+ | 5.4 | 62 | 60 | 88 |
+ | 5.6 | 63 | 61 | 88 |
+ | 5.8 | 64 | 62 | 88 |
+ | 6.0 | 65 | 63 | 88 |
+ | 6.2 | 66 | 64 | 88 |
+ | 6.4 | 67 | 65 | 88 |
+ | 6.6 | 68 | 66 | 88 |
+ | 6.9 | 69 | 67 | 88 |
+ | 7.1 | 70 | 68 | 88 |
+ | 7.1 | 71 | 68.5 | 85.5 |
+ | 7.1 | 72 | 69 | 84 |
+ | 7.4 | 73 | 70 | 84 |
+ | 7.4 | 74 | 70.5 | 81.5 |
+ | 7.65 | 75 | 71.5 | 81.5 |
+ | 7.7 | 76 | 72 | 79 |
+ | 8.0 | 77 | 73 | 79 |
+ | 8.0 | 78 | 73.5 | 77 |
+ | 8.25 | 79 | 74.5 | 77.5 |
+ | 8.55 | 80 | 75.5 | 77.5 |
+ | 8.6 | 81 | 76 | 76 |
+ | 8.65 | 82 | 76.5 | 74 |
+ | 8.85 | 83 | 77.5 | 74 |
+ | 8.9 | 84 | 78 | 72 |
+ | 9.2 | 85 | 79 | 72 |
+ | 9.5 | 86 | 80 | 72 |
+ | 9.55 | 87 | 80.5 | 71 |
+ | 9.9 | 88 | 81.5 | 71 |
+ | 10.25 | 89 | 82.5 | 71 |
+ | 10.3 | 90 | 83 | 69 |
+ | 10.35 | 91 | 83.5 | 68 |
+ | 10.7 | 92 | 84.5 | 68 |
+ | 11.0 | 93 | 85.5 | 68 |
+ | 11.1 | 94 | 86 | 66 |
+ | 11.5 | 95 | 87 | 66 |
+ +-------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
+
+The only other section of much importance was one which made it
+necessary to supply 600 cubic feet of fresh air per person per hour.
+This Act, although it produced great improvement, did not satisfy
+the Weavers’ Associations, and a further attempt was made to bring
+about the total abolition of steaming. The Government in consequence
+appointed a Committee consisting of Sir H. Roscoe, Sir Wm. Roberts, and
+Dr Ransome, to inquire into the working of the Act. A very extensive
+inquiry was made, and the resulting report is one of extreme value.
+The report was made in 1897, and many of its chief recommendations
+were embodied in a Statutory Order of the Home Secretary in the year
+1898. This Order, although not altering in any way the amount of
+moisture allowed, contained very important provisions with regard to
+ventilation, purity of steam, and temperature, etc. It is of such
+interest and importance, being in many respects a new departure in
+factory legislation, as to be well worth quoting in full here.
+
+
+_Order of the Secretary of State, dated 2nd February 1898, making
+regulations for the protection of health in Cotton Cloth Factories._
+
+ (1) In every cotton cloth factory to which the Cotton Cloth
+ Factories Act, 1889, applies, the occupier or manager or person
+ for the time being in charge of the factory shall, in addition
+ to taking the two readings of the thermometers required by
+ section 7 of that Act, read each of the thermometers every
+ day between seven o’clock and eight o’clock in the forenoon,
+ and record the reading of each thermometer in the form and in
+ accordance with the regulations in Schedule B. of the said Act
+ as amended by this Order.
+
+ (2) Schedules B. and C. of the Act of 1889 shall be altered, and
+ shall be as set out in the schedule to this Order.
+
+ (3) In every such cotton cloth factory, when artificial humidity
+ is produced, the water used for the purpose shall either be
+ taken from a public supply of drinking water or other source of
+ pure water, or shall be effectively purified to the satisfaction
+ of the Inspector before being introduced in the form of steam
+ into the factory, and all ducts for the introduction of
+ humidified air shall be kept clean.
+
+ (4) The pipes used for the introduction of steam into a cotton
+ cloth factory in which the temperature is 70 degrees Fahrenheit
+ or over shall, so far as they are within the shed, be as small
+ both in diameter and length as is reasonably practicable, and
+ shall be effectively covered with non-conducting material to the
+ satisfaction of the Inspector, so as to minimise the amount of
+ heat thrown off by them into the shed.
+
+ (5) The arrangements for ventilation shall be such that during
+ working hours in no part of the cotton cloth factory shall the
+ proportion of carbonic acid (carbon dioxide) in the air be
+ greater than nine volumes of carbonic acid to every ten thousand
+ volumes of air.
+
+ (6) Unless some other method, certified by the Inspector to
+ be equally satisfactory, is adopted, the outside of the roof
+ of every cotton cloth factory shall be whitewashed every
+ year before the 31st day of May, and such whitewash shall be
+ effectively maintained until the 31st day of August.
+
+ (7) In every cotton cloth factory erected after the date of this
+ Order, a sufficient and suitable cloak-room, or cloakrooms,
+ shall be provided for the use of all persons employed therein,
+ and shall be ventilated and kept at a suitable temperature.
+
+Having briefly described the steps by which the present conditions
+have been arrived at, we may now consider these conditions in detail.
+The humidity of the air has, rightly or wrongly, been thought to be
+the chief factor in the healthiness of weaving-sheds. Moisture is
+usually added to the air of sheds by means of a number of steam jets.
+Steam introduced in this manner is known in the trade as “live steam.”
+The moisture becomes visible almost immediately after escaping from
+the pipe, and again disappears at a distance of two or three feet.
+Many other methods of moistening the air of weaving-sheds have been
+tried. Some of these depend upon the evaporation of water in the shed;
+others upon evaporation of water outside the shed, the air so moistened
+being forced in; and others again upon steam being mixed with fresh
+air, which are forced into the shed together. It is obvious that any
+system which depends upon the evaporation of water, if efficient in
+other ways, has a distinct advantage in the summer months, in that
+it will tend to lower rather than raise the temperature. There are,
+however, very distinct drawbacks to most of the methods of humidifying
+by evaporation, and the crude method of watering the floor is probably
+the most harmful of all forms. The method of humidifying which depends
+on evaporating water outside and forcing air so moistened into the shed
+has a very limited application, but it might with benefit be extended
+in order to lessen the temperature in summer. The way in which moisture
+is added to the air of a shed is of little consequence except so far
+as it affects the temperature, and this is affected far more by the
+length and size of the steam-pipes than by the amount of steam infused.
+Previous to the Cotton Cloth Factories Act, 1889, there was no legal
+restriction to the amount of humidity. The writer has no personal
+knowledge of the condition of the sheds at this time, and he has found
+it difficult to form a correct opinion. It is certain, however, that
+sometimes steam was introduced to such an extent that it condensed very
+freely on the walls, pillars, and floors. The air of the shed became
+over-saturated and consequently hazy. This raising of humidity was done
+in a very unworkmanlike manner. No attempt was made to find out what
+conditions were favourable to weaving. It was known that a very dry air
+was unfavourable, and if a dry east wind was blowing, a large amount of
+moisture was introduced. When a favourable condition was reached there
+was no means of recording what this condition was, for such a thing
+as a hygrometer was practically unknown in a weaving-shed. It seems
+strange, considering that the degree of dampness of the atmosphere is
+so important with regard to weaving, that the use of hygrometers had to
+be forced upon the manufacturers by an Act of Parliament.
+
+The introduction of moisture artificially does not necessarily mean
+that the relative humidity of the atmosphere of the shed is being
+raised above that of the outside air. The temperature of a shed is
+usually many degrees above the temperature outside, and consequently
+the air of the shed without any addition of moisture would be much
+dryer than the air outside. It is not easy to appreciate exactly what
+the amount of moisture specified by the Act means. It is quite commonly
+said, on the one hand, that the amount of moisture allowed by it is
+frequently exceeded under natural conditions in Lancashire, and, on the
+other hand, that the moisture allowed is greatly in excess of what can
+possibly be healthy. It may give a clearer idea to compare the average
+moisture of the air at various temperatures with the moisture allowed
+by the schedule. For this purpose the readings taken at the Blackburn
+Observatory for the years 1898 and 1899 have been averaged at the
+various temperatures.
+
+ +-------------+----------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
+ | | |Figures obtained from the Daily Records of the |
+ | | | Blackburn Observatory for the years 1898 |
+ | | | and 1899. |
+ | | +-----------------------+-----------------------+
+ | |Percentage of Moisture| | |
+ | | allowed by law in | Average percentage of | Maximum amount of |
+ |Temperatures.| Weaving Sheds at | Moisture at the | Moisture at the |
+ | | these Temperatures. |different Temperatures.|different Temperatures.|
+ +-------------+----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+
+ | Degrees. | Per cent. | Per cent. | Per cent. |
+ | 50–55 | 86 | 82.1 | 100 |
+ | 55–60 | 87 | 81.1 | 100 |
+ | 60–65 | 88 | 77.4 | 97 |
+ | 65–70 | 88 | 65.1 | 83 |
+ | 70–75 | 84.6 | 59.9 | 66.5 |
+ +-------------+----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+
+
+For practical purposes temperatures below 60° may be neglected, as
+that temperature is generally exceeded in weaving-sheds. At higher
+temperatures the moisture allowed in weaving-sheds is considerably in
+excess of the average moisture of the atmosphere outside, and above 65°
+the legal limit is very considerably in excess of the highest recorded
+observation.
+
+It is somewhat difficult to estimate the effect upon health of raising
+the amount of moisture in the air one breathes. In the case before
+us the problem is complicated by the fact that the humidified air is
+only breathed during ten hours of the day, and that the workpeople
+frequently pass from the artificial to the natural atmosphere.
+Knowledge gained from the distribution of disease in dry and moist
+climates must be applied with great caution. The dampness of a
+locality is frequently due to the damp and waterlogged condition of
+the soil, in which case there are causes of unhealthiness not in the
+least comparable with the high humidity of a shed produced by the
+introduction of steam. Speaking generally, however, there can be no
+doubt that a dry air is invigorating and a moist air enervating.
+Probably partly for this reason tubercular diseases, which are
+dependent so much in their spread upon the loss of vigour of those
+attacked, flourish more in damp climates. The other class of diseases,
+which presumably would be increased by excessive humidity, are the
+different forms of rheumatism and their complications. In the various
+inquiries that have been made into the health of cotton operatives
+rheumatism has been complained of as the chief ailment produced by
+artificial humidity. Frequent changes from a warm, moist atmosphere
+to a dry, cold one without proper precautions are quite sufficient
+to account for an excessive amount of rheumatism. This danger is
+greatly enhanced by the unsuitable and inadequate clothes worn by
+the operatives. There is little or no reason to suppose that working
+in an atmosphere which, although moist, is considerably removed from
+saturation, would of itself conduce to rheumatism.
+
+One of the chief complaints of the operatives in these sheds is that
+their clothes become damp. It is quite impossible that any moisture
+can condense on their clothes if the law with regard to steaming is
+observed. There is, however, the possibility that clothes which have
+been worn for a long time in weaving-sheds may become permeated with
+size dust. This dust contains a considerable proportion of deliquescent
+salts, and clothes upon which it has been deposited would become
+damp on exposure to a moist atmosphere. Whether or not this is a
+matter of much practical importance could be settled by a few careful
+experiments. If clothes do absorb moisture in this way to any extent,
+it is one more argument in favour of cloakrooms. It also suggests the
+advisability of the careful brushing of clothes, in order to free them
+from shed dust as much as possible. Where no cloak-room is provided,
+clothes are usually hung against walls or pillars. If the walls are
+outside-walls, and if the pillars act, as they frequently do, as
+rain-water pipes, the clothes become wet from the condensation of water
+on these walls and pillars. The absorption of moisture by clothes,
+due to the hygroscopic nature of wool, is small in amount, and may
+probably with safety be left out of account. For all these reasons it
+is extremely desirable that all cotton factories in which the air is
+artificially moistened should be provided with suitable cloak-room
+accommodation. The cloakrooms should of course be of adequate size, and
+properly heated and ventilated.
+
+In considering artificial humidity, it must be borne in mind that the
+steam is frequently raised from very impure water. It is possible
+that this fact accounts to some extent for the strong feeling against
+steaming amongst a considerable section of the operatives. Steam raised
+from filthy water undoubtedly gives a very disagreeable odour to a
+shed, and there can be no doubt that it is injurious to the health of
+the workpeople. This matter has, however, been dealt with, so far as
+legislation is concerned, by Clause 3 of the Order of 1898, and it only
+remains now to enforce the Order.
+
+Closely associated with the humidity of the atmosphere of the shed is
+its temperature and impurity. Particularly is it difficult to separate
+the effects of high temperatures from those of excessive humidity.
+The peculiar construction of a shed, with its roof exposed the whole
+day through to the direct rays of the sun, is of itself sufficient in
+summer to cause a high temperature. To this must be added the heat
+developed by the friction of the machinery. It is not then to be
+wondered at that the temperature becomes sometimes almost unbearable
+when it is still further raised by the infusion of steam, and by the
+heat from steam-pipes. It is very probable that most of the complaints
+of steaming have arisen from the excessive temperature that has been
+at the same time produced. The effect of the heat of a shed cannot
+be gauged absolutely by the temperature, but the temperature and
+the humidity must be considered together. The principal reason why
+working in a hot, moist atmosphere is uncomfortable and oppressive,
+is that evaporation of perspiration is checked, and one of the chief
+means of cooling is lessened. What under other conditions would be
+insensible perspiration becomes sensible, and general discomfort
+ensues. An operative in this condition going out into a dry, cool air
+feels a chill at once. It cannot, however, be said that this condition
+is brought about solely by excessive humidity, as at the lower
+temperatures no discomfort is felt. Whatever conclusion is come to with
+regard to the desirability of allowing the introduction of moisture,
+there can be no question that every reasonable means should be taken
+to prevent the temperature being unduly raised in summer.
+
+Although the agitation against steaming has not led to its abolition,
+it has brought about one of the greatest advances in our factories and
+workshops legislation of recent years.
+
+The Cotton Cloth Factories Act, 1889, insisted that 600 cubic feet of
+fresh air should be supplied for each operative per hour. The fact
+that it was made compulsory to supply a definite quantity of fresh air
+was in itself an advance, but the amount of air specified by the Act
+fell far short of what was necessary. Not only was the amount of air
+supplied insufficient, but no adequate steps were taken to ensure that
+the fresh air was properly diffused. Moreover, there can be no doubt,
+that in the form of ventilation most commonly in use, viz., extraction
+by fans through the roof, there is a large amount of short circuiting.
+The Committee previously mentioned, which was appointed to inquire
+into the working of the Cotton Cloth Factories Act, investigated this
+matter very thoroughly. They found that the mechanical ventilation
+of sheds under this Act had been productive of some good, although
+not to the extent expected. Mr Williams, H.M. Inspector of Factories,
+who acted as secretary to the Committee, and to whom I am indebted
+for much information, examined seventy-two samples of air taken from
+weaving-sheds for the amount of carbonic acid contained in them.
+Thirty-four were taken from “dry” sheds, that is, sheds where steam is
+not infused, and not as a rule mechanically ventilated; thirty-eight
+were taken from “moist” sheds, which were ventilated according to
+the Act. The carbonic acid in the air of the dry sheds varied from
+.55 to 1.94 parts per thousand, the average being 1.168; that of the
+moist sheds varied from .68 to 1.59, the average being 1.021. Many
+anemometer tests were also made, and it was found that there was little
+correspondence between the amount of air supplied and the purity of the
+air of the shed at the breathing level. From these experiments, two
+facts were readily deduced, viz., that the amount of air supplied was
+too small, and that the anemometer test was not to be relied upon as a
+test of ventilation. The Committee consequently took a new departure,
+and made a recommendation, that as a measure of respiratory impurity
+the carbonic acid gas contained in 10,000 volumes of air in humidified
+sheds should not exceed 9 volumes. This recommendation was embodied in
+its main feature in the Order previously quoted. It is difficult to
+over-estimate the importance of this step. It applies a scientific test
+to the ventilation of the factory, and at the same time it allows the
+utmost freedom to the manufacturer in selecting means to attain this
+standard. Hitherto, openings of certain sizes have been specified for
+the purpose of ventilation, or the introduction of a certain amount of
+air has been made compulsory, but no legal notice has been taken of
+the actual condition of the atmosphere. In this order, then, the most
+satisfactory and the only scientific method of estimating ventilation
+has been adopted. The difficulties in the way of carrying it out seem
+to be gradually being surmounted, and already a standard much higher
+than the legal one has been attained in many factories.[154] .9 parts
+per thousand may not appear to some a sufficiently high standard. It
+certainly is not perfect, but it is probably as high a standard as it
+is practicable to adopt at present. It has been found in practice that
+it is generally necessary to introduce more than 2000 cubic feet per
+head per hour to maintain this standard. On account of considerable
+variation in the amount of carbonic acid in the air of towns, the
+administration of the Order has been varied to this extent, that .5
+parts of carbonic acid are allowed in the air of a shed in excess of
+that contained in the air outside at the same time.
+
+Although this regulation with regard to ventilation has only been
+applied to weaving-sheds into which moisture is artificially
+introduced, there seems to be no good reason why it should not be
+applied to all weaving-sheds and to other departments of cotton
+manufacture. A regulation of this kind can only be carried out in
+buildings where power is available, but in the near future electric
+power will be available for every workshop, and then the universal
+enforcement of some similar regulation will be possible, and would be
+productive of much good. It seems likely that an indirect advantage
+will also be gained by the greatly increased knowledge of the
+efficiency of the various systems of artificial ventilation. The
+useless and inefficient methods of ventilation will be rapidly weeded
+out, only the good methods will remain, and a truer perception of the
+principles of ventilation will be produced. The stimulus given by
+these Acts to ventilating engineers has already brought about great
+advances. One extremely ingenious apparatus will deliver enormous
+quantities of fresh air (250,000 cubic feet per hour), warmed and
+moistened as required, into a room at one single point, and diffuse
+it over an area of 8000 square feet without causing a draught. By
+this means one of the principal objections to all other methods of
+ventilation on the plenum system is overcome, for the air is introduced
+directly without the interposition of distributing ducts.
+
+Compared with the workrooms of most other trades, cotton-weaving-sheds
+must be considered to be well ventilated, and when the regulations have
+been thoroughly enforced, these sheds will have few equals amongst
+workrooms judged by the amount of respiratory impurity. There are,
+however, other atmospheric impurities that are not dealt with in so
+satisfactory a manner. It is found to be quite impossible, with any of
+the apparatus at present in use, to keep the amount of carbonic acid
+within the legal limits when the shed is lighted with gas. To do this
+it would be necessary to increase the amount of fresh air introduced to
+an enormous extent. The only practical solution of this difficulty, and
+one that is urgently called for, is the substitution of electricity for
+gas for lighting purposes. Such a substitution frequently leads to a
+positive saving of money.
+
+There is one form of atmospheric contamination that mechanical
+ventilation has in some instances made worse. The sanitary conveniences
+are frequently built so as to be in direct connection with the shed,
+and any system of ventilation depending on extraction increases the
+amount of air supplied to the shed through these offices. The remedy in
+all such cases is complete disconnection of the sanitary conveniences
+by means of an open space.
+
+No ventilation is satisfactory which does not reduce the amount of dust
+as well as the gaseous impurities in the atmosphere. The dust floating
+in the air of a weaving shed is very variable both in its quantity
+and in its composition. In a shed where no size is used (very rare)
+the dust consists entirely of cotton fibre. On the other hand, where
+size is used, it enters very considerably into the composition of the
+dust floating in the atmosphere. Size consists mainly of starch, china
+clay, tallow, and various deliquescent salts, the principal one being
+magnesium chloride. A certain amount of zinc chloride is put into the
+size to delay or prevent the growth of mildew. One would anticipate
+that the different constituents of size would vary considerably in the
+readiness with which they diffuse through the atmosphere, and this is
+so to some extent. For instance, analyses made by Dr Dupré showed that
+zinc chloride, although largely used in sizing, is not found in the
+dust of sheds. This is of considerable importance, as chloride of zinc
+is the only constituent of size which is chemically irritating. On the
+other hand, contrary to expectation, it was found that the insoluble
+mineral matter (china clay) was present in as large a proportion on
+the shafting at considerable heights as in the dust on the floor. The
+composition of the dust examined by Dr Dupré varied somewhat, but
+roughly speaking, 50 per cent. of the dried dust was insoluble mineral
+matter (china clay), 30 per cent. insoluble organic matter (cotton),
+15 per cent. soluble organic matter (starch), and 5 per cent. soluble
+mineral matter (principally chloride and sulphate of magnesium).
+
+The amount of dust in the atmosphere of a shed is determined partly
+by the amount of size used and the quality of the cotton, but also to
+a great extent on the efficiency of the ventilation and the degree
+of moisture in the air. That the infusion of steam would lessen the
+amount of dust in the air was first inferred and afterwards proved by
+experiment. A large amount of moisture in the air may cause a more
+ready precipitation of dust, but its principal action is probably in
+preventing the liberation of dust from the yarn during the process of
+weaving. Mr Osborn, in his evidence before the Parliamentary Committee
+previously referred to, said that sheds are now freer from dust than
+they were, and this he attributed to more careful sizing. Mr Williams
+made several comparative tests of the amount of dust in sheds when
+moisture was being introduced and when not. He found invariably that
+the infusion of steam lessened the amount of dust. The following are
+the averages of his experiments:
+
+ +----------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
+ | |No. 1 |No. 2 |No. 3 |No. 4 |No. 5 |
+ | |Position.|Position.|Position.|Position.|Position.|
+ +----------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
+ |With infusion of steam|26¹¹⁄₁₈ | 25 | 25 | 26½ | 38¼ |
+ |Without „ „ | 43⅙ | 40⅓ | 36½ | 45½ | 43½ |
+ +----------------------+---------+---------+---------|---------+---------+
+
+These figures represent the number of particles of dust deposited on
+six square millimetres in five minutes.
+
+The dust in the atmosphere is undoubtedly lessened by ventilation,
+unless this is of such a nature as to disturb the dust that has already
+settled. The most efficient method of ventilation for reducing the
+dust in the air would certainly be extraction from beneath the looms.
+The dust of a weaving-shed is not, however, of a specially irritating
+nature, and although injurious, is not of sufficient importance for the
+whole system of ventilation to be devoted to its removal. Apart from
+the extraction of air downwards, so that the dust is drawn directly
+away from the breathing level, there does not seem much to choose
+between the various forms of ventilation in this respect.
+
+The cleanliness of the floors and shed generally must have a
+considerable effect upon the amount of floating atmospheric impurity.
+As a general rule, the floors are very dirty. They are never washed
+(with a few rare but very pleasing exceptions), and are seldom brushed
+thoroughly. Such a condition of things lends itself readily to the
+spread of infectious diseases. It seems particularly serious with
+regard to phthisis. Phthisical sputum must often remain on these floors
+undestroyed until much of it has become pulverised, and distributed
+in the air of the shed. It would undoubtedly greatly improve the
+health conditions of weaving-sheds if proper steps were taken to keep
+the floors clean. An improvement of this kind is not limited in its
+benefits to the direct results, but it has a very distinct influence
+upon the habits of the persons employed.
+
+There is, as the evidence given before the various inquiries shows,
+a great difference of opinion as to the healthiness of cotton
+manufacture. It is difficult to come to any absolute conclusion from
+examination of these opinions, and by examination of the physical
+conditions to which the workpeople are subjected. One therefore turns
+naturally to the vital statistics bearing on this question, in the hope
+that they will afford some absolute and indisputable indications. It
+must, however, be acknowledged that when all the available statistics
+have been examined, the inferences that can be drawn are not by any
+means definite. There are many reasons for looking on trade statistics
+with some suspicion. Most of these reasons are very carefully reviewed,
+and allowed for as far as possible by Dr Tatham in the supplement to
+the Fifty-fifth Annual Report of the Registrar-General. It is only
+necessary to see the enormous death-rate of the persons classified as
+unemployed to understand how this class is probably greatly swollen
+by those who have broken down in their various occupations. It is
+very doubtful if under any circumstances trade mortality statistics
+can be altogether relied on. There is always the possibility that
+the occupation followed at the time of death is not the one that has
+really hastened or caused death. A person after some years working
+in an unhealthy trade finds it necessary to change his occupation
+because his health is failing. At death he is classed in the trade he
+was last engaged in, although this trade has had no effect in causing
+his death. Again, arduous and unhealthy occupations act as a selective
+agency, none but those of a certain physical fitness engaging in them.
+It is difficult, too, to separate the influence of a trade from that
+of its surroundings. Whether a trade is carried on in crowded, badly
+built towns, or in the country, will modify the trade statistics
+considerably. These facts make it desirable in gauging the healthiness
+of a trade to look outside trade statistics. It is sometimes possible,
+where a large proportion of the inhabitants of a district are engaged
+in one particular branch of industry, to gauge the healthiness of
+this industry by examining the health statistics of the district as a
+whole. If the persons employed in this industry have a peculiar age
+distribution it is possible to get a more accurate estimate. These
+conditions are fulfilled to a peculiar degree in the town of Blackburn.
+Out of a population of 120,064 at the 1891 census, no less than 37,755,
+or 31 per cent., were employed in the cotton industry. Any marked
+unhealthiness of the trade should show itself, although perhaps not
+very distinctly, in the general mortality. This of itself would be of
+little help but for the peculiar distribution of the cotton operatives
+in age periods. The accompanying table illustrates this point clearly:--
+
+
+ DEATH-RATE FOR ENGLAND AND BLACKBURN, 1889–1898.
+
+ +---------+-------------------+------------+-------------------+
+ | | Males. |Differences | Females. |
+ | Age +--------+----------+expressed as+--------+----------+
+ | Period. |England.|Blackburn.|percentages.|England.|Blackburn.|
+ | | | | | | |
+ +---------+--------+----------+------------+--------+----------+
+ | | | | Per cent. | | |
+ | 15–25 | 4.72 | 5.14 | + 8.9 | 4.42 | 4.72 |
+ | 25–35 | 7.05 | 6.71 | - 4.8 | 6.48 | 6.96 |
+ | 35–45 | 11.89 | 14.60 | + 23.6 | 10.03 | 13.05 |
+ | 45–55 | 19.32 | 26.05 | + 34.8 | 14.89 | 18.82 |
+ | 55–65 | 35.47 | 51.42 | + 44.9 | 28.83 | 43.46 |
+ | 65 | | | | | |
+ |& upwards| 98.56 | 117.22 | + 18.9 | 88.88 | 95.08 |
+ +---------+--------+----------+------------+--------+----------+
+ | At all }| | | | | |
+ | Ages }| 20.58 | 23.82 | + 15.7 | 18.20 | 19.51 |
+ +---------+--------+----------+------------+--------+----------+
+
+ Part 2 of table.
+
+ +---------+------------+----------------+
+ | |Differences | Percentage of |
+ | Age +expressed as| population of |
+ | Period. |percentages.|Blackburn in the|
+ | | |Cotton Industry.|
+ +---------+------------+-------+--------+
+ | | Per cent. | Males.|Females.|
+ | 15–25 | + 6.7 | 48.3 | 70.3 |
+ | 25–35 | + 7.6 | 39.0 | 52.1 |
+ | 35–45 | + 29.1 | 31.4 | 34.8 |
+ | 45–55 | + 27.0 | 27.4 | 19.7 |
+ | 55–65 | + 50.7 | 21.8 | 9.3 |
+ | 65 | | | |
+ |& upwards| + 6.9 | 13.2 | 3 |
+ +---------+------------+-------+--------+
+ | At all }| | | |
+ | Ages }| + 7.2 | 26.8 | 33.1 |
+ +---------+------------+-------+--------+
+
+
+
+Any excessive mortality amongst the cotton operatives should show
+itself distinctly at those age periods in which the operatives
+preponderate. It may be argued that the bad effects are not felt
+until the later age periods, but it is difficult to believe that
+injurious conditions to which all alike are exposed would produce
+increased mortality at the later ages, and not affect the mortality
+of the earlier ages. It will be seen that 82 per cent. of the cotton
+operatives employed in this town are under the age of thirty-five, and
+it is at the age periods below 35 that the mortalities compare most
+favourably with those of the country as a whole. The only conclusion,
+then, that we can draw from the general mortality figures of Blackburn
+is, that the cotton industry has no influence in raising the mortality
+of the town as a whole, at any rate as far as the lower age periods are
+concerned.
+
+With the reservations previously mentioned the trade statistics may be
+profitably considered. The trade mortality statistics in this country
+are compiled almost entirely in the office of the Registrar-General
+under the supervision of Dr Tatham. Although the statistics published
+by the Registrar-General are extremely valuable, there are many local
+problems on which little light is thrown. The Medical Officer of Health
+and others, to whom these problems are of the greatest importance,
+have no chance of investigating them, owing to the meagreness of the
+information published in the census returns. The age distribution
+of the persons engaged in the various occupations is not given, and
+many trades very dissimilar in their working conditions are grouped
+together. The necessary information should be forthcoming in one way or
+another. If details with regard to the age distribution of the persons
+engaged in the various occupations would make the census returns too
+bulky, then any local authority should have access to the census
+enumeration books, in order to extract whatever information they need.
+Fortunately the writer has had access to the enumeration books of the
+town of Blackburn, and in consequence he has been able to prepare
+special statistics. The following tables have been extracted from the
+Supplement to the Fifty-fifth Annual Report of the Registrar-General:--
+
+
+ Mean Annual Mortality of Males for the years 1890, 1891, and
+ 1892, engaged in the Cotton, Flax, and Linen Manufacture of
+ Lancashire at successive periods of life.
+
+ +---------------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
+ | | 15 | 20 | 25 | 35 | 45 | 55 | 65 |
+ | | to | to | to | to | to | to | and
+ | | 20. | 25. | 35. | 45. | 55. | 65. | up. |
+ +---------------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
+ |Cotton, Flax, and | | | | | | | |
+ | Linen Manufacture, | | | | | | | |
+ | Lancashire | 3.73 | 5.96 | 7.13 | 13.38| 25.11| 55.06|168.55|
+ |All Males | 4.14 | 5.55 | 7.67 | 13.01| 21.37| 39.01|103.56|
+ |All Occupied Males | 2.55 | 5.07 | 7.29 | 12.43| 20.66| 36.66|102.32|
+ +---------------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
+
+Mortality Figures of Males, 25 to 65 years of age, for Certain Diseases
+among the following Groups of People, for the years 1890, 1891, and
+1892.
+
+ Key to table:
+ A: All Causes.
+ B: Alcoholism.
+ C: Rheumatic Fever.
+ D: Phthisis.
+ E: Valvular Diseases of Heart.
+ F: Other Diseases of Circulatory System.
+ G: Bronchitis.
+ H: Pneumonia.
+ I: Diseases of Liver.
+ J: Other Diseases of Digestive System.
+ K: Nervous Diseases.
+ +----------------------+----+--+--+---+--+---+---+---+--+--+---+
+ | | A | B| C| D | E| F | G | H | I| J| K |
+ +----------------------+----+--+--+---+--+---+---+---+--+--+---+
+ |All Males |1000|13| 7|192|24|102| 88|107|29|26|102|
+ |All Occupied Males | 953|13| 7|185|23| 97| 88|105|27|25| 82|
+ |Occupied Males:-- | | | | | | | | | | | |
+ | London |1147|18| 7|277|28| 97|127|110|30|25| 88|
+ | Industrial Districts|1248|19| 8|223|27|122|154|178|32|32|108|
+ | Agricultural „ | 687| 7| 6|135|18| 73| 37| 55|24|21| 63|
+ | Cotton Manufactures,| | | | | | | | | | | |
+ | Lancashire |1176| 9|10|200|32|116|159|172|27|35|123|
+ |Unoccupied Males |2215|23| 2|448|37|191| 84|135|53|39|630|
+ +----------------------+----+--+--+---+--+---+---+---+--+--+---+
+
+It is at once apparent on examining the tables that the death-rates
+of the cotton operatives at the lower age periods is not excessive,
+when one considers that the majority of them live in large and crowded
+centres. The death-rate from phthisis is little above that of all
+males throughout the country, and is much below that of occupied
+males in London or in the industrial districts. One striking feature,
+however, is the high mortality from bronchitis and pneumonia. The
+mortality from rheumatism and heart disease is also considerably
+above that of other classes of the population. These are the diseases
+which one would expect to be increased in persons subjected to sudden
+changes of temperature and humidity. The mortality figures published
+by the Registrar-General referring to the two periods, 1880–1882 and
+1890–1892, are very instructive when compared. Two of the most striking
+features of these figures are the decrease of phthisis and the increase
+of bronchitis and pneumonia in the second period as compared with the
+first. The phthisis deaths amongst the cotton operatives of Lancashire
+were 25 per cent. of the total deaths in the years 1880–1882; the
+percentage had decreased to 19.6 in the years 1890–1892. On the other
+hand, the percentage of deaths from bronchitis and pneumonia increased
+from 25 per cent.] to 29.7 in the same period. The inferences that
+one might draw from these figures are rendered less positive by the
+fact that a change similar, but not so marked, took place throughout
+England. The small amount of phthisis amongst the cotton operatives
+in the second period compared with the first is certainly remarkable,
+the decrease being much greater than in the whole country. Improved
+ventilation following on the 1889 Act may have had some effect, but it
+seems likely that there has been some change in death certification,
+and that some deaths which formerly were returned as phthisis are now
+returned as bronchitis and pneumonia.
+
+
+ DEATH-RATE AMONGST THE DIFFERENT DEPARTMENTS OF THE COTTON TRADE IN
+ BLACKBURN, _For the Years 1889–1899_.
+
+ +------------------------------------+----------------------------+
+ | Weavers. | Spinners. |
+ +-------+---------+----------+-------+---------+----------+-------+
+ | | | Lung | | | Lung | |
+ | Age |Phthisis.| Diseases | All |Phthisis.| Diseases | All |
+ |Period.| |other than|Causes.| |other than|Causes.|
+ | | |Phthisis. | | |Phthisis. | |
+ +-------+---------+----------+-------+---------+----------+-------+
+ | 15–25 | 1.14 | .48 | 4.2 | 1.65 | .94 | 6.1 |
+ | 25–35 | 1.72 | .86 | 5.2 | 2.48 | 1.90 | 6.6 |
+ | 35–45 | 2.11 | 2.59 | 11.0 | 3.09 | 2.90 | 11.8 |
+ | 45–55 | 1.88 | 5.29 | 16.1 | 2.94 | 11.78 | 31.5 |
+ | 55–65 | 3.75 | 20.22 | 56.5 | .61 | 21.94 | 43.8 |
+ | 65 and| | | | | | |
+ |upwards| 1.45 | 61.81 | 205.8 | 3.95 | 73.12 | 261.2 |
+ +-------+---------+----------+-------+---------+----------+-------+
+
+ Part 2 of table.
+
+ +----------------------------+----------------------------+
+ | Winders and Warpers, etc. | Card-room Hands. |
+ +-------+---------+----------+-------+---------+----------+
+ | | | Lung | | | Lung |
+ | All |Phthisis.| Diseases | All |Phthisis.| Diseases |
+ |Causes.| |other than|Causes.| |other than|
+ | | |Phthisis. | | |Phthisis. |
+ +-------+---------+----------+-------+---------+----------+
+ | 1.48 | .84 | 5.3 | 1.28 | .52 | 4.7 |
+ | 2.90 | .65 | 7.4 | 2.03 | .62 | 5.9 |
+ | 2.30 | 3.05 | 11.2 | 2.96 | 2.47 | 12.3 |
+ | 1.64 | 7.28 | 23.4 | 3.95 | 10.37 | 21.7 |
+ | 1.28 | 14.18 | 43.8 | ... | 10.97 | 42.3 |
+ | | | | | | |
+ | 5.92 | 53.35 | 201.6 | ... | 69.93 | 181.8 |
+ +---------+----------+-------+---------+----------+-------+
+
+ Part 3 of table.
+
+ +----------------------------+
+ | Whole Borough. |
+ +---------+----------+-------+
+ | | Lung | |
+ |Phthisis.| Diseases | All |
+ | |other than|Causes.|
+ | |Phthisis. | |
+ +---------+----------+-------+
+ | 1.19 | .80 | 4.8 |
+ | 1.31 | 1.20 | 6.7 |
+ | 2.21 | 3.10 | 13.6 |
+ | 1.76 | 6.32 | 21.6 |
+ | 1.43 | 14.67 | 45.6 |
+ | | | |
+ | .47 | 27.65 | 105.1 |
+ +---------+----------+-------+
+
+The conclusion to be drawn from the Blackburn figures is that weaving
+in that town is somewhat healthier than the other cotton occupations,
+and in this connection it must be remembered that “steaming” is
+practically confined to weaving-sheds. If one could go more deeply into
+this subject, it might probably be shown that some of the disparity
+in the death-rates of weavers and spinners in Blackburn is due to the
+classes of people from which they are drawn. From all these figures it
+may be deduced that the cotton trade has little or no harmful effect
+as compared with most other trades at the earlier age periods. After
+the age of fifty-five the death-rate becomes enormous. There is,
+however, only a very small number of cotton operatives over the age of
+fifty-five. Failure of eyesight generally makes it necessary for them
+to give up this work and find some other employment before reaching
+this age. It seems almost certain that the very large death-rates at
+the ages of fifty-five to sixty-five, and sixty-five and upwards, are
+due to a great extent to a difference in the manner in which the census
+returns and the death returns are made.
+
+As this article shows, much has been done by legislation to make the
+cotton trade healthy. There still, however, remains much to be done,
+not only by further legislation, but by the operative himself, in
+shaping his conduct on reasonably healthy lines. For instance, there
+is nothing more desirable than the provision of good cloakrooms,
+sufficiently large, well-warmed and ventilated, and constructed in such
+a way as to be a real convenience; but these are of little use unless
+the operatives make proper use of them, and provide themselves with
+clothes sufficiently warm to protect them against the sudden and severe
+change of temperature that they are subjected to. The cotton operative
+is extremely neglectful in this matter of clothing, and to this fact is
+probably due much of the ill effect put down to steaming.
+
+The further improvements that suggest themselves as likely to be most
+beneficial are:--
+
+(1) The extension of the regulations with regard to ventilation to all
+weaving-sheds and to other departments of the cotton industry.
+
+(2) The substitution of electricity for gas for lighting purposes.
+
+(3) The enforcement of proper cleanliness, particularly with regard to
+the floors of weaving-sheds.
+
+(4) The provision of cloakrooms and lavatories.
+
+(5) The complete disconnection of all sanitary conveniences from the
+workrooms by means of an open space.
+
+ JAMES WHEATLEY.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LIII
+
+ RABBIT DOWN
+
+
+The transformation of rabbit skins into felt hats is one of the most
+interesting of the many wonderful metamorphoses brought about by the
+manufacturer. Of a long series of acts and processes by which this
+transformation is effected, one of the earliest is the removal by the
+“fur-puller” of the long, coarse hairs from the rabbit skin. What
+is left after these have been removed is the short close fur which,
+after it has been separated from the pelt, is alone used by the
+felt-hatmaker. The hair plucked off by the fur-puller is the RABBIT
+DOWN, a waste product regarded as of little value, sold for 1½d.
+to 3d. a pound, to be used principally for stuffing cheap bedding, and
+largely bought by mining companies for the miners to lie upon while
+working the coal seams.
+
+The fur-puller plucks off these long hairs by means of a special
+knife pressed against the thumb, which is protected by an indiarubber
+shield. She sits on a low bench before a wooden trough, the rabbit skin
+stretched over her knee, held fast at one end between knee and trough,
+and grasped at the other by the left hand. A pile of skins is on the
+floor on either side of her, and very rapidly she “pulls” each skin in
+succession, passing it over from the “unpulled” to the “pulled” heap.
+The wooden trough is for the reception of the “down,” and receives
+the greater part of it, but it is so light that it flies everywhere,
+covering the worker’s hair and clothing till all is one uniform grey;
+it floats in the air and rests thickly on every ledge and beam, the
+floor too, being carpeted with it.
+
+No description can convey any adequate impression of a fur-pulling
+room, whether it be occupied by 1 or 50 workers--the universal grey,
+the haze of floating hair, the sickly, disgusting odour of uncleaned
+skins--it must be seen, felt, and smelt, to be understood.
+
+Not infrequently the pulling-room in a factory or workshop is used at
+the same time as a drying-room and store-room, and the skins hang in
+rows suspended from the ceiling, adding an almost overpowering stench
+to the other unpleasant conditions. The rabbit skins, when delivered
+to the worker, have usually undergone no preparatory or purifying
+process, but are as they were received from the dealer. Before they can
+be pulled, they must be “opened,” that is, smoothed out and dragged
+into shape, scraps of fat or clotted blood cut and scraped off, and the
+skin turned fur side out and laid flat. In some of the larger works,
+women are employed as “openers” only, and from them the skins pass to
+the “pullers.” In most cases the pullers open the skins themselves.
+Fur-pullers and openers belong to the poorest class of women. The
+dirty and repulsive nature of the work, and the low scale of wages,
+attract none but those who, for one reason or another, can get no other
+employment. The trade is dying out, very few young women and girls are
+found in it, and none will learn it; they go rather to the jam or fancy
+box factories, or any of the numerous unskilled occupations open now to
+girls. The fur-pullers are chiefly old women, or middle-aged women in
+distress. The wages vary according to the class of skins, and according
+to whether the puller works at home or in the workshop, and whether she
+opens the skins herself; they range from 1s. to 2s. the “turn” of 60
+skins. The knife costs 8d., and must be constantly ground: the rubber
+shield costs 3d. and 4d., and lasts but a few weeks.
+
+Machines are taking the place of hand-pulling to a certain extent,
+but the chief part of the work is done in Belgium, where men do the
+pulling for a low wage. The manufacturer here finds it cheaper to pay
+the carriage of British rabbit skins to Belgium and back, than to have
+them pulled in England. Fur-pullers are, as a class, irregular workers;
+and being paid by the piece, the employer has no hold upon them. They
+seldom work more than four days in a week; not because there is no
+work for them, but because intemperate habits prevail, and home cares
+provide other occupations on Monday and Saturday. When the workers in
+any industry are drawn only from that class whose standard of life
+is the very lowest, when insufficient food and clothing and all the
+other sad accompaniments of deep poverty have made their mark upon
+them, it is almost impossible to point to any one physical condition
+as a result of their occupation. Hoarseness, cough, and a bronchitic
+condition are common among fur-pullers; such are also observed in the
+old and middle-aged women of the same class who are not fur-pullers.
+One would certainly expect to find evidence among them of suffering
+caused by inhaling the down present in the air of the workrooms; but,
+except for occasional complaints that “it stuffs up the chest,” most of
+the workers consider fur-pulling a healthy occupation. It may be that
+the fur being so fine and light is not inhaled; the danger is probably
+more to be found in swallowing it, and symptoms of ill-health arising
+from this are, from their nature, not easily discoverable, and must be
+related by the sufferer; but the poor fur-pullers look with suspicion
+on any inquiry touching their health, fearing that they may be deprived
+of their work, which, although they say it is not worth the doing, is
+all they have.
+
+If the occupation is dirty and disgusting even in a factory and
+workshop where rooms are specially set apart for it, it is, when
+carried on at home in a little living room, indescribably offensive
+and horrible. In 1897 the terrible condition of the homes of the
+fur-pullers in South London was described in the Press. Since then
+matters both inside and outside the factories and workshops have been
+improved, although much remains still to be done. In consequence of
+recommendations made in 1897 by the Departmental Committee appointed to
+inquire into the conditions of work in wool-sorting and other kindred
+trades, fur-pulling was added by Order of the Secretary of State in
+March 1898 to the Schedule of Trades in which occupiers must keep lists
+of out-workers’ names and addresses; and by another Order the taking of
+meals in fur-pulling workrooms, or remaining during the time allowed
+for meals in such places, was prohibited. By these means greater
+control has been exercised by sanitary authorities and the Factory
+Department over fur-pulling, both as a home industry and in factories
+and workshops, and one of the greatest risks to health, the taking of
+meals in the workrooms, removed. In the absence, however, of any legal
+obligation upon an employer to provide other accommodation for employés
+whom he is bound to exclude from their workroom during their dinner
+hour, those poor creatures whose homes are at a distance are turned out
+into the streets, and in bad weather run a risk scarcely less than that
+from which the legislature sought to preserve them--the risk to health
+of cold and wet.
+
+Much more than has yet been attempted might be done to improve, by
+specially applied ventilation, the condition of fur-pulling rooms in
+factories and workshops. The drawing away of the pulled hair from the
+worker in a downward direction by means of a properly constructed
+flue under the troughs, and an extracting fan, would seem to be
+practicable, and the down could be collected outside in a receptacle
+for the purpose. But pulling is not a process that pays; and although
+many occupiers have provided better rooms than formerly, and more
+attention is paid to general ventilation, to sweeping and cleaning, to
+warming in winter, and other matters affecting the health and comfort
+of the workers, a pioneer has yet to be found who will revolutionise
+the industry by applying to it a really effective dust-extracting
+system of ventilation--and this will require some considerable sum
+expended on it.[155]
+
+ ROSE E. SQUIRE.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LIV
+
+ DISEASES DUE TO WORKING IN COMPRESSED AND STAGNANT AIR
+
+
+ _Caisson Disease._
+
+Caisson disease, or compressed air illness, is a product of modern
+civilisation. It seizes labourers who are engaged in sinking mines,
+in excavating the beds of rivers to obtain a foundation for the piers
+of bridges, and in tunnel making. A caisson is a cylinder composed
+usually of iron plates riveted together to form a shaft, which, in the
+case of bridge building, is sunk into a river, for example, so that
+its open mouth shall rest upon the bed of that river. Down this shaft,
+when it is properly closed at the top by a perfect fitting diaphragm,
+men descend, air having been previously driven in under considerable
+pressure to drive the water out at the bottom of the cylinder and to
+keep it out. The workmen enter and leave the caisson by a chamber or
+“lock” close to the diaphragm at the top. The length of the caisson
+shown in the diagram made for me by Mr Huntley, engineer at the
+Redheugh Bridge on the Tyne, is 90 feet, and at the time this drawing
+was made the men were working 77 feet below high-water level mark. In
+building a caisson it is the lower part that is made first. Thirty feet
+of circular iron plates are riveted together, care being taken to make
+the bottom bell-shaped. Before this unfinished caisson is lowered on to
+the bed of the river, there is placed outside of it a larger cylinder,
+and the two are united at the rim of the bell-shaped expansion. The
+space between the two cylinders is filled with cement. Successive
+lengths of twenty feet of cylinders are added, and subsequently the air
+lock, or the chamber by means of which men enter and leave the caisson.
+Two men work as a rule in each caisson, but this number varies with
+its size. In the lock there is an inner as well as an outer air-tight
+door, both of which open towards the interior of the caisson. When
+a labourer has to enter the cylinder that is filled with compressed
+air, he passes into the workman’s part of the lock by the door A (see
+Diagram); the other door, B, which opens into the main shaft, is at
+this time perfectly closed, and kept thus by the great pressure within
+the caisson. Once he is in the lock and door A closed, also the outlet
+cock C, the inlet cock D is gradually opened. By degrees the compressed
+air of the cylinder escapes into the lock, and when the pressure
+inside the lock comes to equal that inside the cylinder, door B opens
+of itself. The labourer now enters and descends the internal cylinder
+by means of a ladder to his work on the bed of the river. On leaving
+the caisson the process is reversed. The men, while working inside the
+caisson, shovel the soil and stones into large iron buckets which, when
+filled, are raised by a chain wound by an engine outside the cylinder.
+This chain passes through the “material” part of the lock, the sliding
+doors and cocks of which are moved by men outside who operate very
+quickly. As the excavation proceeds, the cylinders sink by their own
+weight and require new lengths to be added, bars of pig-iron being
+thrown into the space between the external and internal shafts so as to
+favour the sinking of the caisson.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 73.--Section of Caisson used in
+ rebuilding Redhough Bridge, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.]
+
+It was a French engineer, M. Triger, who first employed caissons in
+order to reach a bed of coal that lay underneath the River Loire.
+Subsequently he used them for boring wells and fixing piles for
+bridges. From the first day on which caissons were used, the workmen
+have complained of pains in their ears and joints. In making the
+Blackwall Tunnel, several of the men were ill. Dr Snell, the surgeon
+to the Blackwall Tunnel, has embodied his experience in an excellent
+monograph. It is to MM. Pol and Watelle we are indebted for the
+earliest account of the pathological effects of compressed air upon
+men working in a mine at Douchy in France. Of 64 workmen exposed to
+the influence of compressed air, 47 stood the work well, 25 gave up
+their employment, and 2 died. The risks incurred are not so much
+when the men are at work in the caisson as on _entering_ or
+_leaving_ it, _i.e._, when they are passing through the lock
+undergoing _compression_ before entering the cylinder, or coming
+out through the lock and undergoing _decompression_. Of these
+two, decompression is the more dangerous. If this is not accomplished
+slowly, the individual may not only experience very unpleasant
+symptoms, he may become the subject of permanent ill-health. It is
+because, in our daily life, the ordinary atmospheric air is pressing
+upon us _equally all round_ that we are unconscious of the 15-lb.
+pressure to the square inch exerted upon our bodies, also that when we
+dive under water we are unaware of any superincumbent weight. Engineers
+have utilised knowledge of these facts, and have tried to imitate
+nature by subjecting men to pressure equal to two, three, or four
+atmospheres, or in other words to weights equal to 30, 45, or 60 lbs.
+to the square inch.
+
+In this country caissons were first made use of by Hughes in 1851
+to make a bridge at Rochester over the Medway. Brunel subsequently
+employed them at Chepstow and at Saltash. At Saltash one of the men
+died shortly after emerging from the caisson, wherein he had been
+working at a depth of 87.5 feet below the surface, and under a maximum
+pressure of 40 lbs. During the building of the bridge of Kaffre Azzyat
+over the Nile in 1859, five Arabs died from the effects of compressed
+air. Blood issued from their mouth, nose, and ears. These men had been
+working at a depth of 85 feet below high-water level mark, and under a
+pressure of 34 lbs. to the square inch. For several years now, wherever
+an important bridge has had to be built, caissons have been used. It
+was thus that the foundations were obtained for such structures as the
+railway bridge across the Rhine at Strasburg, the Forth Bridge, and the
+Suspension Bridge at Brooklyn, New York. Descriptions of the illnesses
+that occurred among the workmen engaged at the Forth Bridge, and at
+Brooklyn, have been embodied in monographs by Dr James Hunter, in his
+M.D. Thesis for Edinburgh University, and by Dr Andrew Smith of New
+York. At the Brooklyn Bridge the pressure varied from 18 to 36 lbs. to
+the square inch above that of the atmosphere, and the caissons were
+lighted by gas. Ventilation of the cylinders was attended to as far
+as possible, but, notwithstanding this, the air frequently contained
+as much as 0.3 per cent. of carbonic acid as against 0.06, which is
+regarded as the maximum for a well-ventilated space. Into the caissons
+150,000 cubic feet of air had to be pumped every hour to satisfy the
+respiratory requirements of the labourers. The men worked in two
+shifts of four hours, separated by a period of rest for two hours, but
+as the cylinders sank deeper and deeper the working time had to be
+correspondingly diminished. Dr Smith treated 110 cases of compressed
+air illness, of which three proved fatal.
+
+In the following brief account of the signs presented, and the
+symptoms complained of by one of the patients who was under my care
+in the Newcastle Infirmary, will be found a recital of the details of
+caisson disease. The man was a sinker, forty-five years of age. He was
+working in the caissons at the Redheugh Bridge close to the Infirmary,
+77 feet below high-water level mark, at a pressure of 31–35 lbs. to the
+square inch. On leaving work one day he felt numb in his legs, became
+sick and vomited; shortly afterwards he became giddy and fell to the
+ground unconscious. His comrades carried him home, where he lay for
+twelve hours in a state of unconsciousness. When he came to himself he
+complained of pains all over his body, incomplete loss of power in his
+legs, headache, and buzzing in his ears. Next morning on getting out of
+bed his nose began to bleed, but as epistaxis is common among sinkers,
+he thought lightly of the matter and attempted to go to work. He again
+lost consciousness for a brief period, and it was in this condition
+that he was brought to the Infirmary. Subsequently he complained of
+severe pains all over his body, difficulty of breathing, a feeling
+of sickness, and profuse perspiration; the pulse was slow and full,
+there were muscular rigidity, loss of power in his legs, and deafness.
+The urine was free from albumen and sugar. During the day there was
+occasionally delirium of a noisy character. Heart, lungs, liver, and
+spleen seemed healthy. When a few days afterwards the symptoms which
+have already been detailed had subsided, and the patient attempted to
+walk, it was observed that there was considerable staggering, and that
+he tended to fall forwards. On examining his blood microscopically,
+nothing abnormal was detected beyond the fact that the coloured cells
+were slightly paler than usual, and did not form rouleaux properly.
+It was several weeks before patient could walk well, also before he
+lost the noises complained of in his head, and that his hearing was
+perfectly restored. During his stay in the Infirmary he had spitting of
+blood on a few occasions.
+
+At the Forth Bridge, Hunter found that several of the men who worked in
+the caissons suffered from bleeding at the nose. It is gratifying to
+know that not one of his cases of compressed air illness proved fatal.
+The men worked under a pressure of from 15 to 34 lbs. above that of
+the atmosphere, and from four to six hours at a stretch, but as the
+caissons sank this was found to be too long. It was observed that the
+men suffered most in their general health when the soft silt in the bed
+of the river containing decomposing organic material was being removed.
+
+One of my clinical clerks[156] volunteered to enter a caisson. He
+observed that the candles burnt more quickly in compressed air than
+in the ordinary atmosphere, and that as a consequence there was much
+more smoke. His breathing was at first quickened (40 respirations
+instead of 16 to the minute), while in the case of Mr Huntley, the
+engineer who accompanied him, and who was accustomed to the position,
+the respirations were only 20 to the minute. The pulse-rate was also
+quickened. Mr Fawcus experienced very unpleasant sensations in his
+ears, which gradually abated when he swallowed air, and thus inflated
+the middle-ear through the Eustachian tube. He could speak easily
+enough, but he could not whistle. There was no difficulty of breathing,
+although the pressure in the cylinder was 41 lbs. to the square inch;
+nor was there any sense of fatigue, but rather a feeling of fitness.
+Another of my students on emerging from the caisson had bleeding at
+the nose, severe earache and faceache. Pain and unpleasant sensations
+in the ears are complained of by nearly all on emerging from a caisson
+for the first time. The pain is apparently a mechanical effect, and
+is the result of the drum of the ear being forcibly driven in by
+the compressed air; for when a workman has acquired the faculty of
+swallowing air and passing it from his throat up the Eustachian tube
+into the middle-ear, so as to equalise the pressure, the sensation
+is no longer felt. Under these circumstances, it is unwise for any
+person who is suffering from a cold in the head or naso-pharynx to
+enter a caisson. The conditions inside the caisson are unnatural. As
+the whole body is subjected to an enormous pressure, men can only work
+therein for a short period at a time. It is a well-known fact that in
+the ordinary affairs of our daily life, some of our best work is done
+when we are working under mental pressure; and while the simile does
+not actually hold good of comparing mental with physical work, also of
+comparing physical work done under normal and abnormal pressure, yet
+experience shows that in the caisson the workmen, instead of feeling
+any bad effects from the compressed air, are so buoyed up by it, that
+in a given time they do far more and much harder work than when they
+are on the surface. Besides, as they are unconscious of putting forth
+extra effort, they do not feel fatigued, they perspire freely, and are
+apt to rub themselves incautiously, thus causing skin eruptions. Just
+as candles burn with greater rapidity inside the caissons, so too,
+it would appear, are the vital processes in the workmen quickened,
+disintegration of their tissues hastened, and the functions of the
+eliminating organs heightened. This simply means that all round more
+work is done by, and more waste formed in, the human body. Unless a
+caisson suddenly ruptures, as occurred a few years ago in France, the
+men when working inside run very little danger. It is on emerging
+from the cylinder, _i.e._, when he has undergone decompression,
+that the workman runs the risk of becoming giddy, and of being unable
+to stand, of having temporary paralysis of the legs, of experiencing
+muscular pains, called “bends,” all over his body, but particularly
+in legs and back, of suffering from bleeding from the nose, ears, and
+lungs, or of becoming unconscious.
+
+That pressure _per se_ plays a part in the production of
+the symptoms is shown by the fact that as the caisson sinks and
+the internal pressure is correspondingly raised, the men suffer
+correspondingly. On the Tyne the men always suffered more when the
+pressure inside the cylinder was increased so as to keep pace with the
+rising tide. The condition of the air inside is also of importance. As
+more smoke is given off by the candles, and the men work harder inside
+than outside the caissons, the air is rendered very impure. At the
+Brooklyn Bridge each man was supplied with 1000 to 3000 cubic feet of
+air per hour, and yet the air inside the cylinders contained as much
+as 0.3 per cent. of carbonic acid as against 0.06, which is considered
+a healthy average. It is desirable that the workmen should have not
+less than 6000 cubic feet of air per hour. At the bridge on the Tyne,
+where my patients worked, 3000 cubic feet of air per hour were at first
+supplied to the workmen, but after their breakdown in health, this
+amount was raised to 5000.
+
+It is difficult to say what amount of atmospheric pressure men can
+endure with safety. With the object of throwing light upon this
+subject, experiments have been conducted by Hersent, a French engineer
+at Bordeaux, and also by Dr Lepine. Hersent tried the effects of
+compressed air both upon dogs and men. Some of the dogs on leaving the
+caisson, others the day after having undergone decompression, became
+paralysed in their limbs. Men similarly treated suffered from severe
+pains in their limbs and itchiness of their skin. Lepine experimented
+with guinea-pigs and rabbits. When these animals had undergone rapid
+decompression after exposure to the influence of compressed air, they
+became paralysed in their hinder extremities, convulsions supervened,
+followed by death in a quarter of an hour. On making a post-mortem
+examination of the bodies, the central canal of the spinal cord was
+found to be distended by gas which had torn its way into the canal.
+There were also gaseous bullæ around the blood-vessels of the spinal
+cord. Several of the small arteries were torn and had bled. In one
+case where the animal died on the thirteenth day after exposure to
+compressed air, followed by rapid decompression, Lepine found foci
+of softening in the anterior horns of grey matter of the spinal cord
+due to gaseous emboli and to hæmorrhagic infarction or rupture of
+blood-vessels.
+
+There is a very great tendency for grave accidents to be produced
+in man when the pressure in the caissons exceeds four to five
+atmospheres. The greatest risk occurs when the workmen are coming
+out of the cylinders and are in the lock undergoing decompression.
+If decompression is effected suddenly, harmful or even fatal results
+are likely to ensue. One minute for every three pounds of pressure is
+the time usually given for decompression, or five minutes for each
+atmosphere, but it is obvious that the longer the labourers are in the
+caissons and are exposed to very high pressure, the greater is the
+probability of a larger amount of gas being dissolved in the blood and
+the greater the time therefore required for decompression.
+
+A caisson has been known to burst. This causes the most sudden
+decompression possible. It is almost always a fatal accident owing to
+the rapid disengagement into the tissues of the nitrogen gas of the
+atmosphere which had been dissolved in the blood of the workmen under
+very great pressure. Death is often preceded by convulsions. If the
+workmen rally, their legs are found to be paralysed; this loss of power
+may be temporary or permanent.
+
+Three theories have been brought forward to explain compressed-air
+illness: (1) carbonic acid poisoning; (2) mechanical congestion of
+internal organs; (3) increased solution by the blood of the gases in
+the cylinder and the sudden liberation of these gases from the blood
+into the tissues during decompression.
+
+If caisson disease were due to carbonic acid poisoning, we would
+naturally expect the symptoms to show themselves during the time the
+men are working in the cylinder, and not after they leave it. Dr
+Andrew Smith of New York believes that the illness is the result of
+mechanical congestion, especially of the brain. In several of the men
+who died the membranes of the brain were found to be deeply congested,
+a pathological condition that doubtless contributed to the fatal
+termination.
+
+My own opinion is that caisson disease is due to an increased solution
+of gases in the blood and sudden liberation of them. The amount of
+gas capable of being dissolved by a liquid is, as Dalton showed,
+proportional to pressure. This law holds good for the workman in
+the caisson. Since under the influence of compression more gas is
+dissolved in the blood, the excess has to be liberated during the
+act of decompression. If this is done quickly there is an escape
+of bubbles of gas from the blood as it circulates through the
+capillaries in the spinal cord and elsewhere. When Paul Bert, a French
+physiologist, exposed animals to the influence of compressed air and
+quickly decompressed them, several of them died suddenly, and at the
+autopsy free gas was found in the blood and in the right side of the
+heart. Other animals were paralysed, and in them bubbles of gas were
+found in the spinal cord, while the subcutaneous tissue was at places
+emphysematous or filled with air. As to the nature of the gas found
+in the blood and tissues it is impossible to speak with certainty.
+It is probably nitrogen, for this gas is the largest constituent of
+atmospheric air, and it is perfectly passive, so that any effect
+produced by it would be purely mechanical. If we regard caisson disease
+as due to the liberation of gases dissolved in the blood during too
+rapid decompression, we have an explanation of such a circumstance as
+that of workmen taking ill shortly after they emerge from the lock,
+also the benefit which they receive by being put back into the cylinder
+and of undergoing temporary recompression.
+
+_Treatment._--Treatment is preventive and curative. The points
+that above all others demand attention are that the acts of compression
+and decompression should be very slowly accomplished. Of these two,
+decompression is the more important. The workman should not be too
+rapidly pushed through the lock or exposed to any sudden increment or
+decrement of pressure. One minute for every three pounds of pressure
+is regarded as the average period, but this length of time might with
+advantage be lengthened especially for decompression, since it is the
+more dangerous. At this time too the workman, although he does not feel
+fatigued, is perspiring freely, and he is exposed to chill owing to a
+falling temperature. The air inside the caisson should be kept as pure
+as possible, and the men ought not to work longer than from two to four
+hours at a stretch. Even the minimum stated here may require to be
+halved as greater depths are reached. Men should be medically selected
+for the work, and only healthy men chosen who are free from heart
+disease, pulmonary and nasal catarrh, and who are temperate. No man who
+is suffering from a discharge from the ear ought to be allowed into a
+caisson, for even in healthy men the drum of the ear has been known
+to become ruptured. There ought to be a warm shelter or cabin at hand
+in which the men could lie down after coming out of the cylinders, and
+where hot non-intoxicating drinks can be got if required. If the men on
+coming out of the caisson are cold and collapsed, warm bottles should
+be applied to their extremities, medical assistance sought, and if the
+breathing is impaired a hypodermic injection of liquor strychniæ should
+be administered. Stimulants should only be given if there is failure
+of the heart’s action. Subsequently, if there is severe muscular
+pain morphia may be required. In the view that the symptoms are due
+to congestion of the internal organs ergot has been recommended.
+When unpleasant and dangerous symptoms have occurred immediately the
+workman has emerged from the caisson, good results have been obtained
+by subjecting him to recompression. Part of the cabin or shelter
+just recommended might be so constructed that recompression could be
+carried out therein under careful supervision, with the workman in the
+recumbent position.
+
+
+ _Dangers Incidental to the Making of, and Working in, Tunnels._
+
+The making of tunnels has been carried on from remote ages, there
+being records of such works as early as six hundred years before
+the Christian era. In a paper read by Mr Francis Fox, M.Inst. C.E.,
+before the Royal Institution, 25th May 1900, the methods adopted for
+making tunnels are described at length, and especially the making of
+the great Alpine tunnels. The dangers of tunnelling the Alps have
+been considerable, and now that the act has been accomplished, there
+has been experienced considerable difficulty in ventilating some
+of the tunnels. The _Mont Cenis_ tunnel is 8 miles in length,
+and as there is a gradient of 1 in 40 on the French side for the
+first 7 kilometres,[157] the trains go through with the regulators
+of the engine full open, so that if the wind is blowing in the same
+direction, great volumes of smoke practically travel with the train.
+For the men who are working in the tunnel there are refuges placed
+at every kilometre. Here when the men shut themselves in they can
+obtain compressed air, fresh water, and medicines, and by means of the
+telephone, extending in both directions, they can make their wants
+known outside. The caretakers of the tunnel work in pairs, so that if
+one man is affected by want of oxygen or through the density of the
+smoke, the other can render assistance, or telephone for relief, or
+they can both retire into a refuge and wait for either the air of the
+tunnel to clear or for a locomotive to come and remove them.
+
+The _St Gothard_ tunnel is 9.3 miles in length. It is on the
+railway from Lucerne to Chiaso on the Italian frontier. The north
+portal of the tunnel has an altitude of 3639 feet above the level of
+the sea, and the south portal 3757. Ten years were spent in tunnelling
+the mountain. The work was accomplished at a great sacrifice of human
+life. In constructing the tunnel there were 580 accidents, of which
+177 were fatal. The engineer and contractor lost their lives. There
+was a great mortality, too, among the horses. This excessive loss of
+life was attributed to insufficient ventilation, high temperatures in
+the tunnel, exposure of the men to the rigours of an Alpine climate
+after leaving their work, carelessness of the men in not changing
+their wet clothes, the poor character of the food supplied to the men,
+and defective sanitary arrangements. One of the great difficulties as
+regards the St Gothard tunnel has been its ventilation. The height of
+the mountain prevented the sinking of a shaft, but a large ventilating
+fan placed near the mouth of the tunnel blows air through the annular
+space between the arch of the tunnel and the gauge of maximum
+construction, whereby 210,000 cubic feet of air are thrown into the
+tunnel every minute, or 100 cubic metres per second. Before the fan was
+brought into operation the temperature used sometimes to be as high as
+107° F., with 97 per cent. of moisture, but by artificial ventilation
+the temperature fell to 81° F., subsequently to 74.5° F. The tunnel can
+now be kept cool and comparatively free from smoke and vapour. Formerly
+the engine drivers and passengers were seriously indisposed in going
+through the tunnel; to-day they can travel without any inconvenience.
+In the St Gothard tunnel the amount of carbonic acid often exceeded 15
+per 1000. There resulted from this and other causes such a corrosion
+of the rails, that it was necessary at the end of every few years
+to entirely replace the rails and their connections. The engineers
+estimated that during three and a half years each rail lost on an
+average 18 kilos in weight, and at a maximum 28 kilos. Similar metallic
+corrosion has been observed in the tunnel between Genoa and Turin, and
+is attributed to the sulphurous acid in the smoke of the coal becoming
+converted into sulphuric acid. The recent artificial ventilation of
+the St Gothard tunnel by the Saccardo system has not only made the air
+purer but increased the longevity of the permanent way.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 74.--The SIMPLON TUNNEL
+ operations at Iselle, showing hospital and low flat-roofed
+ workmen’s dwellings in foreground; higher up on right
+ unmarried men’s barracks, engineers’ hotel, workshops, etc.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 75.--Section of Simplon Tunnel,
+ showing difference in Levels between North and South ends.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 76.--Section of Simplon Tunnel,
+ showing Cross Gallery by means of which air is transmitted
+ from ventilating passage to head of tunnel where the men are
+ working.]
+
+The _Simplon_ tunnel is now in course of formation. In the first
+eighteen months three miles were made. When finished it will measure
+12.26 miles between the north or Swiss portal on the Brigue side of
+the Alps and the south or Italian opening at Iselle. Such are the
+existing engineering and hygienic arrangements that they are believed
+likely to prevent the heavy death-rate that occurred in tunnelling the
+St Gothard. Fifty times the amount of atmospheric air is being sent
+into the tunnel than was forced into the St Gothard, and there are
+means in use whereby the air is cooled by jets of water. The great
+difficulty of the enterprise, as Professor Pagliani showed (_Revue
+d’Hygiene_, 20 Juin 1900), lies in keeping the temperature low and
+in renewing the air, so that the work of excavation and construction
+can be conveniently carried on without undue fatigue to the men. In
+the centre of the tunnel a temperature of from 107.6° F. to 113° F. is
+expected to be met with. The best possible means will be adopted to
+cool and ventilate the passages. The effect of high temperatures upon
+the men working in the tunnel is to increase the tension of carbonic
+acid in their blood and to interfere with respiratory exchanges. The
+moist atmosphere, too, tends to induce both pulmonary and circulatory
+troubles by preventing elimination of waste material through the
+perspiration. It is impossible for hard muscular work to be continued
+for any length of time, and to be efficacious in a temperature equal
+or superior to that of the human body, and in a close medium saturated
+with moisture. At 84° F. we know physiologically that muscular
+effort is considerably reduced. An attempt is being made to keep the
+temperature of the tunnel at 77° F., and lower when possible.
+
+Two parallel galleries--in other words, two tunnels--are being run
+into the mountain 17 metres[158] apart, and are reunited by a small
+transverse gallery every 200 metres. As the entrance into the tunnel,
+on each side of the mountain, is on a curve, there is at either end a
+“gallery of direction” to correct errors of alignment direct from the
+two observatories in the axis of the tunnel. Pagliani found that the
+amount of carbonic acid at various distances varied from 0.68 to 7.53
+per 1000, and the temperature from 75.2° F. to 87.8°, but these amounts
+vary with the activity of the ventilation, the number of men working,
+the activity of the machinery, and the moisture of the air, which is
+nearly always at the point of saturation. It is almost impossible
+to have a dry atmosphere; besides it is vitiated by the products of
+dynamite explosions.
+
+The chief feature of the Simplon tunnel[159] “is the much lower
+altitude of the rails above sea-level than any of the other Alpine
+tunnels. This altitude is at its highest point 2314 feet, being 1474
+feet lower level than that of the St Gothard, 1934 feet lower than that
+of the Mont Cenis....
+
+“The tunnel enters the mountain at the present level of the railway at
+Brigue ... but on the Iselle side the connecting line with the existing
+railway at Domo d’Ossola necessitates heavy work.... The gradient on
+the northern portion of the tunnel will only be that sufficient for
+drainage, viz., 1 in 500, but on the southern portion the gradient will
+be 7 per 1000, or 1 in 142.”
+
+ [Illustration:
+
+ FIG. 77.--Interior of Bath-house and Vestiary for the
+ Miners at the Simplon Tunnel (Iselle), showing the cubicles
+ provided with hot and cold water douche pipes, also numerous
+ cords with workmen’s apparel suspended from ceiling.]
+
+In May 1901, I visited the Simplon tunnel, with the object of
+inspecting the methods of ventilation, the hospitals, the system
+of baths, and the houses erected for the working men, married and
+unmarried. Armed with letters of introduction from Mr Francis Fox,
+I was received at Iselle, the Italian side of the tunnel, by Mr
+Sulser-Ziegler, Director of Messrs Brandt, Brandau & Cie, Zurich;
+also by Dr Volante, the resident Medical Officer, who conducted me
+over the works, the workmen’s dwellings, and the hospital. From the
+elaborate precautions taken, it is clear that the Company has made up
+its mind not to repeat the errors of the St Gothard, and to show to the
+engineering world and the public generally that tunnel-making can be
+conducted without greater risk to life and health than occurs in any
+ordinary enterprise. The large number of deaths in the St Gothard was
+due to the imperfect system of ventilation, the difficulty of dealing
+with excessive temperatures in the mountain, and defective sanitary
+arrangements. Before operations at the Simplon were commenced, Mr
+Sulser and his colleagues appointed two medical men, one at either
+end of the proposed tunnel, viz., Dr Volante at Iselle and Dr Pommata
+at Brigue. Both are Italians, and are most capable men. Before
+undertaking work the men are all medically examined. By this means,
+only healthy men have been employed from the commencement. The most
+important problem has been that of ventilation. The Simplon tunnel,
+when completed, will be the longest in the world, being upwards of 12
+miles in length. So satisfactory have the operations proceeded until
+now, that unless some untoward and unexpected event happens, the tunnel
+will be completed with the smallest number of deaths on record.[160] A
+short description of the work, based upon personal inspection, may well
+be added here.
+
+Ventilation, as already stated, is the main difficulty. At the Swiss
+end of the mountain a shaft has been sunk into the tunnel, and up
+this the foul air is removed by wood fires. Into the tunnel, at each
+end, by means of large fans, air is introduced to the extent of 19
+million cubic feet per day, or 13,200 cubic feet per minute. The air
+is carried in by one of the two parallel tunnels as far as the most
+recently constructed cross gallery, thence it is carried to the face by
+pipes. It returns by the larger tunnel, _i.e._, the one through
+which trains will ultimately travel. By this means fresh air is carried
+to the head of the tunnel where the men are working. At Iselle there
+are 500 men always at work in the tunnel. There are three shifts of
+men, and they work 8 hours each, so that 1500 men, roughly speaking,
+are employed at the Italian end, and a much larger number at Brigue.
+The average temperature at the head varies from 73° F. upwards. After
+firing with dynamite it may be as high as 80° F., or 86° F. The air
+is not only ladened with carbonic acid given off from the lungs of
+the men and the 15 to 20 horses in the tunnel, but contains materials
+given off from the bodies of the men during excessive perspiration,
+and is polluted by the products of dynamite and gelatine explosions.
+The foul air as it escapes from the mouth of the tunnel is thick and
+greyish-white in colour; it contains a good deal of smoke from the
+lamps of the workmen, and is very offensive. Small wonder, therefore,
+that the men emerge from the tunnel bathed in perspiration, and
+disposed to be chilled owing to their clothes being wet, for, although
+they work in tarpaulins, there is a good deal of water in the tunnel.
+It was, among other things, want of attention to these particular
+details in the St Gothard that caused so many deaths and illnesses from
+pulmonary disease.
+
+Close to the mouth of the Simplon tunnel at Iselle, where the railway
+trucks draw up that bring the men from their work in the interior of
+the mountain, are large wooden buildings, one of which internally is
+divided off into, among other things, 32 cubicles, each of which is
+fitted up with hot and cold water pipes. The railway platform where
+the men emerge is covered over, so that the workmen can reach this
+building without being exposed to wet or cold. The building alluded to
+is not only a bath-house but a vestiary as well. Here the men in going
+to work in the tunnel put on their working clothes. At first sight,
+part of the interior of the bath-house is not unlike an old-clothes’
+shop, for, on looking upwards, the clothes of the workmen can be seen
+suspended from the ceiling. There are 2000 strong cords placed 1 foot
+6 inches apart. Attached to the free end of each cord are three iron
+hooks and a soap dish. Upon the hooks the workman hangs his clothes.
+As every cord is provided with a pulley and is numbered, each man,
+having had a bath after his day’s work, hangs his wet clothes on the
+hooks and draws them up to the ceiling. Next morning he finds his
+clothes ready for him, dry, warm, and comfortable. The bath-house is
+kept at a warm temperature, and is well ventilated. I was particularly
+struck with the excellent system of baths, the vestiary arrangements,
+and the cleanliness of the interior, and am of opinion that prevention
+of chilling of the workmen after coming out of the hot tunnel has had
+much to do with keeping them healthy, and has warded off pulmonary
+and bronchial disease. The supply of drinking water is good, and so
+far there has been during the three years no case of typhoid fever at
+Iselle. The workmen’s dwellings are also good, so, too, is the hospital
+and its administration.
+
+In addition to the ill-health caused by working in the vitiated
+atmosphere and high temperature of the tunnels, the miners employed
+in making the St Gothard tunnel suffered from a peculiar form of
+anæmia, which for long was unexplained. The discovery of the cause
+of this “maladie des tunnels,” for so it came to be called, was made
+by Perroncito of Turin, who showed that the anæmia of the miners was
+caused by the presence of a parasite which fixes itself in the upper
+part of the small intestine, measures from ¼ to ½ an inch in length,
+and possesses a mouth and four long hooklets. By its hooklets the
+parasite fixes itself to the lining membrane of the human intestine,
+and is thus enabled to suck the blood of its host. The worm is called
+“Anchylostomum Duodenale,” and is known to be prevalent in Italy. It
+would appear, therefore, that the ova of this parasite escaping by
+the fæces of miners who are suffering from anchylostomiasis find in
+the heat and moisture of the tunnel a medium favourable for their
+transformation into the larval stage; while in the dirty habits of the
+miners, and the accidental contamination of their food and drink, lies
+the explanation of the means of ingress of the ova into the alimentary
+canal. Anchylostomiasis is not therefore necessarily a disease of
+tunnels.[161] It was simply introduced into the St Gothard by infected
+miners. The malady is endemic in Piedmont and Lombardy. Dubini of
+Milan found in one hundred autopsies made upon the peasantry of these
+districts, anchylostomiasis present in twenty bodies, so that the
+disease had been apparently introduced into the St Gothard by Italian
+workmen. The ravages caused by this parasite show the necessity for
+miners working in tunnels disinfecting their stools by such means, for
+example, as sulphuric acid. It is to the careful medical examination
+of the workmen by Drs Volante and Pommata, before being engaged by
+the firm, the elimination of all suspected persons, and the repeated
+inspection of the closets in the tunnel, that anchylostomiasis has
+not appeared at the Simplon. Since much of the pulmonary disease that
+affected the miners was consequent upon breathing an overheated and
+an excessively moist atmosphere, one also vitiated by the products
+of human respiration and dynamite explosions, improved ventilation
+in the case of the Simplon tunnel has diminished these evils; while
+the opportunities given to the men of changing their wet clothes, of
+bathing themselves, and of receiving shelter when tired, have prevented
+the acute bronchial and pulmonary catarrhs that were observed in making
+the other great Alpine tunnels.
+
+
+ _Underground Railways._
+
+Of the underground railways in this country the only one I need allude
+to is the London Metropolitan. In 1897 a Board of Trade Commission
+was appointed to inquire into the condition of the air in the “Inner
+Circle” of the Metropolitan. The passenger traffic on this line is
+enormous. Between Praed Street and Aldgate stations, in one hour, as
+many as 38 trains were said to arrive and depart from either side of
+the stations. Welsh coal is consumed. Part of the Metropolitan railway
+is underground, and part is in the open, so that when the wind is
+blowing in certain directions passengers have been inconvenienced
+by the smoke and the insufficiency of the ventilation, despite the
+numerous escape holes. There has often been an excess of carbonic acid,
+sometimes, too, of carbon monoxide, in the air in the tunnels. The
+Commission found that the ventilation could not be adequately assured
+by the exchange and renewal of the air at the stations and the escape
+holes. It recognised the necessity for artificial ventilation, and in
+consequence the centrifugal method was adopted.
+
+Vitiation of the air of a tunnel is caused by the gases that come
+from the means adopted for illuminating purposes, the products of
+respiration, and those due to combustion of coal in the furnace of the
+locomotive. Carbonic acid is only dangerous when it is present in large
+quantities. Breathed for a very short time at 60 per 1000 it causes
+headache, at 100 per 1000 respiration becomes extremely difficult,
+while if present in the proportion of 250 per 1000 it will cause rapid
+death.[162] It is seldom, however, that carbonic acid is even present
+to the extent of 10 per 1000; if present, it is as a rule accidental
+and only for a short period, so that danger from this gas is slight.
+
+It is otherwise with carbon monoxide, a gas much more dangerous and
+subtle in its influence than carbon dioxide, popularly known as
+carbonic acid. Carbon monoxide was found to be present in the air of
+the Metropolitan Railway to the extent of 0.66 per 1000. When present
+to this amount in air it can, if time is given, paralyse the hæmoglobin
+or coloured substance of the blood that carries the oxygen to the
+tissues. Harmful effects can occur when carbon monoxide reaches 0.3
+per 1000, but as it requires half-an-hour for the blood to absorb
+sufficient of this gas to be detrimental to the individual, accidents
+do not happen owing to the short length of the tunnels and the good
+speed of the trains through them. The risks to health are incurred
+mostly by the men who work on the railways. M. Raymond Godfernaux
+(_Génie Civil._, Août et Sept. 1899), in reviewing this subject,
+remarks that the breathing by an individual in repose for one and a
+half hours (less than this if work is being done) of an atmosphere
+containing 0.25 of carbon monoxide per 1000 is sufficient to cause
+unpleasant symptoms; if the air contains 0.5 per 1000 there will be
+debility and vertigo; if 0.9 per 1000 walking becomes impossible,
+while death will supervene if there is 1.5 in 1000. To men employed
+on underground railways, danger from this source only comes when the
+amount of carbon monoxide passes beyond 0.25 per 1000. The passengers
+run, practically speaking, no risk.
+
+A heavy sulphurous odour hangs about the tunnels and stations of the
+Metropolitan Railway due to the combustion of coal. When sulphurous
+acid is present in air to the extent of 0.6 per 1000 it may cause
+death. This proportion is never present in the air of the tunnels of
+the Metropolitan of London.
+
+The sulphurous acid and carbonic acid are believed to be proportional
+to each other. The amount of sulphurous acid is 440 times less than
+that of carbonic acid, and as the maximum of carbonic acid was 8.9 per
+1000, sulphurous acid is seldom more than 0.02 per 1000.
+
+The Commission established the facts (1) that there was a constant
+relation between the deleterious gases in the tunnels, and (2) that the
+proportion of carbonic acid present might be taken as the basis for the
+aeration of the tunnels. The proportion of carbon monoxide is constant,
+and corresponds to one-thirteenth the volume of carbon dioxide, while
+that of sulphurous acid is 440 times less than that of carbon dioxide.
+The amount of sulphurous acid is regulated by the character of the coal
+burnt in the locomotive. Some coals contain more sulphur than others.
+A similar remark applies to carbon monoxide. An Italian Commission
+charged with a similar function in regard to the composition of the
+air in the tunnels of its own country arrived at different chemical
+conclusions to the Commission of the Board of Trade, so that it would
+be scarcely wise to calculate the purity of the air in all tunnels upon
+parallel lines.
+
+The amounts of carbon monoxide and dioxide should be estimated
+separately. The composition of the air of the tunnels of the
+Metropolitan, accepted for a maximum, is 1.5 of carbonic acid per 1000
+(0.3 being regarded as the normal), 0.1 carbon monoxide per 1000, and
+0.0027 sulphurous acid per 1000.
+
+It is especially for the sake of the men who are working in the
+tunnels, and for the drivers of the locomotives, rather than for the
+passengers who spend proportionally a very short time on the railway,
+although of course desirable for all, that such artificial means of
+ventilation should exist as will quickly disperse the smoke and all
+combustion products.
+
+It has been decided to introduce electric traction in the underground
+railway. By this means the Metropolitan Railway Company will rid the
+atmosphere in the tunnels of the impurities alluded to.
+
+
+ _Divers’ Paralysis._
+
+Men when clad in proper diving suits and wearing air-tight head-gear
+can work at very considerable depths under water. At the depth of 33
+feet the pressure is about twice that of the atmosphere. It is not
+exactly known to what depth men may descend with safety, but 201 feet
+have been reached, _i.e._, equivalent to a pressure of 87 lbs. to
+the square inch. It is very desirable that the descent should be made
+gradually, say about two feet per second. In this country diving is
+resorted to for making excavations connected with piers, inspecting
+sunken ships, etc., and abroad for sponge, pearl, and coral fishing.
+It is not uncommon for the men after having been in the water some
+time to complain of weakness of the legs and of impaired sensation. A
+patient of Dr Frederick Taylor (_Clin. Jour._, April 27, 1898),
+after diving 162 feet felt sick, and when pulled up into the lighter
+was found to have lost the power of his legs. Loss of consciousness is
+a frequent symptom, and as it often takes a man as much as five minutes
+before he can reach the surface of the water, there is considerable
+danger attending the occupation. Divers have died without regaining
+consciousness. Others when rescued, and on coming to themselves, have
+complained of severe cramp-like pains in the muscles of their limbs and
+abdomen.
+
+At such depths as 160 to 180 feet men can only stay at the bottom of
+the sea a very short time. It is only when men work at very great
+depths that paralysis is likely to supervene. The risk to life and
+health is regulated by the depth, and particularly is this the case
+when there are sudden alterations of pressure. Hauling up divers
+too quickly when the air-tube has become foul is a very dangerous
+proceeding. Since young men bear the work better than old men, age,
+therefore, is a circumstance that should be considered, as well as
+temperance in the use of alcohol. The character of the water and the
+length of the period of submersion must not be overlooked. Once 150
+feet below the surface has been reached, the diver is apt to feel
+somewhat inconvenienced, and with every increase of two or three feet
+beyond this, the inconvenience becomes rapidly greater. There are
+experienced a sense of fulness in the head, buzzing in the ears--often
+relieved by filling the mouth with saliva and swallowing the
+secretion--also flashes of light before the eyes. Bleeding at the nose,
+mouth, and ears occasionally occurs after the men come to the surface;
+severe muscular pains, called “bends,” are sometimes complained of,
+followed by loss of power in the legs. There is either complete
+paraplegia, _i.e._, the lower half of the body is paralysed as
+regards motion, and sometimes too as regards sensation, or the loss of
+power is limited to groups of muscles affecting the wrists and ankles.
+The paralysis may be permanent, or it may last only a few hours or
+days, but if a diver has once had paralysis the symptoms are apt to
+recur on re-exposure.
+
+The cause of divers’ paralysis, like the disease of caisson workers,
+is the sudden liberation of gas that was previously dissolved in
+the blood. No hæmorrhages have been found in the central nervous
+system, but Van Leyden observed fissures in the spinal cord occupied
+by leucocytes, _i.e._, cells like the white corpuscles of the
+blood. The appearance of the fissures suggested that they had first
+been formed, and that the colourless corpuscles had found their way
+thither afterwards. When lesions have been present in the spinal cord
+they usually occupy the lowest third of its length, a circumstance
+attributed by Moxon to the greater length, tortuosity, and attenuated
+condition of the small blood-vessels that are present at this
+particular part compared with the arteries in the upper region of the
+spinal cord.
+
+Fatal cases of divers’ paralysis fortunately do not occur very
+frequently. One of the most recent cases was in November 1900, when
+H.M. battleship _Howe_ was cruising in the West of Scotland; the
+diver of the ship died after a lengthened immersion in the water.
+At the post-mortem examination bubbles of gas were found in the
+blood-vessels, the heart, and brain. The morbid conditions found in
+this man’s body after death quite confirm the opinion already expressed
+as to the pathology of the malady.
+
+In addition to the risks to health already mentioned, there are those
+incidental to the fouling of the air-tubes of the diver; also large
+stones and other materials occasionally fall upon the tubes, and tend
+to cause death by asphyxia.
+
+So far as the operations of diving itself are concerned the three
+things to be avoided are: (1) too great depths; (2) sudden alteration
+of pressure; and (3) coming up too suddenly. There must necessarily be
+increased danger when a man who is working at a depth of 150 feet is
+brought to the surface in one minute instead of five.
+
+_Treatment._--If the diver on coming to the surface is found to
+be unconscious and not breathing well, artificial respiration should
+be resorted to and kept up till breathing becomes automatic. If he is
+collapsed, warmth should be applied to the extremities, and, if he
+can swallow, hot coffee should be administered. The patient should be
+removed to a hospital, or his own home, when sufficiently revived. If
+muscular pains are severe, or if there is loss of power, rest in bed,
+sinapisms to the spine, and later on galvanism should be tried.
+
+ THOMAS OLIVER.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LV
+
+ DISEASES DUE TO DIMINISHED ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE:
+ PURE AND IMPURE GASES
+
+
+ _Mountain Climbers; Military Balloonists._
+
+Increased atmospheric pressure causes unpleasant and sometimes serious
+symptoms in divers and in caisson workers, but to an extremely rarefied
+atmosphere can also be traced effects that are nearly equally serious.
+It is difficult to say at what height above the ordinary surface level
+of the earth man can live with comparative comfort. The Andes and
+the Himalayas have been scaled to from 15,000 to 23,000 feet above
+the sea level, and men are said to have gone as high as six miles in
+balloons. The difficulties of remaining at great altitudes are the
+excessive cold and the low barometric and oxygen pressures. In order
+to compensate for this low oxygen pressure, nature endows men living
+at great heights by increasing the number of the red corpuscles of
+their blood. It is these corpuscles that carry oxygen to the tissues.
+In ascending a very high mountain the individual experiences not only
+great difficulty of breathing and violent palpitation of the heart,
+but a sense of great physical fatigue and faintness. A set of symptoms
+not unlike those observed in sea-sickness occurs, hence the name given
+to the illness, “mal de montagnes,” although vomiting and nausea are
+not always present. In climbing mountains people generally put forth a
+great amount of muscular effort, and in consequence an increased amount
+of chemical change takes place within their body, a circumstance which
+reduces the resistance of these individuals to the influences of a
+falling barometric pressure. Aeronauts do not experience this sense of
+muscular fatigue, because they are not making any muscular effort, but
+they ascend to great heights with greater rapidity than climbers, and
+to this circumstance must be attributed many of the unpleasant symptoms
+they experience.
+
+Since in the act of climbing it is upon the heart and lungs that the
+greatest strain is thrown, it is these organs that principally have
+their functional activity increased. The palpitation of the heart may
+be very distressing. There is throbbing in the head, accompanied by
+extreme muscular exhaustion, so that after reaching a great height the
+individual may be so overcome that he throws himself on the ground,
+unable to proceed further. He lies there for a time panting, trying to
+get more oxygen into his system and to rid it of the excess of carbonic
+acid. He may bleed at the nose or from the gums. He perspires freely,
+and there is great thirst. There may be deafness and earache owing to
+the bulging outwards of the drum of the ear. Although it cannot be
+stated that in man death has been caused by diminished atmospheric
+pressures at great heights, yet it has been shown experimentally in
+animals that coma is induced which may end in death. The animal passes
+into a state of cadaveric rigidity very shortly after death. It is just
+a question how far the sudden supervention of cardiac and cerebral
+symptoms in mountain climbers may not be responsible for some of the
+fatal accidents that we read of from time to time as occurring on the
+Alps.
+
+
+_Military Balloonists._--In the _Archiv. de Med. Milit._,
+February 1900, Dr Maljean reports that in a company of balloonists
+belonging to the 1st Regiment of Engineers he found several of the
+soldiers suffering from a toxæmic form of jaundice, the nature of which
+was obscure. Ultimately he demonstrated that the jaundice was due
+to poisoning by inhalation of arseniuretted hydrogen gas mixed with
+hydrogen that had been used for filling the balloons. The hydrogen
+employed for military balloons is obtained by acting upon granulated
+zinc with sulphuric acid. The sulphuric acid is generally obtained from
+pyrites, and this is known to contain sometimes as much as from 2 to
+5 per cent. of arsenic combined with iron. Commercial zinc also often
+contains arsenic. In filling balloons, therefore, it would appear that
+not only is there frequently an escape of this impure hydrogen from the
+valves of the balloon, but that during the operation of filling the
+balloon, the officers and men are in the habit of smelling the tube to
+ascertain whether by the garlicky odour of the impure hydrogen this
+gas has replaced the ordinary atmospheric air. At a single filling an
+officer may smell several times the open tube of the balloon and suffer
+in consequence.
+
+According to Maljean the symptoms of poisoning commence with a sense
+of great malaise and nausea, followed later on by jaundice, often
+of a very pronounced yellow-green tint, urine scanty, and often as
+dark as coffee, but not giving the reaction of biliary pigment. The
+urine stains the linen like the blood-coloured urine of patients
+suffering from hæmoglobinuria, and it may contain both albumen and a
+few tube-casts. In a few days these symptoms disappear, but they leave
+behind them anæmia and loss of flesh, which persist. It has for long
+been known that if animals are given arseniuretted hydrogen gas to
+inhale, they rapidly become jaundiced and pass a blood-coloured urine.
+A similar set of symptoms has been observed in men working in chemical
+and mineral industries in which arsenic is present.
+
+In the balloon service of the French army an endeavour is now being
+made to use only pure hydrogen. In most of the military balloons the
+valve which allows the gas to escape is placed in the upper part of the
+machine. The balloons are filled in the open by hydrogen from metallic
+cylinders which have been charged under a pressure equivalent to 120
+atmospheric pressures. It is stated by some authorities that under such
+very high pressure the impure gas may be decomposed and rendered less
+harmful, but this requires confirmation.
+
+Poisoning of aeronauts by arseniuretted hydrogen in connection with
+military balloons on the Continent is not confined to the French army
+alone. In the _Deutsche Milit. Zeitschrift_, 1900, p. 139, is an
+account of two German soldiers, who, after being poisoned by this gas,
+died at the end of three days.
+
+Persons ascending in balloons should dress warmly, and they ought to
+take with them cylinders filled with compressed oxygen.
+
+ THOMAS OLIVER.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LVI
+
+ EFFECTS OF CONCUSSION OF THE AIR
+
+
+ _Boilermakers and Riveters._
+
+It may be taken as a fact based upon experience, that artisans who are
+exposed to such loud noises as are made in hammering rivets suffer from
+deafness. Boilermakers and riveters become deaf at an early age, while
+their comrades engaged in other kinds of work in the same shipyard do
+not suffer. Several young boilermakers whom I have examined have stated
+that they lost their hearing at an early age. Their infirmity dated
+back to their ’prentice days, when as boys they were sent into the
+boilers to catch the rivets, and were subjected to the intense noise
+of hammering inside the cylinder. Workers in sheet-iron factories are
+sometimes similarly affected with deafness. It is no uncommon thing,
+as people know, for artillerymen when firing large guns to be rendered
+temporarily deaf by the noise and force of the explosion, and in some
+instances for the drum of the ear to be ruptured. In order to prevent
+such an accident, cotton wadding is sometimes placed in the ear. It is
+difficult to say exactly what is the cause of deafness in boilermakers,
+but the extreme vibration of the tympanum, and the intense agitation of
+the ossicles, cannot but be followed either by a thickening of the drum
+of the ear, or by a paralytic condition of the minute terminations of
+the auditory nerve.
+
+There is nothing I know of that will prevent boilermakers’ deafness,
+short of substitution of machine for hand riveting, and once deafness
+is established I know of no reliable cure for it.
+
+
+ _Boilermakers, Shipwrights, etc._
+
+Some idea may be formed of the trades included under this heading, by
+glancing at the reports of the Boilermakers’ Society, and ascertaining
+from what trades the members of the society are drawn. The members
+are engaged in the various steel trades, viz., boilermaking,
+bridge-building, shipbuilding, also in iron and other structural work
+composed of iron and steel. They mostly come from the boilermaking
+and shipbuilding industries. As the central office of this Society is
+in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, I have, through the kindness of Messrs Robert
+Knight and D. C. Cummings, the past and present secretaries, gained
+considerable information as to the maladies principally affecting
+boilermakers, and their death-rate, etc. The work is hard, and as it
+is mostly carried on in the open the workmen are exposed to all kinds
+of weather. Under these circumstances, therefore, it would be natural
+to expect that boilermakers would show a tendency to suffer from
+acute inflammatory affections, especially of the respiratory organs.
+Boilermakers as a class are not unhealthy. At the present time there
+are 48,000 members in the Society. In 1899 there died 436 members,
+a number equal to 9 per 1000, as against 8 per 1000 of the male
+population of the country generally. As illustrating the effect of the
+occupation upon their working powers, members are eligible to be placed
+upon the superannuation fund at the age of fifty-five years. This is
+an early age compared with some industries, and yet, at fifty-five
+some boilermakers are, comparatively speaking, old, a circumstance
+that is attributed to the arduous nature of their calling. The records
+of the Society, as of many other trade unions, show that with each
+succeeding decade in the working life of a boilermaker he is annually
+on the sick-list an increasing number of days. The average age at death
+of boilermakers is 46.72 years. Hard and exposed as the work is, it
+is interesting to know that the average age at death of boilermakers
+is greater than that of the wives of boilermakers, who are leading an
+indoor and protected life. The average age at death of members’ wives
+is 45.47 years, a circumstance which I attribute to many of the wives
+dying during or shortly after their confinement, and also dying at an
+earlier age than the members from such other diseases, for example, as
+consumption.
+
+In the accompanying statistical tables in their present form I
+am indebted to Dr H. E. Armstrong, Medical Officer of Health,
+Newcastle-upon-Tyne (see p. 754).
+
+One thousand boilermakers, it will be seen, exhibit a slightly higher
+death-rate from all causes than 1000 of the male population of England
+and Wales, the numbers being respectively 9 and 8. They have a slightly
+higher mean death-rate, too, from all forms of lung diseases, including
+pneumonia, viz., 3.0 as against 2.9 of 1000 male persons over twenty
+and under sixty-five years of age; but taking tubercular diseases only,
+the death-rate from this cause is less, being 1.4 as against 1.6; on
+the other hand the death-rate for diseases of the heart and circulatory
+organs is slightly higher, 1.2 as against 1.1.
+
+
+ UNITED SOCIETY OF BOILERMAKERS AND IRON SHIPBUILDERS.
+
+ _Extracted from the Annual Reports of the Society._
+
+ Column headings:
+ 1: YEAR.
+ 2: No. of Members.
+ 3: All Causes.
+ 4: Bronchitis.
+ 5: Pneumonia.
+ 6: Phthisis, not included in cols. 7, 8.
+ 7: Consumption, not included in cols. 6, 8.
+ 8: Tuberculosis, not included in cols. 6, 7.
+ 9: Cancer.
+ 10: Diseases of Heart, Circulatory System.
+ 11: Typhoid Fever.
+ 12: Lung Diseases, including Bronchitis, Pneumonia, Phthisis, etc.
+ 13: Tuberculosis, including Phthisis, and all other forms.
+
+ +---------------+--------------------------------------------+----------+
+ | | DEATHS FROM | TOTAL |
+ | | | DEATHS. |
+ +------+--------+-----+----+----+----+----+---+----+----+----+-----+----+
+ | =1= | =2= | =3= |=4= |=5= |=6= |=7= |=8=|=9= |=10=|=11=|=12= |=13=|
+ | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
+ | 1896 | 40,776 | 346 | 27 | 35 | 51 | 8 | | 12 | 48 | 5 | 121 | 51 |
+ | 1897 | 42,178 | 379 | 32 | 37 | 43 | 12 | 4 | 23 | 52 | 6 | 124 | 47 |
+ | 1898 | 43,905 | 399 | 25 | 41 | 68 | 6 | 2 | 20 | 53 | 12 | 140 | 70 |
+ | 1899 | 47,417 | 436 | 30 | 53 | 62 | 3 | 7 | 13 | 56 | 25 | 148 | 69 |
+ +======+========+=====+====+====+====+====+===+====+====+====+=====+====+
+ | _Death-Rate per 1000 Members._ |
+ +-----------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+
+ | |Per col.|Per col.|Per col.|Per col.|Per col.|Per col.|
+ | | 12. | 13. | 9. | 10. | 11. | 3. |
+ | +--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+
+ | | =14= | =15= | =16= | =17= | =18= | =19= |
+ | | | | | | | |
+ | | 3.0 | 1.3 | 0.3 | 1.2 | 0.1 | 8.9 |
+ | | 2.9 | 1.1 | 0.5 | 1.2 | 0.1 | 9.0 |
+ | | 3.2 | 1.6 | 0.4 | 1.2 | 0.3 | 9.1 |
+ | | 3.1 | 1.5 | 0.3 | 1.2 | 0.5 | 9.2 |
+ +-----------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+
+ |Average for four | | | | | | |
+ | years | 3.0 | 1.4 | 0.4 | 1.2 | 0.2 | 9.0 |
+ +=================+========+========+========+========+========+========+
+ | [163]ENGLAND AND WALES.--_Per 1000 population, 1881–90._ |
+ +-----------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+
+ |Mean Annual }| | | | | | |
+ | Death-Rate of }| | | | | | |
+ | Male Persons 20}| 2.9 | 1.6 | 0.4 | 1.1 | 0.1 | 8.0 |
+ | and under 65 }| | | | | | |
+ | years of age }| | | | | | |
+ +-----------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+
+
+
+It is noteworthy, as already stated, that the average age at death
+of the wives of the members of the Boilermaker’s Society is lower
+than that of members, viz., 45.47 years for the wives and 46.72 for
+the members. Fewer of the wives die from phthisis and tubercular
+disease than the members, the numbers being 1 and 1.4 respectively as
+against 1.6 of 1000 of the population generally, estimated upon the
+returns of the Registrar-General for 1881–90. The wives of members
+die at an earlier age from pulmonary consumption than the members,
+viz., thirty-four and a half years for the wives, and thirty-nine for
+members, a circumstance possibly explained by two facts--that males
+show greater resistance to the disease than females, and that during
+the early part of the disease at any rate the members spend more of
+their time in the open air than do the wives.
+
+Although boilermakers are exposed to such risks as burns from red-hot
+rivets, it is surprising how few accidents are traceable to this cause.
+When Dr Ogle dealt with the statistics of workers in iron, he concluded
+that of the three classes--(1) locksmiths, including bellhangers and
+gasfitters; (2) engine and machine-makers, fitters and millwrights; (3)
+boilermakers--the engine-makers occupied the most favourable position
+from a mortality point of view, the mean mortality rate being 863 as
+against 967 for locksmiths, and 994 for boilermakers. According to the
+same authority, too, the mean annual death-rate of boilermakers is
+greater at all the ages between twenty-five and sixty-five years.
+
+ THOMAS OLIVER.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LVII
+
+ IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRIES
+
+
+ _Exposure to High Temperatures, and Severe Muscular Strain._
+
+In iron works the _blast furnacemen_ are exposed to very high
+temperatures. Passing rapidly from great heat to cold, they are prone
+to suffer from bronchial and pulmonary affections and from rheumatism.
+They run the risk of burns, also on a windy day of getting particles
+of dust or sand into their eyes.[164] Blast furnacemen’s work is hard.
+When young the men are, as a class, physically strong. Their wages are
+good; they live well, but at an early age they begin to drink freely.
+Under the combined influence of their arduous labour, exposure to all
+kinds of weather, and their intemperate habits, they break down readily
+and become prematurely old.
+
+The men who work at the _puddling_ furnaces are exposed to
+excessive heat and to severe muscular strain. Owing to the heat and
+excessive perspiration, they often work with the upper half of their
+body uncovered. They imbibe many kinds of liquids, so as to replace
+what is lost by perspiration. Puddling, which is briefly speaking the
+rolling about by means of a rabble the huge balls of molten iron in the
+furnaces, is such very hard work that many of the men develop heart
+affections, particularly disease of the aortic valves, or aneurismal
+dilatation of the aorta, owing to the excessive muscular strain and
+intemperate habits. Puddling is justly regarded as one of the most
+degrading occupations a man can follow. Fortunately for the workmen it
+is now very much on the decrease. Steel is rapidly taking the place of
+iron, consequently puddling is not so much required.
+
+Blast furnacemen are occasionally poisoned by the escape of carbonic
+oxide from the waste gases used for heating the air of the furnace.
+
+
+ _Blacksmiths and Forgemen._
+
+Beyond the extremely arduous nature of this employment, and which
+necessitates the work being undertaken by men of good physique, whose
+muscular system develops in proportion to the strain that is imposed
+upon it, especially in the early years of manhood, and freedom from
+alcoholic excess, the work of the blacksmith and forgeman is healthy.
+Formerly a good deal of the heavy work was done by men wielding large
+hammers. This threw a strain upon the heart and large blood-vessels,
+and was a frequent cause of valvular disease of the heart, dilatation
+of the aorta, and possibly too of hernia. Since much of the hard work
+previously done by hammermen is now done by machinery, we see less of
+aortic disease among forgemen than two decades ago. The workmen are
+exposed to heats and colds, to injuries to the eyes, and to burns from
+flying scales during hammering. Blacksmiths seem to lead a charmed life
+so far as these risks are concerned, for considering their exposure the
+percentage of injuries is small. As a consequence of handling the rough
+iron tools the skin of the hand becomes thick and hard, and the men run
+the risk of catching bronchial and pulmonary catarrhs on emerging from
+their heated workshops into the open air. Years ago in Sheffield, when
+sledge-hammers were more in use than now, there was observed a form
+of paralysis of the muscles of the arms due to overstrain, and known
+by the name of hammermen’s paralysis. A considerable percentage of
+blacksmiths die from phthisis and diseases of the respiratory organs.
+Out of 872 deaths of blacksmiths Dr Ogle found 194 due to consumption,
+and 183 caused by other forms of lung disease; while following these
+came diseases of the heart and circulation, 108; and, lastly, from
+diseases of the nervous system, 85.
+
+
+ _Use of Converters in Steel Works._
+
+This is the proper place to allude to a matter which formed the subject
+of a special inquiry by, and report[165] from, the Dangerous Trades
+Committee of the Home Office, on account of a fatal accident to four
+men in a large iron works in which the Bessemer process of steel
+manufacture is in use. The Bessemer converter is a pear-shaped metal
+vessel, about nineteen feet long by seven or eight across at its widest
+part, into which pig-iron and other ingredients for the manufacture of
+steel are run in a liquid condition. In the bottom of the converter are
+openings called “tuyere holes,” through which a powerful blast of air
+is driven into the molten pig-iron, the object being to burn out such
+impurities as carbon, silicon, phosphorus, etc., the means employed to
+do this being sufficient to develop at the same time a degree of heat
+capable of keeping the purified metal in a liquid state. Before the
+blast is turned on, the converter occupies almost an upright position.
+The roar that follows the entrance of the blast of air is succeeded
+by volumes of coloured smoke and flame, and by myriads of sparks of
+molten metal. When the flame has become finally white, the blast is
+withdrawn, spiegel iron is added to the seething mass to restore the
+proper amount of manganese and carbon required, the converter is
+lowered and gently turned over so as to allow of the pouring of the
+liquid steel into a ladle, which distributes it into moulds. It is
+in the moving of the converter and the ladle into their respective
+positions, an act usually accomplished by the aid of hydraulic or steam
+power, that accidents have arisen owing to faulty machinery. The moulds
+are standing upright in what is called the pit, where there are usually
+two or three men employed. Should by chance either the converter or
+the ladle spill its contents a fatal accident is almost sure to occur.
+It is desirable, therefore, that only experienced men should work the
+machinery connected with the lowering and turning over of the converter
+and ladle, and that during the act of distributing the steel into
+the moulds no men should be present in the pit at all. The Dangerous
+Trades Committee, in addition to the above, recommended that where an
+automatic safety apparatus has been introduced into the machinery, the
+spindle in the valve should be changed every three months, and the
+valves examined regularly by a competent engineer. Owing to the fact
+that when molten metal falls into water there is an explosion, it was
+also recommended that the pits should not be, as they too often are,
+open to the sky and exposed to all kinds of weather.
+
+
+ _Nail and Chain Making._
+
+The small iron industries are located in districts where coal is
+plentiful, iron close at hand, and labour cheap. It is thus that
+chain-making has come to be associated with such places as Cradley
+Heath and Dudley, and has grown up to be a family industry, carried on
+in these localities by husband, wife, and children in small tenemented
+properties and outbuildings under the worst hygienic conditions
+possible. A similar remark applies to nail-making at Bromsgrove. In
+these trades, as carried on in the Midlands, female labour, assisted
+by that of children, prevails, a circumstance that tends to pull down
+wages and to render the conditions of life hard.
+
+As an illustration of how the minor iron industries come to be located
+in small places, I would mention the manufacture of nails, locks, and
+angle iron that has been carried on for many years in Winlaton, a few
+miles from Newcastle-on-Tyne. Here also the work has partly assumed
+the family type already mentioned. For generations the industry has
+been handed on from father to sons. It cannot be said that in Winlaton
+the conditions of labour have been, from a financial point of view,
+unsatisfactory to the workers or deleterious in its effects upon their
+health, as is stated to be the case in the “Black Country,” where
+labour has been ill-requited, recourse had to female and child labour
+on account of cheapness, the hours of toil long, and the hygienic
+conditions under which the work is carried on bad. Dr Arlidge, drawing
+his experience from Staffordshire, was of opinion that for the worker
+in these trades to earn a living wage, a great amount of physical
+labour had to be expended in the forging and hammering of the nails on
+the anvil. To put the head on to a nail a suspended hammer has to be
+intermittently brought down by pressure of the foot upon a chain. For
+spike nails the cold iron has to be cut into proper lengths by means of
+an “oliver” or sledge hammer, worked by two or three men by means of a
+treddle. In forging a nail a girl works with the hammer on the anvil,
+and with her foot a small “oliver.” Apart from the small wages received
+it cannot be said that the industry is unhealthy, but the work is hard,
+and requires a great amount of physical exertion which ought to be met
+by good food and adequate physical rest, the former of which is denied
+the workers by their small wages, and the latter by the long hours of
+toil required to secure the necessaries of life.
+
+In consequence of the irritation which the palm of the hand is exposed
+to in handling the hammer, etc., there occurs a thickening and
+contraction of the fascia in the front of the hand whereby the fingers
+become crooked and drawn towards the palm. Spinal curvature, too,
+is not unknown. It is extremely apt to develop in those who engage
+in the work at an early age. Pulmonary disease is said to carry off
+the men while still young, and the occupation is one that exposes the
+worker to the risk of burns. Attention is drawn to this industry, not
+so much because the trades are unhealthy in themselves, as that the
+nail-makers at Bromsgrove and Sidemoor, and the chain-makers of Cradley
+Heath, scarcely earn wages sufficient to buy the proper food necessary
+for the maintenance of the body, while they are obliged to put forth
+considerable muscular effort owing to the laborious nature of their
+calling.
+
+ THOMAS OLIVER.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LVIII
+
+ EYE DISEASES AND EYE ACCIDENTS IN RELATION TO
+ INDUSTRIAL OCCUPATIONS
+
+
+The subject to be discussed in this article is a very wide one. To
+treat all industrial occupations and the relations they bear to eye
+diseases and eye accidents would be impossible in the space at my
+command. It will, however, be found that the various trades which are
+brought under notice cover a considerable part of the whole area.
+They may be regarded as perhaps the most important, and some, at all
+events, will represent also the dangers arising from cognate or allied
+industries. For the most part I have treated of occupations in which I
+have myself been particularly interested.
+
+The subjects to be considered may be conveniently arranged under the
+following divisions:
+
+ _1st._ Diseases due to occupations involving prolonged use
+ or excessive strain of the eyes, such as nystagmus in miners,
+ and others.
+
+ _2nd._ Diseases due to occupations involving the use of
+ certain poisonous substances, such as dinitrobenzol, bisulphide
+ of carbon, tobacco, lead, etc.
+
+ _3rd._ Diseases due to occupations involving exposure to
+ excessive light or heat, or both, such as burnishers, steel
+ melters, electric welders, etc.
+
+ _4th._ Injuries or accidents amongst grinders, iron and
+ steel workers, masons, coal miners, weavers, etc.
+
+
+ _1. Diseases due to occupations involving prolonged use or excessive
+ strain of the eyes, such as nystagmus in miners and others._
+
+Coal miners, as a result of their employment, are specially prone
+to a peculiar affection of the eyes called “nystagmus,”[166] which
+is characterised by oscillations of the eyeball. The sufferer, too,
+complains of objects dancing before his eyes. In this disease objects
+appear to move either in a circle or an ellipse. Headache is often
+present, and especially giddiness, which sometimes causes the miner
+so to stumble about that he is compelled to leave his work in the
+mine. The movements of the eyeball are chiefly rotatory; to-and-fro
+oscillations are sometimes superadded; these are rarely vertical,
+but the rotatory are seldom, if ever, absent. The rapidity of the
+ocular motions varies greatly: from sixty to one hundred and fifty
+motions may be counted in a minute; I have observed them as frequent
+as three hundred and fifty. Both eyes are affected, but the rapidity
+of movements may vary in the two eyes. The more rapid the oscillations
+the less extended is the excursion of the globes. The oscillations are
+arrested by turning the gaze downwards below the horizontal line, and
+miners often learn to rest their eyes in this way. Looking upwards,
+and especially obliquely to one side or the other, rapid movements
+of the head, lowering of the head and suddenly raising it, are means
+of increasing the rate of movements of the eyeballs, or, in other
+cases, of rendering them evident. Placing the patient in the position
+he would assume at his work is another method. Tremors of the head
+(noticeable to the hand placed on the head), of the eyelids, and of
+the muscles of the face or neck, are often associated with nystagmus,
+and so is torticollis or “wry-neck” in some cases. Night blindness
+has been alleged to be present, but there is some reason to dispute
+this; the nystagmus alone is a sufficient cause for any difficulty in
+seeing in a failing light. Errors of refraction, myopia, hypermetropia,
+and astigmatism are often present, but bear no causal relation to
+nystagmus; visual acuity is generally unaffected. Colour perception is
+good, and, so far as the movements of the eyeballs permit of testing,
+the field of vision is normal. The onset of the disorder is often
+brought about by some attack of illness. It is generally met with in
+men who have worked in the mine for some years. Ninety per cent. of
+cases occur in persons from twenty-five to forty-five years of age.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 78.--Bottom Holing.
+
+ (_Photo. taken in coal mine with Magnesium Flash
+ Light._)]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 79.--Bottom Holing. (To show
+ position of head and eyes.)
+
+ (_Photo. taken in coal mine with Magnesium Flash
+ Light._)]
+
+Nystagmus is found in miners (coal-getters) engaged at the coal face,
+who work in a more or less constrained position of body and of eyes.
+It is desirable to get coal in as large pieces as possible, and, to
+do this, they undercut, or “hole” the seam. A man sits with his legs
+crooked up, lying almost on his side, and strikes the coal with a
+horizontal swing of his pick at the bottom of the coal seam. He will
+cut away the coal to a height of from 18 inches to 2 feet, and then
+as he gets deeper in he draws his body under the coal, lying on
+one side or the other. The process is called “holing,” and sometimes
+the undermining may be continued from 2 or 3 feet to as much as 7 or
+8 feet; the distance varies considerably. As he proceeds with his
+work the miner applies timber supports to keep the coal from falling.
+This just described is called “bottom-holing,” but the seam may be
+attacked in the middle (middle-holing) or at the top (top-holing). A
+miner engaged at this work will direct his gaze to different parts,
+as it becomes necessary for him to strike, for the eyes will follow
+the pickpoint, but the tendency will be for the gaze to be directed
+upwards (using the ocular elevators) more or less obliquely. He will
+lie sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other; his legs will
+be crooked up, his head thrown back and flexed more or less on the
+shoulder beneath. This position is shown in the photographs, which
+were taken in the mine with a magnesium flash-light, of a man whilst
+actually at work. Ninety-eight per cent. of all cases of nystagmus
+coming under my notice have been in men occupied at the coal face and
+more or less engaged at this kind of work. The thickness of the coal
+seam varies greatly in different parts, but work of a very similar
+nature is done in coal mines in all countries.
+
+There are others working in a mine beside the coal-getters. Among
+these are those who attend to the roads, fill the waggons (fillers),
+push these (trammers), or drive the ponies. There are also deputies or
+overlookers, whose work it is to see to the safety of the places the
+men work in, both as to freedom from gas and as to the condition of the
+roof of the mine. These latter occasionally suffer from nystagmus, and
+a consideration of the work they perform will show that it necessitates
+the same upward and oblique direction of the gaze. Frequently also
+these men have previously worked as coal-getters. The photograph shows
+a deputy examining the roof by striking it with his stick to ascertain
+its soundness. It must be remembered that the height of the working
+places and passages in the mine is nearly always so low that this alone
+compels a constrained attitude. “Onsetters,” whose duty it is to see to
+the ascent of the full, and descent of the empty coal tubs, sometimes
+get nystagmus, as do also “timbermen.” It may be accepted as a rule
+that all cases of nystagmus occur in those who are either working, or
+have worked, as coal-getters, or that the work in which they have been
+employed has been one in which an upward direction of the eyes has also
+been necessitated for more or less prolonged periods.
+7
+The etiology of the affection must be sought in this constrained
+position of the eyes by which chronic weariness is induced in the
+elevator muscles of the eyes. Like effects are found in other muscles
+of the miner, producing wry-neck, tremors of the head, and quivering
+of the eyelids. It is thus similar to other occupation neuroses,
+and in the same category as those met with in writers, compositors,
+telegraphers, ballet-dancers, and many others.
+
+Nystagmus occurs in miners working with all kinds of lighting. I have
+met with it in workers with safety lamps, candles, large open lamps,
+and when the artificial light was really good. There is, however,
+some reason for believing that the strain is greater the worse the
+light, and that nystagmus is met with in greater frequency under such
+conditions. Other things, as to the nature of work, being equal, the
+disease will probably be most frequent with the worst light.
+
+Nieden says that 5 per cent. of miners suffer, and my observations
+support this generally; in some parts, however, the percentage is
+higher. For instance, among men working at a colliery with candles I
+found that 6 out of a total of 140 were absent from work for nystagmus,
+and this represented only a portion of those whom an examination
+would have ascertained to be actually affected with the disorder.
+Romiée gives the percentage for Belgium as high as 20, but possibly he
+includes less marked cases.
+
+The prognosis is good, and, even in old-standing cases, if the
+directions as to work are followed, the nystagmus will usually
+disappear. Treatment consists essentially of a change of the kind
+of work. In some cases it will suffice if the patient ceases from
+coal-getting, without altogether stopping work in the mine, but
+generally it is advisable, especially if the nystagmus be of high
+degree and of some standing, to recommend cessation altogether from
+work underground. After relief has been effected return to the mine is
+practicable, provided the head can be kept straight, and the upward
+turn of the eyes avoided. Resumption of the old kind of work is
+followed, sooner or later, by a recurrence of the symptoms. Medicinal
+treatment is also of service.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 80.--Deputy examining roof.
+
+ (_Photo. taken in coal mine with Magnesium Flash
+ Light._)]
+
+Though so peculiarly an affection of miners, nystagmus is met with,
+but much less frequently, in other occupations. I have observed it in
+various employments, and have collected together a series of cases in
+which it occurred, viz., in compositors, metal roller, plate layer,
+plank cutter, saw maker, sanitary tube maker, fitter, iron founder,
+cage worker in the mine, glass manufacturer, youth in confectionery
+warehouse, and a man engaged in hanging up harness, and in another
+employed at the screens at the surface of a coal mine. These instances
+occurred in circumstances closely comparable to the work in the mine
+as to strain of the elevator muscles of the eyeball, and where, of
+course, the influence of illumination had no place. They may be held
+as definitely corroborating the views set forth as to the causation of
+this affection in miners.
+
+
+ _2. Diseases due to occupations involving the use of certain
+ poisonous substances, such as, dinitrobenzol, bisulphide of
+ carbon, tobacco, lead, etc._
+
+_Dinitrobenzol_ is largely employed in the making of explosives,
+such as roburite, sicherheit, etc., a class of explosives which find
+special employment in coal mines.
+
+The dinitrobenzol is brought to the factory in slabs, say 15 inches
+square, and about 4 inches thick. The first process is to grind these
+to powder in an apparatus with steam rollers. During this process a
+good deal of dust is given off, and there is a smell of bitter almonds.
+The next step is to take the powder thus obtained to the mixing shed,
+where it is mixed with oxidising salts and other materials in a large
+pan, and heated with steam. It remains there for several hours, and it
+is then cooled by cold water being pumped on the outside of the shell.
+When cool, the material is turned out of the mixer. It is during the
+removal of the material from the mixer that workmen are especially
+exposed to the vapour, but the dangers are lessened by the adoption
+of a cowl to the mixer, and also by the use of a fan. The explosive
+prepared in this way is put away in cylinders and kept until required.
+The next step is to take it to the filling room, where it is put into
+cartridges, which are then weighed and stamped, and finally these go to
+the dipping room, where the cartridges are waterproofed by being dipped
+in liquid paraffin wax.
+
+The most injurious work is that of grinding and mixing, especially the
+latter. Men are employed in these processes. For the “filling” of the
+cartridges, and for the “dipping,” women and girls are employed. In the
+first named, the powder is shovelled into the cartridges and directly
+handled; a good deal of dust is given off. Respirators and gloves are
+used, as they are also by the men mixing or grinding. The dippers
+are apparently the least exposed to the injurious effects, yet they,
+nevertheless, suffer. The greasiness about the hands from the paraffin
+may also aid absorption. Here also gloves and respirators are worn.
+There is not much dust, the powder being confined inside the cases.
+
+Some years ago several patients were under my care whose impaired
+vision was due to working with dinitrobenzol. An opportunity was
+afforded me of investigating the manufacture of this material, its
+effect on vision and the general health of the employés.[167] The eye
+symptoms may be summarised as follows: failure of sight, often to a
+considerable degree, to a more or less equal extent on the two sides;
+concentric contraction of visual field, with, in many cases, a central
+colour scotoma; enlargement of retinal vessels, especially the veins,
+some blurring of the edges of the optic disc, and a varying degree of
+pallor of its surface. The condition of retinal vessels spoken of is
+observed in workers with the dinitrobenzol independently of complaints
+of defective sight. Cessation of work with dinitrobenzol tends to
+recovery. The general effects appeared to be chiefly exerted on the
+blood and the nervous system. In some cases there were also gastric
+symptoms. With reference to the blood changes, the occurrence of very
+marked anæmia in girls, who lived practically in the country, and
+who worked in well ventilated rooms, was particularly striking. The
+symptoms and physical signs of anæmia in men, working under the same
+hygienic conditions, were perhaps still more noteworthy. That some
+other change, however, in the blood was also present was evidenced by
+the blueness of the lips and finger tips, which was observed in several
+cases. The colour of the urine was also remarkable.
+
+The chief nervous symptoms were numbness of the extremities and
+unsteadiness of gait. The latter was noticed especially at the close of
+a day’s work in the factory, and was much aggravated by indulgence in
+alcohol.
+
+Dinitrobenzol may, it appears, either be absorbed through the skin,
+ingested, or be taken in through the air passages. What the poison
+then becomes does not appear to have been satisfactorily ascertained,
+but its action on the blood is definite. Specimens of blood drawn
+from the fingers of two of my patients were found to be thin and
+black-looking. Dr MacMunn, of Wolverhampton, very kindly examined some
+specimens which were forwarded to him, and reported on them (as he did
+also of the urine, which was dark, almost black like porter), that,
+spectroscopically, all the specimens of blood sent showed nothing
+abnormal.
+
+The explosives under consideration are used in coal mines, and cases
+have been recorded of men who became affected by dinitrobenzol employed
+underground.
+
+At the invitation of Commander H. P. Smith and Dr Dupré, the following
+suggestions for preventing the deleterious effects of dinitrobenzol on
+those engaged in its manufacture were drawn up by me for their report.
+
+(1) That the different processes should as much as possible be
+conducted in the open air, or in large, well-ventilated sheds.
+
+(2) That in the “mixing,” closed vessels should, as much as possible,
+be employed.
+
+(3) Fans, which have been adopted in other trades with great advantage,
+might also in this one be of service.
+
+(4) Respirators are in use, but their employment is, as far as I am
+aware, optional. Those protecting both the nose and mouth are, up to
+a certain point, of service. I do not think they are a sufficient
+safeguard against the fine vapour entering the respiratory system. It
+occurred to me that during the process of “mixing” especially, it might
+be possible to shut the workman off from the vapour and fine dust by
+means of a kind of diving-bell apparatus, with a communication behind
+open to the air. A mask, such as has been used, I believe, in Germany,
+might answer the objects desired.
+
+(5) Handling by the bare hand or direct exposure of the skin should
+be avoided. The filling could, perhaps, be performed automatically.
+The hand should, moreover, be protected by gloves. These should be
+capable of being cleaned, and possibly indiarubber might be used by
+preference. The cleaning of the gloves is an important matter, because
+those worn with any of the substance clinging to the interior, as would
+be the case after they had been in use for some time, would allow of
+absorption taking place under the still more favourable circumstances
+afforded by the warmth and moisture of the hand. Special clothing
+should be provided, the workmen and women being compelled to change
+their clothing on entering and retiring from work. Dressing-rooms
+should be provided, and washing enforced. Food should only be partaken
+of away from the sheds where the mixing, filling, etc., take place, and
+particularly is it important to insist on washing before meals, and
+removal of the special clothing.
+
+When used in the coal mine it is desirable that means should be taken
+to prevent any of the powder adhering to the outside of the cartridges,
+that combustion should be complete, and that the use of cartridges
+should be restricted as much as possible to well-ventilated places,
+so that currents of air would speedily dilute and carry away any
+deleterious vapours.
+
+As a result of the report by Dr Dupré and Commander Hamilton P. Smith,
+notice to observe the “Special Rules” recommended in their report was
+served on the different manufacturers.
+
+The effect of _bisulphide of carbon_ in causing impaired eyesight
+has been shown by many instances. Rubber-making has been the industry
+in which those suffering have been mostly observed. The bisulphide is
+a very active and penetrating solvent, and it is used to dissolve and
+carry into the rubber chloride of sulphur, which is the vulcanising
+agent. This process is called “curing,” and it is during it that the
+fumes of the bisulphide are given off and act injuriously on the
+general system of those exposed to them, as well as in some cases
+causing injury to eyesight. Some time since I visited rubber-works
+in which about 200 hands were employed, and witnessed the process of
+“curing.” The rubber cloth which it was wished to vulcanise was brought
+into contact with the wet surface of a wood or slate roller, which
+revolved in a trough in which was the bisulphide holding the sulphur in
+solution. The shed in which the curing was done was very open, and was
+well calculated to allow of the ready escape of the fumes. The vapour
+was a heavy one, and tended very much to keep low, especially in wet or
+damp weather. Any apparatus to carry off the fumes, therefore, should
+be one to draw them downwards. Among the workers I saw one man who had
+evidently two years ago suffered from amblyopia, which appeared to
+have been characteristic. He changed his work to another part of the
+factory, and recovered. A considerable alteration has, I understand,
+been brought about in the vulcanising process, and since attention was
+first directed to the subject, bisulphide has been much less employed
+in rubber-works. The sulphur is now mixed with the rubber, and the
+vulcanising is done by subjecting the otherwise finished article to a
+high temperature. The bisulphide in the future is even less likely to
+be required, and therefore in this class of occupation, at all events,
+it may be expected that impaired eyesight will be more infrequent.
+
+_Tobacco_ was the first agent to be recognised as causing toxic
+amblyopia. It is doubtful whether it can be classed properly with
+occupation disorders. Galezowski,[168] however, asserted that visual
+troubles occurred in those engaged in the manufacture of tobacco in
+consequence of the absorption of nicotine powder. He further advised
+that the working places should be well-ventilated, and recommended
+a change of occupation for those affected. This statement finds
+corroboration by De Schweinitz, who states that amblyopia may occur
+in those who do not use tobacco in any form, but who work in tobacco
+manufactories. He has related a very remarkable case of this character
+in a young woman. All of the symptoms disappeared when she was removed
+from the tobacco factory. On the other hand, Shears[169] has related
+that he visited the large factory of Cope Bros., where 1200 men and
+women were employed, and that he made careful inquiries in each of the
+departments of the foremen, but from none could he learn of instances
+of sight failure. Lee at the same time made observations at a large
+factory at Chester, with similar results. Sheffield is celebrated
+for its snuff, the two kinds, Top Mill and Bottom Mill, being well
+known. There are also several smaller tobacco works about the city,
+but my attention has in the last twenty years never once, as far as I
+remember, been directed to a case of tobacco amblyopia in a worker at
+any of these places. Dowling[170] in America has also gone into this
+matter. At a factory where 3000 were employed, half being females, he
+examined 150, or 5 per cent. Ninety per cent. of the males used tobacco
+in some form or other, and 20 per cent. chewed, in addition to smoking
+liberally pipe or cigar. These are his conclusions: “When I commenced
+my examination I was under the impression that the constant inhalation
+of the dust and the odour of tobacco in the workshops would tend of
+itself to bring about symptoms of tobacco amblyopia. I am induced to
+think this hardly takes place, for in my examination I found those who
+did not smoke were uniformly free from troubles of vision of a toxic
+nature, and the females were almost universally free from the trouble,
+that is as far as I examined them.”
+
+_Iodoform_ is largely used in surgical practice. A few instances
+have been recorded of impairment of vision resulting from its
+employment as a dressing for large burns, etc. The characteristics of
+the affection were similar to those met with in tobacco amblyopia, in
+chronic poisoning by bisulphide of carbon, and other toxic amblyopias.
+Inquiry addressed to perhaps the largest makers of iodoform in this
+country elicited the reply, that they had consulted the Medical
+Attendant of their men, and he confirmed the opinion expressed by the
+foreman, that they had never known of any injury to the sight from the
+manufacture of iodoform. If there was carelessness in the manufacture
+pungent vapours would be evolved; but that was always a sign of
+something being wrong.
+
+Men employed in dye factories and other manufactories requiring the
+handling and preparation of the various _coal-tar_ products are
+reported to be subject to visual troubles, cases having been recorded
+from time to time.[171] Galezowski gives headache, dizziness, malaise,
+deficiency in visual acuity, photophobia, and ciliary injection
+as symptoms from which the workers suffer, but, as is pointed
+out by Knies, the connection of these ocular complaints with the
+_aniline_ used is uncertain.
+
+M’Kinlay[172] has recorded a case of intense pigmentation of the cornea
+and conjunctiva in a man who was a worker in aniline dyes. Reduction of
+vision was also caused.
+
+_Arsenic_ is extensively used in the arts, and has been the cause
+of many cases of poisoning, for example, from wallpaper and articles
+of clothing. Its use for artificial flowers and wallpapers has much
+abated. Casey Wood mentions that makers of Paris green, painters, and
+paperhangers, as well as those who take the drug for medicinal or
+cosmetic purposes, are liable to suffer from visual disturbances, from
+conjunctival hyperæmia and eczema of the lids, which are regarded as
+evidences of arsenical poisoning. Amblyopia and optic neuritis have
+been reported as due to arsenic.
+
+The occupations in which _lead_ or its compounds, in one way or
+another, are used are multitudinous, and those liable to be affected
+by lead poisoning belong, therefore, to a numerous class. Among these
+are painters, plumbers, etc., and, in Sheffield, file cutters. In this
+latter occupation the file, when being cut, rests on a “bed” made of
+lead, and each blow of the hammer causes minute particles of lead to
+disperse and to charge the atmosphere of the workroom. Chronic lead
+poisoning in file cutters results from inhalation of these particles,
+and from the uncleanly habit of wetting the hands at the mouth. In
+acute lead poisoning there are no eye symptoms, but in chronic lead
+poisoning central and peripheral affections of sight are common.
+The brain and nervous system are frequently seriously affected in
+chronic plumbism, and kidney disease is also frequently occasioned
+thereby. Sight is liable to be affected in association with both these
+conditions. Apart from them, however, lesions of the eye are often
+occasioned by chronic lead poisoning. Unilateral or bilateral optic
+neuritis is met with, and more frequently an affection of the optic
+nerve (retro-bulbar neuritis) very similar to that occasioned by
+tobacco and other agents producing “toxic amblyopia.” Recovery from
+these last-named (peripheral) conditions is frequent. Palsy of one or
+more of the eye muscles has been met with.
+
+
+ 3. _Diseases due to occupations involving exposure to
+ excessive light or heat, or both, such as burnishers, steel
+ melters, electric welders, etc._
+
+Silver, either the metal or electro, when finished, has a very highly
+reflecting surface. The most important for our purpose of the processes
+by which silver goods have to be brought to the proper polish, is the
+finishing or burnishing. This is usually done by girls, who brighten
+the surface with a blunt tool. These girls are frequently the subjects
+of hyperæsthesia of the retina, by which they are often compelled
+to relinquish the work entirely. Coloured glasses and correction of
+refractive errors help in some cases. Those engaged in the process
+called “buffing” suffer in a similar manner.
+
+Excessive heat associated with intensity of light is met with in
+iron and steel works in the different processes connected with the
+making of the iron, and the converting of it into steel. There is, I
+think, no definite evidence that men exposed to the heat and glare
+of the furnaces or from the molten metal suffer materially in their
+eyesight, though some assert that disease of the background of the eye
+is occasioned in some instances. The men are, in consequence of the
+heat, prone to sweat a great deal, and frequently wear little clothing
+above the waist. The temperatures before which they work are, to an
+outsider, something almost astounding, especially if he remembers
+that the temperature of an ordinary well-lighted fire in a grate is
+about 500° F. There would seem to be a very marked difference in the
+way a temperature is borne, when it is below 2000° F., and when above
+it. Up to that figure a man can look at the metal in a furnace with
+comparative ease, but before it gets to 3000° F. he is compelled to
+wear coloured glasses when doing so. A friend, at some large iron
+and steel works, gave me the following notes: “In dealing with cast
+iron, the heat of the metal would be about 1800° to 2000°, and the
+men employed take no precautions. The heat of the molten metal would
+be about 2700° to 2800°, while the heat of the gases in the furnace
+would be about 200° or 300° more. The furnacemen have to wear deep
+blue glasses to protect their eyes from the glare of the furnace.
+With this precaution we have not observed their eyes to suffer in any
+marked degree. The heat of Bessemer metal is about 3000° F. to 3200°
+F.; in this case there is not the same necessity as in the Siemens to
+watch the hot metal, consequently the men do not wear glasses. We do
+not observe any ill effects directly traceable to the heat. In the
+case of the Siemens men, I should say that without protection the eyes
+would suffer considerably. After looking at a Siemens’ furnace without
+glasses, it is several minutes before the eye can see ordinary things
+again.”
+
+There is, moreover, a further difference between the two processes,
+viz., Bessemer and Siemens. The former has, as just mentioned, the
+higher temperature and the more dazzling glare, but the steel is melted
+and the process completed in about twenty minutes, and it is only
+necessary for one man to take close observations, and this he does
+by means of a spectroscope, and is as far as 30 feet from the molten
+metal. The Siemens process takes ten hours, and during this period the
+whole of those engaged will, as the door is frequently drawn up, be
+taking observations to see whether the melting is proceeding properly.
+This is constant and regular work, and they are obliged to use coloured
+glasses.
+
+In addition, in these large works, are the castings, forgings, rolling
+of armour plates, and many other things. A huge forging, of perhaps 60
+or 80 tons, is drawn out of a furnace with a temperature of from 2000°
+to 2500° F., and placed under a powerful hydraulic press of 10,000 tons
+power, where, with the men all around, it is hammered with as much
+apparent ease as putty is manipulated by one’s fingers.
+
+The glare and dazzling in the Bessemer and Siemens processes must
+be seen to be realised. Generally speaking, in fact almost always,
+it would seem as if the men engaged in these various kinds of work
+could submit to exposure to the high temperatures and intense lights
+with impunity, if they will only use coloured glasses when employed
+with the higher temperatures and the more dazzlingly bright lights.
+Occasionally, however, one meets with men who appear incapable of
+continuing to bear these conditions. They feel their eyes painful, and
+it is some time after cessation of labour before the discomfort passes
+away. Such as these have sometimes to seek another occupation. On the
+other hand, the readiness with which, it may be after an accident to
+one eye, men will often return to their employment before the furnace
+or fire, is surprising.
+
+Glassblowers are asserted to be frequently the subjects of cataract,
+and it has been sought to connect this tendency with the powerful
+heats to which their work exposes them, and also to the sweating which
+accompanies it. They work around open-mouthed furnaces and close to
+pots of molten glass, and are thus exposed to intense heat and light. I
+have, however, seen something of glass-blowers from time to time, and
+my experience, whilst it does not allow me to support this assertion
+of the frequency of cataract among these men, may be regarded as too
+limited to contradict the statements which other observers have made.
+Should extreme heat and consequent loss of moisture be regarded as
+sufficient causes for the production of cataract, then it should be
+found especially among iron and steel workers. My experience does not,
+however, show that this is the case.
+
+_Exposure to Electric Light._--Several instances have been
+recorded showing the serious effects on the eyes of those exposed to
+the glare of this powerful light. The following may be mentioned.[173]
+Two men were employed on an electric street railway. One man thrust
+a blade of a screwdriver into a motor cylinder and “immediately
+he was flashed by the powerful light and stunned by the powerful
+current.” When seen five hours after, the eyelids were closed and he
+was suffering intense pain, but he was able to resume his work next
+day. The second man struck a “live electrical circuit” with a steel
+file, and instantly there was a flash of light and he was rendered
+unconscious. The eyelashes were singed and the arms burnt, and there
+was great pain. It was not until the fifth day that he could return to
+work. A more severe case[174] is reported of a man engaged as engineer
+in the power-house of an electric car line. He was using a wrench
+to some machinery, when accidentally his elbow came into contact
+with another machine forming a short circuit. The whole electrical
+force--1000 ampères--used to propel the cars several miles, passed
+down the forearm and out at the elbow. The electrical discharge was
+succeeded by a loud report following an intense flash of light. The
+man was knocked down, but only lost consciousness for a few seconds.
+When seen an hour after, the skin of the arms, hands, face, and neck,
+in fact, of all exposed parts, was burnt; the effects were like those
+caused by boiling water; the eyelashes and eyebrows were burnt off.
+The ocular conjunctiva looked as if a strong solution of nitrate of
+silver had been applied to it, and the corneæ had the appearance of
+ground-glass, especially in the centres, so that the impression was
+given that they were both destroyed. It was, however, found that only
+the epithelial layers were affected. Ultimately sight was recovered,
+but photophobia remained for some time.
+
+Of the many ways that the electric light is liable to be injurious
+may be mentioned that of _electric welding_. This process is one
+that is becoming very largely used in iron works, and it effects its
+purpose so rapidly that it is likely to find still further employment.
+I have met with many men who have suffered from exposure to the intense
+light emitted in electric welding. On several occasions the opportunity
+has been given me of witnessing the process. The heat produced is so
+intense that metal runs at once like solder. So rapidly, indeed, is
+this effected that, without seeing the process, it seems incredible.
+To protect the eyes from the intensity of the light, the onlookers use
+large shields with glass in the centre arranged in alternate layers of
+blue and red, there being four thicknesses. The man engaged in working
+the process in one factory with which I am acquainted, uses a helmet to
+protect his head and face. In the front of the helmet is a glass window
+made up of six layers, alternately red and blue. At another place the
+men stand behind a wooden screen about 4 ft. high, with a sliding top,
+in which is a glass window for the workman to observe the work upon
+which he is engaged. The sliding top can be raised or lowered according
+to the height of the man or the nature of the exact work to be done.
+The window is made up of four thicknesses of glass, two green and two
+blue, and there is a plain glass fixed in front of these, as it can
+be more easily replaced, this being required by the liability of the
+front glass to be spoilt by deposit on its surface. This arrangement
+protects the man much more than the helmet. The men’s trousers may
+be burnt by the metal splashing on them, and this screen gives more
+protection than the helmet would do. The top part of the screen is
+narrower than the bottom, to enable the men to get their arms freely
+round it so as to work on the metal in front, and the broad lower part
+forms a rest for their arms. Any parts of the body which are exposed
+to the light may get burnt, and many suffer severely in this way. If
+the eyes “catch” the light they feel the effects at once, but the worst
+generally does not come on until some hours afterwards, and most men
+will say that the most acute stage is during the night succeeding the
+exposure. The eyes feel swollen and as if filled with burning sand, and
+the pain is very severe. There is swelling of lids; so much so that
+they cannot be opened, and there is lachrymation. All night the pain
+will last, but the next day the worst will be over, and often by a day
+more the eyes will be quite right again.
+
+Terrier and Malakoff have each published very interesting observations
+bearing on this subject, as has also Wildmark. The latter especially
+appears to have settled the point as to whether in these cases it is
+the heat or chemical rays that act so hurtfully. Taking advantage
+of the different actions of glass and crystal--the former absorbing
+chemical rays, the latter, or crystal, allowing them to pass--he showed
+that if a pencil of light before reaching the skin was made to pass
+through a disc of glass, in the centre of which was a hole filled with
+a small disc of crystal, the redness of the skin was observed only
+in the central area, a proof of its dependence on the chemical rays.
+Malakoff pointed out that though the light was so intensely dazzling
+the thermometer was only raised 2° C. at a metre distant, but it must
+be borne in mind, however, as a workman mentioned to me recently, that
+the metal acted upon during welding becomes very hot, so that standing
+close by is hardly possible.
+
+Some idea, also, may be given of the heat involved in electric welding
+by the following data, supplied to me by an experienced electrical
+engineer. He stated that, at one works, the temperature during electric
+welding would measure about 3000° C. (7000° F.), and that it was not
+an unusual thing to measure 3000° C. in an electric furnace. In the
+absence of photometric measurements, he assumed the luminosity of the
+arc for electric welding would be about 8000 candle-power.
+
+The action of the electric light upon the eye is to all appearances
+confined chiefly to the conjunctival or corneal surfaces. Very
+possibly, however, it occasions also a hyperæmia of the retina, and
+one case is on record of a boy who got a central scotoma from looking
+at an electric light placed in the roof, like those resulting from the
+action of direct sunlight.
+
+With the prudent use of the protectors mentioned the light can be
+observed with little risk of injury.
+
+
+ 4. _Injuries or accidents amongst grinders, iron and steel
+ workers, masons, coal miners, weavers, etc._
+
+It is difficult to obtain anything like accurate statistics as to the
+numbers blinded by accident. Magnus, in his tables, makes 8.5 per cent.
+of all cases of blindness as due to accident. In this calculation
+no count is made of those blind in one eye only, and the far larger
+number who have sustained permanent injury in varying degrees short of
+blindness; and even if such a computation were true for the community
+generally, the number must be greatly exceeded in large and populous
+centres, especially in those in which iron and steel are important
+industries.
+
+A brief reference only to statistics is necessary. Mr Watson, the able
+Secretary of the Miners’ Permanent Benefit Fund, has given me the
+following figures as to the proportionate frequency of eye accidents
+among miners, to other accidents. In all these accidents the miners
+have been rendered unfitted from continuing their work, at least
+temporarily. The figures are for fifteen years arranged in periods of
+five years. The number of non-fatal accidents dealt with is 48,262.
+
+ +-------------+------------+-------------+------------+
+ | Period. | No. of | No. to Eye. | Percentage.|
+ | | Accidents. | | |
+ +-------------+------------+-------------+------------+
+ |1884 to 1888 | 16,870 | 857 | 5.08 |
+ |1889 to 1893 | 12,768 | 670 | 5.24 |
+ |1894 to 1898 | 18,624 | 979 | 5.25 |
+ +-------------+------------+-------------+------------+
+ | Total | 48,262 | 2506 | 5.19 |
+ +-------------+------------+-------------+------------+
+
+The average yearly membership for each period was--1884 to 1888,
+22,410; 1889 to 1893, 17,876; and 1894 to 1898, 23,005.
+
+The Equalised Druids Society gives to those of its members who are
+permanently incapacitated from following their employment a grant of
+£100. The number of cases of all accidents in which this grant was made
+during the last five years was 57, and of that number it was given
+seven times owing to eye accidents.
+
+My own infirmary figures also testify to the large number of eye
+accidents annually occurring in the district with which I am more
+particularly acquainted. Of the last 2554 patients who have passed
+through my wards at the Sheffield Royal Infirmary, 2038 were men, and
+516 women. Of the 2038 men, 622 were admitted for accident, or 30.52
+per cent. This percentage has kept fairly uniform, but at periods of
+great trade activity the ratio of accidents to other cases admitted
+has gone up. Of the 516 women, only 36, or 6.9 per cent., were for
+accidents. The important part occupation bears to the number of eye
+accidents is well illustrated by these statistics. The men not only
+exceeded the women very largely in actual numbers, but still more so by
+percentage, this latter being six times as great as for the women.
+
+In many trades associated with iron and steel in all its varieties,
+small foreign bodies are very prone to become lodged in the workmen’s
+corneæ. I take, as an example, the grinders. In the course of the day
+a grinder may get several “motes,” as he calls them, fixed in his eye,
+or days may elapse without such a mishap. If the cornea of a grinder be
+examined carefully with a magnifying glass, it will not infrequently
+be found to be studded over with minute nebulæ. Although the damage
+done by each foreign body may often not be serious, yet frequent
+repetition, by dulling the cornea, will, in many cases, diminish the
+acuteness of vision. These particles may either be small fragments of
+stone, or, much more frequently, small portions of steel or emery,
+which latter is used as a wheel for glazing cutlery, and for other
+purposes. Of the two varieties of grinding, the dry grinders are more
+exposed to injury from foreign bodies than the wet grinders. A grinder
+sits across his bench, or “horse,” and presses the knife or razor
+blade on the stone. The wet prevents the particles from flying about a
+good deal, but still a man’s face becomes, as he works, bespattered;
+nevertheless, a _wet_ grinder seldom gets motes in his eyes. In
+_dry_ grinding the sparks fly freely, and it is evident that
+very minute particles of steel or stone are being projected about,
+and it is the merest chance whether they hit the man’s eye or face,
+or scatter about the room. The fans, which it is well known have for
+many years been required in the grinding trade in consequence of its
+deleterious effects upon the health of the operatives, must be regarded
+as in some measure a protection. It is interesting to observe the
+remarkable manner in which a fan draws into it the sparks and particles
+flying from the wheel. There can, moreover, be no question that the
+grinder derives considerable immunity from motes by the employment of
+protective glasses. Grinders admit the protection they afford. If
+further testimony be needed, it can be found in the condition of the
+glasses, after having been used for some time by a grinder: they are
+studded over with small dots occasioned by the impact of the motes.
+
+In the great majority of instances the damage occasioned to the grinder
+or other operative in which similar mishaps occur is not attended with
+serious results. The immediate injury may, however, be serious, either
+directly or indirectly, by the ulceration that ensues. There is another
+way, also, in which injury results. A man once said to me, pointing
+to his damaged finger, “This would not have happened if something had
+not got into my eye, because I could not see my finger on the circular
+saw.” The operatives, in all the various trades in which iron and steel
+are used, are liable, though to a less degree than the grinders, to get
+these motes into their eyes.
+
+In all the large works there are men who have a reputation for their
+skill in the removal of these motes. The instruments they use are of
+various kinds--for instance, a blunt lancet, blade of pocket knife,
+or a pin. Generally speaking, they are unsuitable. In many instances
+the motes are skilfully removed; in others, there is a good deal of
+bungling, and not infrequently cases come under observation in which
+sloughing corneal ulcers have resulted.
+
+It seemed to me not unlikely that septic conditions were set up in
+consequence of the uncleanly instruments which were so often employed.
+Dr Shennan of Edinburgh kindly undertook a bacteriological examination
+of some of these instruments for me. I collected 22 tools used by
+different men, and Dr Shennan examined the majority of these. Taking
+all in all, he found nothing pathogenic excepting the staphylococcus
+pyogenes albus, whose virulence is comparatively slight. Of course
+there are many sources besides these tools by which a corneal wound
+may become septic. But good should result if a cleanly and suitable
+instrument could be made available to the men who remove motes. In some
+of the works a case, made at my suggestion, is provided, containing
+iridium-platinum blunt-pointed spuds, together with a small spirit
+lamp, with directions printed on the inside of the case, saying that
+before use the extremity of the spud should be sterilised by heating it
+in the flame of the spirit lamp, or if this be not accessible, in a gas
+or other flame which may be at hand.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 81.--Grinders. Edge-Tool
+ Grinding.]
+
+By far the most serious eye accidents happen to men engaged in
+working iron or steel. The following figures exhibit this in a very
+lurid light:--
+
+ _Steel and Iron._
+
+ Steel and iron splinters, rivet
+ chips, pieces of drill, file, wire,
+ etc. 173
+ Nail 5
+
+ _Burns._
+
+ Metal sparks, flashes, etc. 43
+ Lime 8
+ Gas explosion 1
+ Ammonia 1
+ Gunpowder 4
+ Cinder 1
+ Poker 1
+
+ _Miscellaneous._
+
+ Dynamite, and dynamite explosion
+ and cartridge 6
+ Wood, sticks, and peggy 13
+ Hook 1
+ Knife 8
+ Glass, soda-water bottles, etc. 15
+ Pick 5
+ Stone 24
+ Fork 7
+ Pin 1
+ Fist 3
+ Branch of tree 1
+ Crane handle 1
+ Cork 2
+ Cinder 4
+ Coal 11
+ Straw 1
+ Cat’s claw 1
+ Sand 1
+ Ball 1
+ Pen 2
+ Firework 1
+ Boiling oil 1
+ Tin 2
+ Band strap 2
+ Band buckle 2
+ Chain 1
+ Kick 1
+ Brick 1
+ Thorn 2
+ Elastic, piece of 1
+ ----
+ Total 359
+ ====
+
+Out of this total of 359 eye accidents to males, taken from the records
+for this purpose consecutively, which were so serious as to require
+admission to my wards at the Sheffield Royal Infirmary, no fewer than
+173 were caused by iron or steel, pieces of rivet, of drill, wire, and
+many other means associated with the iron and steel trades. There were
+also 43 due to burns from molten metal, sparks, flashes, etc. I am not
+sure, also, whether to the former number should not be added 5 put down
+as caused by nails, as most, if not all of them, would have occurred to
+iron or steel workers.
+
+The opportunities for the infliction of severe injuries to iron and
+steel workers are multitudinous. They occur in all branches of the
+trade, in the lighter iron and steel industries as well as in the heavy
+trades where armour plates and heavy castings of scores of tons are
+made. A very large proportion of the accidents are occasioned by what
+is called “chipping” and “fettling.” “Dressing” is the name given in
+some parts to this process. This work consists in chipping the rough
+edges from iron and steel castings, ingots, and all kinds of steel and
+iron work, and among other things, even the large armour plates.
+
+Castings of either iron, steel, or brass are the most dangerous to work
+upon, because the chippings fly about on account of the metal being
+brittle. It is very dangerous chipping castings in the corners, or
+where the “chipping” strikes the metal and rebounds. Chippings from the
+castings are about ¼ inch to ¾ inch long, and very sharp. When chipping
+thin plates on the edges, the chippings are sometimes 1, 2, or 3 inches
+long before they break off. All castings are “fettled” at the foundry,
+that is, the runners are cut off, and the places where the metal has
+run at the joint of the moulding boxes are trimmed off.
+
+Whatever be the special kind of metal or steel to be fettled, the
+manner in which it is done is practically the same. A hammer and
+chisel, or sate, are used, and with these the roughnesses are removed.
+Frequently, also, whilst one man places the chisel, another, or even
+two others, called “strikers,” will use a hammer. I understand that at
+works where say 1000 men are employed, 200 or more will be occupied
+more or less in “chipping.” Many men are frequently working close to
+each other, so that the danger is not only to the worker himself, but
+to those around. Passers-by are by no means infrequently the victims.
+The chipper himself is often hit by the rebound of the splinter after
+it has struck some other object. It must be recollected, also, that in
+the process spoken of, the danger is not merely from the iron or steel
+which is being operated upon; there are three other places from which
+splinters may be given off and cause injury, namely, the hammer head,
+the chisel head, and the chisel point.
+
+It is obvious that men engaged in work which causes the splinters to
+fly about so freely, should be so placed as not to be chipping against
+their fellow-workmen, or in a direction from which passers-by may
+approach. This is managed in some works by getting the men to chip
+against a wall, though not too close to it, or, again, by interposing a
+canvas screen between sets of workmen.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 82.--Men engaged in Chipping.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 83.--Chipping against a Screen.
+ Men wearing Protectors.]
+
+The sizes of the splinters spoken of vary from the most minute to
+others measuring some inches in length, and they may be thick or thin.
+The injury inflicted differs, of course, in accordance with the size
+of the missile and the force with which it is projected. The small
+fragments may be thrown off with such velocity that they penetrate
+the eyeball and become embedded in its interior, in some instances
+passing through the eyelid before reaching the globe. The destruction
+to sight in this way is very large. I have myself removed from the
+globe, with my electro-magnet, more than two hundred fragments of
+steel and iron. One was no heavier than 0.0015 gr.; several were as
+light as 0.0030 gr. and 0.0046 gr. The largest weighed 36 grs., and
+there were two others 12 and 9 grs. respectively. It would be out of
+place to refer here to the results of the extraction of this number
+of foreign bodies with the electro-magnet. It will suffice to say,
+that many eyes have been saved by its employment which otherwise would
+have been hopelessly lost. The injury to the eyeball occasioned by the
+large chippings may be so extensive that the eye is at once irreparably
+damaged, or so injured that removal of the globe will subsequently be
+necessitated.
+
+The dangers of chipping may be minimised by adopting a pneumatic
+chipper. In some works, for chipping ingots I have seen one at work
+on a large casting. It has the advantage of accomplishing in one hour
+what, by hand, would take six or seven hours. It certainly prevented
+the flying about of splinters in a remarkable manner. They merely
+curled up and rolled over. It more resembled using a cheese-scoop in
+a fairly soft cheese than running any tool over hard steel. Up to the
+present these pneumatic tools have not been successful for “chipping”
+the rough edges from steel castings.
+
+Another class of severe injuries which are of common occurrence are
+burns from molten metal. Sparks and flashes fly about freely in almost
+every instance that molten metal is run into the moulds, but on some
+occasions, of course, more so than in others, and the portions given
+off vary much also in size. Injuries caused in this manner were no
+fewer than 43 out of the 359 consecutive accidents in males admitted
+into the Sheffield Royal Infirmary. In the forgings, also, great or
+small, when the iron or steel is being hammered either by hand, or, in
+the case of larger castings, by a steam or hydraulic hammer, portions
+are given off from the glowing metal, and those working and the
+bystanders are exposed to danger of burns.
+
+The knowledge which I have acquired from contact with working men
+who have been injured, and from periodical visits to the principal
+works, has long since satisfied me that much of the destructive injury
+to sight is preventable, and that means should be adopted to lessen
+the risks to sight which are at present associated with important
+industries. There is less difficulty in enlisting the support of the
+employers than in gaining the assent of the men to the adoption of
+precautionary measures. I know of one firm who make it compulsory on
+men engaged in “chipping,” “fettling,” “turning,” and other work in
+which iron and steel splinters are liable to fly off and endanger
+sight, to wear protectors, which are provided at the expense of the
+firm. This decision was taken in consequence of a workman being blinded
+by a chipping.
+
+In considering what kind of protectors men should use, it must be borne
+in mind that the cost must be very moderate, and that sight should be
+interfered with as little as possible, if at all. Among iron-workers,
+glass is practically out of the question. Even thick rock crystal,
+which has been suggested for some kinds of work, in consequence of
+its thickness and peculiar manner of fracture, would hardly do. Gauze
+wire, fitting close to the eye like a cup and attached to the head by a
+string, is employed by stonebreakers and in some ironworks. Complaint
+is made of such protectors as being hot and interfering with sight,
+but there is no question that they afford considerable immunity from
+accident. Another practical point about protectors is that they should
+not be liable to rust. For this reason galvanised iron wire, or better,
+aluminium wire, is of service. The mesh should be sufficiently strong
+and fine, and sufficiently close to prevent, as far as possible, even
+small chippings passing through it, and yet to interfere with sight as
+little as need be. I have had experiments made by allowing men engaged
+in fettling to “chip” against wire gauze which has been suspended for
+the purpose, to ascertain how far a mesh answered before deciding to
+adopt a given size. I have had this netting made[175] into protectors
+which cover the eyes and adjacent parts. The portion over each eye is
+bulged forward so as to allow very free play to the eye underneath; the
+convex surface is a greater protection than one merely flat would be.
+I have supplied workmen with these protectors, who have used them when
+chipping, steel melting, and in other dangerous iron and steel work. I
+learn that they are regarded as satisfactory, that they answer their
+purpose well as protectors, and that the interference with sight is
+very little.[176]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 84.--Protectors. (_Author’s
+ pattern._)]
+
+I would sum up my suggestions as to the means for protection as
+follows:--
+
+1. The grinder will find that large glasses made of plain glass, or,
+indeed, his own spectacles, should his refraction require their use,
+will afford great protection. Or he may use other protectors, made with
+glass in front, and gauze surrounding it.
+
+2. The use of protectors should be compulsory for those workers in iron
+or steel whose employment renders them liable to be injured by iron or
+steel splinters, or who are exposed to danger from molten metal.
+
+The gauze eye-shield I have described will, I believe, answer the
+purpose well. The cost is low, and it is worth the employers’ while to
+supply their men with them.
+
+Other means to be adopted are:--
+
+(_a_) The use of a pneumatic chipper whenever practicable;
+(_b_) the proper arranging of the men at their work; and
+(_c_) the use of screens, so as to avoid injury to their
+fellow-workmen and to passers-by.
+
+It is my belief that a consideration of the facts here advanced will
+lead to the conviction I have myself long held--that very many eye
+accidents associated with trades are preventable, and to the view that
+preventive means should be adopted.
+
+In addition to the classes of workmen more particularly alluded to
+in the foregoing remarks on eye accidents and their prevention, the
+following occupations may be briefly touched upon.
+
+_Coal miners_ are prone to be injured by portions of coal striking
+the eye, and either becoming embedded in the cornea (like the grinders’
+motes) or causing abrasion of the surface, or wounds of the eyeball.
+Eye injuries in the miner appear to be more than usually prone to
+become septic. Injury may also be occasioned by splinters flying from
+the pick point, and either sticking in the cornea or penetrating and
+becoming lodged in the eyeball, in a similar manner to that which
+happens in “chippers.”
+
+_Agriculturists_ are liable to eye accidents in many ways. In
+“hedging” injury is often caused by the eye being struck by branches
+or twigs of bushes, or a thorn may wound the surface or penetrate
+and remain lodged in the interior of the globe. In threshing and
+chaff-cutting, among other processes, the lodgment of foreign bodies
+under the eyelids may occur, or abrasion of the surface of the eye be
+effected. A special form of ophthalmia has been described as occurring
+among _hop pickers_. It is characterised by muco-purulent
+discharge and swelling of the lids. Dr Percy Adams, who has described
+this affection, considers it is caused by the introduction into the
+conjunctival sac, or into the cornea, of the small, thorn-like, hairy
+processes which are found on the hop leaves, bracts, and bines.
+
+It may be generally stated that all engaged in dusty occupations are
+prone to have their eyes irritated or to suffer from conjunctivitis.
+This is the case, for instance, in a very dusty coal mine, a dust-laden
+flour mill, etc.
+
+All workers with stone are liable to eye injury from portions of stone
+flying off and striking the eye, as they are also from splinters
+coming from the chisel or hammer. Stonecutters are very liable to have
+motes in their eyes, and more rarely the injury is much more serious.
+Stone-masons, masons, bricklayers, and stonebreakers come under this
+class. Protectors are sometimes used by stonebreakers at their work.
+Stone “cutting” or “dressing” in the streets is often a source of
+danger to the passers-by as well as to the workers themselves. Such
+work should be so arranged that the cutting or dressing is directed
+against a hoarding or wall.
+
+In the preparation of grindstones there is considerable danger to
+sight. “Millstone building,” in which buhrstone is used, is only a
+small and decaying industry. Buhrstone comes from France in blocks,
+which have to be chiselled into wedges to form sections of the circular
+millstone, which are joined by cement and bound round with hoops
+of iron. Pieces of stone or tool are liable, during the process of
+chiselling, to fly about and endanger eyesight.[177]
+
+The workers in quarries are exposed to dangers to eyesight like the
+cutters and dressers of stone, but the fragments will frequently be
+larger. Another danger is added, viz., that of blasting. The gravity of
+the injury inflicted varies considerably. In some, powder grains are
+studded about the face and eyelids and embedded in the front of the
+eyeball, occasioning serious danger to sight. In others, the injury
+may be so severe that sight is irrecoverably lost. It is unfortunate,
+also, that not infrequently in these serious accidents both eyes are
+implicated. The same dangers apply to all kinds of work in which
+explosives are used for blasting purposes, whether above or under
+ground, as, for instance, in the latter, coal and ironstone mining.
+
+There are only a few parts of the country where ganister is obtained.
+The largest works of the sort are situated at Deepcar, near Sheffield.
+The effect of the fine powder produced in the processes required for
+making the bricks is recognised as hurtful to the lungs of the employés
+engaged. Besides this, however, the extreme hardness of ganister
+necessitates blasting, and this is mostly done by dynamite. Two men,
+within a short time of each other, came under my observation, who had
+been blinded from this blasting. This occurrence induced me to pay a
+visit to the ganister works. I found ganister was obtained by quarrying
+and also underground, where it is found lying underneath a seam of
+coal. In “scrapping” or breaking the ganister into smaller pieces there
+is a danger of pieces striking the face or eye, a greater risk probably
+than in ordinary stone-breaking. The ganister is afterwards broken, in
+a machine, into small portions. Fragments not infrequently fly off, and
+might cause injury. From this machine the ganister goes to another,
+where it is ground quite small and churned up into a thick pea-soup
+consistence, whence it is taken and placed where the bricks are made,
+and afterwards burnt in a kiln heated to 2000° F. The dangers attending
+the working of ganister are not so great as to call for special notice,
+and, moreover, the industry is a small one.
+
+Burns caused by lime must be mentioned. All workers with lime and
+mortar are exposed to this danger from these substances getting
+into their eyes, resulting sometimes in destruction of the cornea
+and adhesions of the eyelids to the globe. Masons, plasterers, and
+bricklayers belong to this class. Besides the actual burning, the
+irritating qualities of lime and cement may occasion conjunctivitis,
+with ulceration of cornea, and endanger sight.
+
+In wire-drawing, not infrequently the breaking of the wire is a cause
+of eye accident. The wire is put on a reel, and passed through the
+plate, and wound round the wire-drawing block. During this process, the
+tension is, of necessity, very great, but of course depends on the size
+of the wire. Generally speaking, it is three-fourths of the breaking
+strain of the wire. If the wire breaks on this block, the “back-lash”
+may strike a man on the face or head, and then also the last end of
+the piece might slip and strike a man. The wire is not likely to break
+until it has passed through the wire-plate or “wortle.”
+
+In the weaving shops one peculiar danger to which persons working are
+subject is the liability to be struck in the face, or, more especially,
+in the eye by flying shuttles. This risk has been known and appreciated
+for many years. The matter formed the subject of a report ordered by
+the House of Commons in April 1891.
+
+Since then, greater attention has been paid to the provision of guards
+to prevent accidents. There are many patterns of guards on the market.
+In principle they are of two classes: 1st, what are known as wing
+guards, that is, a wire screen of fine mesh canvas placed between the
+looms. In this case should the shuttle fly, it would be caught by the
+wing, and thus danger to the weaver at the adjacent loom is obviated.
+The other system is to provide a rod on the traversing beam which is
+always over the beam of the shuttle. Should there be a tendency for
+the shuttle to rise, this would prevent it. With most guards of this
+description it is practically impossible for any shuttle to fly, but in
+less efficient ones the shuttle may escape. If it does so, however, it
+will always be at a low angle, and instead of striking the worker at
+the adjoining loom or any passer-by in the face or dangerous part, it
+will simply strike the clothing, and little or no serious result need
+be anticipated. Since the adoption of these guards the percentage of
+accidents has been very appreciably reduced.
+
+In a recent case of serious eye injury to a young girl, it was
+ascertained that the guard for some reason or other had been left off,
+and the shuttle had flown up and struck her. The liability to accident
+among these operatives is shown by the statement of this girl, that she
+had been struck once before on the eyebrow, and at least twenty times
+on other parts of the body. All the girls working with her had also
+been struck several times. She had, however, in five years only known
+of one serious eye injury similar to her own.
+
+In the manufacture of aerated waters there is danger to eyesight from
+the bursting of the bottles. The industry is carried on extensively in
+most of the larger towns. Usually the bottles or syphons are filled
+by machinery, and, in a similar manner, the cork is inserted, or some
+other method is adopted for sealing the bottles, whether it be a glass
+ball or screw stopper. If “wiring” is needed, it is then done and the
+label attached. In addition the bottles are “sighted,” or held up to
+the light, to see that they leave the factory clean. Another process
+consists in cleaning the returned empties. In all these processes, but
+especially so in “bottling,” there is danger of the bottles bursting,
+and inflicting serious injury to the eye, or cuts on the face or body
+from the fragments of broken glass. To obviate these dangers the use of
+faceguards or eye protectors is absolutely necessary, and all machines
+used for bottling or corking should be fenced round. The manufacture
+of aerated waters was reported on by the Dangerous Trades Committee
+(1896),[178] who recommended that all bottlers, wirers, sighters,
+and labellers, whilst at work, should be provided with faceguards,
+masks, or veils of wire-gauze. They also recommended the providing
+of gauntlets for the arms. They further advised the fencing of all
+machines for bottling, to avoid the possibility of fragments of a
+bursting bottle striking any worker.
+
+_Bursting of Water-Gauges on Boilers._--Many cases of serious eye
+injury have come under my notice from the breaking of water-gauges.
+The liability to danger exists in every description of steam boiler,
+and breakages frequently occur. Injury may be occasioned by fragments
+of glass or from scalding, owing to the escape of boiling water and
+steam. Protection of some sort is necessary. Encasing the gauge in
+wire netting would suffice to prevent injury from fragments of glass,
+but it would still allow of the escape of steam and water. Another
+method is to surround the gauge with a metal casing, in front of which
+is inserted a window of plate glass to permit of the gauge being
+visible. A man of considerable experience suggested to me that this
+metal casing should be left open at the back, so that, in the event of
+the water-gauge glass breaking, the force of the explosion would be
+sent backwards. Too frequently no safeguard has been provided, but men
+occasionally devise means of protection themselves.
+
+ SIMEON SNELL.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LIX
+
+ MISCELLANEOUS TRADES
+
+
+ _Silicate of Cotton._
+
+The name silicate of cotton is misleading, for the manufacture of this
+substance has nothing whatever to do with cotton. It is a fleecy,
+white substance, hence the name. The danger in its manufacture is not
+from dust but from fluff of a metallic nature. Silicate of cotton is
+made from the refuse basic slag of ironworks. It is manufactured in
+Middlesborough, Redcar, Skinningrove, Hazlehead, etc. It is a small
+industry, and gives employment to very few people. The process of
+manufacture is simple. It consists in allowing a small, thin stream of
+molten slag to flow in a special direction, so that at a particular
+spot the stream is met by a strong blast of steam blown through a
+narrow pipe. Very minute particles of slag are thus formed, which are
+driven with great velocity into a collecting chamber in which no person
+could stand at the time. The small particles of slag are extremely
+viscous, and as they are blown through the air with very great velocity
+and meet resistance they become drawn out into very fine filaments
+like cotton wool, and fall to the ground as a loose, spongy material,
+not unlike snow or very fine spun glass. The material is then known as
+silicate of cotton, or slag wool. It contains the ordinary constituents
+of slag, viz., silica, lime, alumina, with a small percentage of
+iron and magnesia, etc. As it is a non-inflammable material and a
+non-conductor of heat, it is used for packing the pipes that come away
+from steam boilers, and for laying between floors to deaden sound, etc.
+
+The danger to the health of the workmen lies in the inhalation of the
+fine filaments of slag wool, for they are extremely light, and this
+occurs mostly during the act of packing the silicate into bags. At this
+time the filaments are apt to get on to the skin and to adhere to the
+clothing, particularly where it meets the skin. On account of their
+sharp needle-like form they cause considerable irritation and induce
+an itchiness of the skin which is extremely trying, for it endures by
+night as well as by day, robbing the individual of his sleep, and as
+he is likely to scratch himself, the inflammation of the skin leads
+to eczema. Beyond this itchiness or pruritus, the Dangerous Trades
+Committee, whose description of the process of manufacture I have
+largely reproduced, did not find anything in the trade that could be
+considered prejudicial to health. The industry had been previously
+inspected by Mr Edward Gould, now Deputy Chief Inspector of Factories,
+but he did not observe anything in the occupation to cause it to be
+regarded as really dangerous. Yet it is scarcely an industry for
+growing lads to be sent to, as they seem to suffer more than men,
+probably on account of being more impatient under the influence of
+pruritus, and being less able to bear the effects of loss of sleep from
+it. The working shifts ought to be short, and the men when engaged in
+packing the slag wool ought to wear a veil or respirator. As it is
+desirable to cover the ears, nose, and eyes, a loose gauze or muslin
+veil is preferable. The men ought not to enter the chamber into which
+the slag wool has been blown until the atmosphere has become clear,
+through the settling down of the fleecy filaments.
+
+
+ _Upholsterers’ Occupation._
+
+As the work of the upholsterer is largely concerned with the
+manipulation of feather, flock, hair, etc., the subject is indirectly
+dealt with under Shoddy and Rags. The dust is provocative of
+respiratory troubles. If the rags, feathers, and hair have not been
+previously cleaned, the dust not only causes bronchial irritation, but
+may be the means, owing to morbific germs adherent to these products,
+of causing infectious diseases such as smallpox and erysipelas, and
+such intestinal derangements as vomiting and diarrhœa.
+
+The manufacture of mattresses is an unhealthy occupation, for the
+dust that escapes from wool and horsehair during the operation of
+carding often causes cough, difficulty of breathing, and retching,
+and if these have not been previously sterilised, the dust may cause
+blood-poisoning. Ramazini alludes to the ill-health of the Jews in
+Italy who undertook this work, and to the fact that they became
+emaciated.
+
+Mattresses that have been lain upon by persons who have died of
+infectious diseases occasionally find their way into third-rate
+upholsterers’ shops, where their contents are picked and mattresses
+are re-made. It is very dusty work when the picking is done by hand,
+and besides, there escapes an unpleasant, sickening odour which causes
+headache and a feeling of malaise. When mattresses have become fouled
+in places by discharges from patients suffering from infectious
+diseases, considerable risk is incurred by those who by hand teaze the
+contents of such bespoiled bedding.
+
+A short while ago a Commission in France dealt with the subject of
+the cleansing of bedding. It reported that used mattresses often
+harboured the germs of smallpox, scarlet fever, measles, diphtheria,
+and typhoid fever. Before any old mattress is picked, it ought to be
+exposed to a very high and dry temperature, say 100° C. or 212° F.
+Woollen and other flock materials should be previously exposed to
+superheated steam and afterwards to sulphurous acid vapour, which can
+be got from burning sulphur. In ordinary medical practice, particularly
+in large towns, many of the municipal authorities not only provide
+the means for sterilising, but require that the bedding that has been
+used in infectious cases shall be disinfected. It is desirable in the
+interests of the public that the Sanitary Authorities should also offer
+facilities to furniture dealers for the disinfection of second-hand
+mattresses, and that upholsterers who re-make these mattresses should
+not be allowed to have their contents picked by hand until they
+have been dry stoved. Cardage by machinery is fortunately replacing
+hand-picking, but in places where hand-picking is still carried on
+the workers should wear respirators, and the ventilation so arranged
+whereby the dust may be carried away from them.
+
+From _feathers_ dust of a suffocating character is also given
+off. Sometimes it induces ophthalmia, also diseases of the bronchial
+tubes and lungs, but as feathers can be very readily disinfected by
+means of steam, and the industry is a small one and offers work only at
+irregular intervals, the number of people who actually suffer in health
+from feather dust is not large.
+
+
+ _Joiners and Carpenters: Workers in Sequoia Wood._
+
+The occupation of joiners and carpenters is on the whole healthy.
+Beyond a greater amount of exertion required in some branches of
+the trade than in others, and greater exposure to the weather, the
+industry calls for very little consideration here. The removal of
+timber in dockyards is heavy work, but it is undertaken by labourers.
+A few years ago, when sawpits were more in use than now, the act of
+sawing imposed a considerable strain upon the men, and as the sawpits
+were often out of doors or at the best very imperfectly covered, the
+sawyers often suffered from rheumatic affections, bronchitis, and
+asthma. Thirty years ago, before machinery had so generally supplanted
+hand-sawing, sawyers occasionally came to the Newcastle Infirmary
+suffering from disease of the aortic valves, and presenting such other
+signs of cardio-vascular degeneration as are found in men whose work
+is hard, and who have been exposed to all kinds of weather. Beyond
+the large but diminishing number of surgical accidents caused by
+the circular saw, the use of this implement, especially when acting
+upon soft wood, cannot be regarded as the cause of ill-health to men
+employed in the joiner’s shop.
+
+Carpenters are said to suffer from contracted tendons of the hand,
+owing to the protracted use of the chisel, and in men who plane much
+the hands become enlarged. As these workmen stand on their feet all day
+they run the risk of suffering from hernia and varicocele, but I am not
+disposed to admit that their liability to these affections is very much
+greater than in men in other trades, nor have I noticed to any extent,
+in turners, the depression of the left shoulder, the bulging of the
+shoulder-blade, and protrusion of the left hip, through the individual
+throwing the weight of his body upon the left leg when at work, to
+which some authors allude as of common occurrence.
+
+_Sequoia Wood._--A short while ago my attention was directed by
+Sir James Russell of Edinburgh to a series of symptoms said to be
+experienced by joiners when working with sequoia wood. To Councillor
+Telfer of the same city I am indebted for a short account of the
+supposed effect of the sawdust on those who saw and chip the wood, also
+for samples of the sawdust. The symptoms produced resemble those of a
+bad cold in the head and chest. There is a running at the nose, with
+frequent fits of sneezing, irritation in the throat and chest, followed
+by coughing, laboured breathing and quickened pulse, and later on by a
+sense of oppression at the pit of the stomach and a smarting sensation
+in the eyes. The symptoms usually last for only twenty-four hours, and
+are especially pronounced in men working for the first time with the
+wood. By next morning the unpleasant symptoms just described have, as a
+rule, disappeared. A kind of tolerance comes in time to be established,
+although in the case of men who are the subjects of asthma and throat
+affections, their experience is painful and the effects enduring. I
+am informed that if a splinter of the wood penetrates the skin to
+any depth the wound almost invariably suppurates. The sequoia tree
+is a conifer, and is found in California. It requires a good deal of
+moisture, grows well in fog, which is said to be essential to its life,
+for on passing through the fog belt into clearer air no sequoia trees
+are to be found. It is a wood not unlike mahogany in appearance, and
+is used for house panelling. Dr R. A. Bolam and myself have examined
+sequoia sawdust both chemically and microscopically without finding
+in it anything definite to explain the symptoms attributed to working
+with the wood. It can be kept mixed with water without giving an acid
+reaction. I covered the floor of a rabbit’s hutch with sequoia sawdust
+instead of ordinary sawdust, but the rabbit confined in the cage,
+although thus exposed to it for several weeks, took no harm. Rats, on
+the other hand, seemed susceptible to sequoia sawdust; they suffered in
+a few instances from running at the nose. That the dust of some kinds
+of wood are more irritating than others has long been known. Rosewood,
+for example, has had a bad reputation in this respect. The presence
+of a large amount of inorganic matter in wood causes the sawdust to
+be much more irritating than that obtained from wood in which such
+inorganic matter is, comparatively speaking, absent.
+
+
+ _Manufacture of Celluloid._
+
+In the manufacture of _celluloid_ two risks are incurred: (1) fire, and
+(2) inhalation of harmful vapours.
+
+Celluloid is a complex product formed from pyroxiline, camphor, and
+alcohol. It was invented by an American named Hyatt in 1869. When
+rolled and compressed after having been very gently heated, it forms
+a hard, elastic, transparent substance, capable of taking a beautiful
+polish, and as various pigments can be added to it, celluloid can be
+made to resemble coral, ivory, ebony, malachite, etc. Heat quickly
+softens it. If brought into contact with a naked light it is readily
+ignited, producing a smoky flame and a disagreeable camphor-like odour.
+Several explosions and burns have been known to occur when hairdressers
+have been using celluloid combs in close proximity to a naked light.
+Celluloid is used for making billiard balls, knife and umbrella
+handles, combs, frames for eyeglasses, also washable imitations of
+linen,--for example, American cuffs and collars, etc.[179]
+
+One of the principal dangers in regard to using celluloid is fire. No
+naked lights, therefore, should be allowed near at hand, nor should
+there be any open hearths where celluloid is being manufactured or
+stored. Should celluloid by any chance become ignited, sand and water
+will extinguish the fire.
+
+There are also dangers incidental to its manufacture. Pyroxiline is
+prepared from vegetable cellulose by treating it with nitric and
+sulphuric acids. Apart from the burning accidentally caused by these
+acids, the workpeople breathe while in the factory an atmosphere
+charged with nitrous vapour, which causes cough, a feeling of
+suffocation followed at times by bloody expectoration and signs of
+pulmonary congestion. No mixing and pounding of the celluloid should be
+done in open tubs, but in hooded receptacles, so that the irritating
+fumes are carried away from the workmen. Gloves ought to be worn. No
+young person should be employed in the industry.
+
+
+ _Tobacco and Cigar Manufacture._
+
+Medical opinion is divided as to whether the manufacture of tobacco
+and cigars really exercises any injurious influence upon the workers.
+As far back as 1846 this subject was carefully investigated by Dr
+Melier at the request of the Academy of Medicine of Paris. In the
+manufacture of tobacco for smoking it is generally conceded that during
+the chopping up of the leaves and their subsequent exposure to a high
+temperature in shallow vessels, certain fumes are given off that are
+obnoxious to the workmen engaged in this operation, also that during
+the grinding of snuff irritating gases and dust are evolved. Apart
+from these, however, the industry is on the whole a healthy one. Some
+people have an idiosyncrasy which causes them to be easily affected
+by tobacco. New hands on entering a tobacco factory for the first
+time often experience a good deal of nausea, headache, and giddiness,
+and they sometimes too have a sense of faintness, but by degrees
+they become accustomed to the odours. At the Newcastle Dispensary I
+am occasionally consulted by female tobacco-spinners on account of
+persistent headache, nausea, dislike to food, anæmia, and muscular
+feebleness. I have never observed the transient loss of sight nor
+the pharyngeal catarrh alluded to by some writers. Melier held the
+opinion that working in tobacco arrested tuberculous disease, but
+this is simply an opinion, and is uncorroborated by the experience of
+others. Poisson and Eulenburg take the opposite view, and maintain that
+tuberculosis is a very frequent disease indeed in tobacco workers,
+especially in females. In the lungs of tobacco-workers, both at home
+and abroad, there have been found pigmentation and patches of brown
+induration. Similar lesions have been observed in the lungs of animals
+experimentally exposed to tobacco dust; but at the best these changes
+in the human subject must be regarded as of extremely rare occurrence,
+and are more than likely due to the inhalation of vegetable and
+mineral dusts which dry tobacco often contains. Given a healthy man or
+woman, and a well-ventilated factory provided with the proper means
+for removing dust and foul air, there is nothing in the manufacture
+of tobacco or in the making of cigars to cause the occupation to be
+regarded as one very prejudicial to health. Anæmic girls and those
+with an idiosyncrasy to tobacco are not good subjects. As to the work
+causing excessive menstruation and producing sterility, confirmation
+is required; and the same remark applies to the supposed frequency
+with which pregnant tobacco-workers and cigar-makers are said to
+miscarry. In _Poisons Industriels_, p. 201, it is stated that the
+midwives who attend the female tobacco-workers of the Rue Jean-Nicot
+in Paris often remark upon the readiness with which pregnant cigar and
+cigarette makers abort, and that the only way by which it is possible
+for a pregnant tobacco-worker to carry her child to term is to give up
+her employment for the time being. It is also stated that the infants
+are either born dead or die soon after birth. Out of 100 pregnancies
+in female cigar-makers, Dr Jacquemart observed 45 miscarriages.
+Personally I do not attach much importance to these statements, nor to
+that regarding infants suckled at the breast, who are said to suffer
+from colic after a meal, and to die from inanition. In Madrid infants
+are taken at certain hours of the day to the large cigar factories
+to be suckled by their mothers. While I am far from countenancing
+the practice, I must admit that, having examined as many as 30 and
+40 infants being thus fed at a time, the children looked plump and
+healthy; so, too, did the mothers. Tobacco is not an emmenagogue. Its
+abortifacient properties, it seems to me, have been exaggerated; and in
+this I am supported by Poincaré, and also by Ygonin, who found in 750
+female cigar-makers that miscarriages were by no means more frequent
+than in women engaged in other occupations.
+
+The subject of amblyopia or loss of vision in tobacco-workers is dealt
+with in another part of this book by Mr Simeon Snell.[180]
+
+An interesting contribution to the subject of the manufacture of
+cigars, from the social and hygienic standpoint, appears in the
+_Economic Journal_, December 1900, from the pen of Miss Grace
+Oakeshott. It is the result of an inquiry undertaken by the Women’s
+Industrial Council. Smokers need hardly be reminded that two kinds of
+cigars are made, the machine or moulded, and the handmade cigar, nor
+is it necessary to do more than mention the superiority of the latter
+over the former. A woman requires rather a long apprenticeship, nearly
+five years, before she becomes an adept in making handmade cigars.
+Miss Oakeshott had several opportunities of coming into close contact
+with female cigar-makers, from whom she learned that they themselves
+believe there is nothing in the work that is unhealthy nor in any way
+trying to an ordinarily healthy woman. The occupation is decidedly
+sedentary, and it is more than probable that the women sit too long. As
+to a supposed protection to the workers from epidemic disease afforded
+by tobacco, I am not in a position either to support or contradict the
+statement. I doubt it. In 1862 a Parliamentary Report was published on
+the tobacco manufactories of Lancashire. It dealt especially with the
+female workers in Liverpool. The medical men gave it as their opinion
+in the report that tobacco had no permanent effect upon the health
+of the workers, and that “though at first the women were attacked by
+sickness and faintness due to the smell of tobacco and to insufficient
+ventilation, they soon grew accustomed to this, and that, moreover, at
+the time of a cholera epidemic the cigar-makers in the town were free
+from the disease altogether.”
+
+Women, taken all in all, are slower cigar-makers than men. Men will
+make from 800 to 1270 cigars in a week, and women from 400 to 800, and
+yet it occasionally happens that a woman who is an exceptionally quick
+worker will beat the best male worker. The cigar trade is one that
+requires deftness and skill in manipulation, and as both of these are
+possessed by women’s fingers, the occupation is one particularly suited
+for women. The work is neither hard nor laborious; it is quiet, and on
+the whole it is well paid.
+
+
+ _Engine-Drivers and Railway Employés._
+
+What strikes one most in dealing with the subject of workmen employed
+on railways is the large number of accidents that befall them. It is
+a general opinion that engine-drivers are a healthy class of men. The
+records of their Insurance Societies show this, and medical experience
+confirms it. The wages that drivers receive enable them to buy good
+food. As they have few opportunities of getting much physical exercise,
+several of the men become rather obese. My own professional knowledge
+of engine-drivers is limited. Most of those whom I have had medically
+to deal with have suffered from acute inflammatory affections of the
+chest, or from dyspeptic troubles due to their long and irregular
+hours, their long journeys, and lengthened absence from home. These
+irregularities oblige drivers and firemen to take with them on the
+engine food already cooked, and often to eat it when they can. Their
+duties are of an anxious nature, and are accompanied by a considerable
+amount of nerve tension, which may cause them to break down in health.
+Dr Alexander Scott, of Glasgow, at the meeting of the British Medical
+Association at Cheltenham, August 1901, expressed the opinion that most
+of the accidents on the line are the result of nervous tension on the
+part of railway servants. He cited instances of signal-men becoming
+paralysed through fear, and of experienced engine-drivers losing their
+head and suffering from temporary mental aberration. Nervous tension
+causes headache, weariness of brain, and sleeplessness. Whether it
+is in consequence of this nerve strain that engine-drivers as a
+class suffer more frequently from diabetes than men engaged in other
+occupations, I am not prepared to say. Dr Atkinson, of Crewe, states
+that engine-men are usually long lived, but that they are subject to
+bronchitis in winter, while their common complaints are indigestion,
+varicocele, and varicose veins, the latter in consequence of their
+prolonged standing. Out of 4000 men employed at Crewe, not more than 6
+die annually from phthisis.
+
+Through the kindness of Dr Atkinson, of Crewe, I have been furnished
+with the Annual Reports of the London and North-Western Railway
+Insurance Society for Drivers and Firemen for the last six years. The
+average number of men in the society has been 10,817. The average
+annual number of deaths during these six years has been 91, and the
+average annual number of deaths from accidents 9.6; that is to say,
+one-tenth of the deaths is due to accidents received when at work.
+On looking over the causes of death, it is noticed that the largest
+number of men die from old age, and that pneumonia, heart and kidney
+diseases, also the combined influence of these two latter, carry off
+by far the next largest proportion. I am struck, however, by the
+number of deaths from diabetes. They vary from one to four per annum;
+no age period is spared, but the maximum rate of mortality is above
+fifty years of age. More of the men die from pneumonia than phthisis,
+probably in consequence of exposure. Dr Atkinson concludes a letter by
+remarking that drivers and firemen “are very long lived and healthy,
+and fewer of them suffer from hernia than the public generally.”
+
+Stokers are said to suffer from pulmonary anthracosis, a form of
+consumption like coal-miners’ phthisis, but I am doubtful of the
+prevalency of this ailment among stokers, just as I am of their
+becoming deaf owing to the soundings of the whistle. Men employed in
+the sheds cleaning the engines with soda and potash often become thin
+and anæmic, but if they are given outside work they rapidly regain the
+appearance of health.
+
+_Labourers_ on the railway employed to look after the transport
+of living cattle, or who have to handle the carcases of dead beasts,
+skins, and hides, run the risk of contracting blood-poisoning. As
+the identity of human and bovine tuberculosis has recently been
+disputed by Koch, the following fact is of considerable importance.
+Two labourers employed on an American railway to clean and repair cars
+used for transporting cattle, suffered from local tuberculosis of the
+skin, following a slight injury to the hand caused by a splint of
+wood. One of the men died a year afterwards from tuberculous disease
+of the lungs. There is every reason, therefore, why infected cattle
+and carcases should not be allowed to be carried by rail. In our own
+country we know how often anthrax has been traced to the importation
+of diseased hides and infected hair (see “Anthrax”). While people may
+thus become infected, not only on the railways but in the factories,
+it is absolutely necessary that diseased cattle should not be allowed
+to travel either by road or rail. In the event of infected animals
+having been conveyed by rail, complete disinfection of the waggons
+is an absolute necessity. This is sometimes done by washing out the
+interior of the waggons and brushing them with quicklime. Superheated
+steam is by many believed to be better than antiseptic solutions, for
+if these are to be of any service they must be used strong. Pasteur
+taught that all disease-causing germs were destroyed at a temperature
+of 110° C., or 233° F., and that moist heat is superior to dry. A few
+minutes’ exposure to superheated steam kills even the most resistant
+microbes, so that where vehicles have been employed in the transport of
+infected cattle, patients suffering from enteric fever, and in warfare
+of soldiers with discharging wounds, disinfection should be resorted to
+immediately after discharge of the cargo.
+
+(For further remarks on disinfection, see article “Anthrax,” p. 642).
+
+
+ _Drivers of Public Vehicles._
+
+Drivers of public vehicles suffer and become prematurely old in
+consequence of their exposure to inclement weather, late hours, and
+irregularity in getting their meals. Alcoholism and exposure to cold
+are responsible for their tendency to develop gout and rheumatism, and
+through these disorders to secondary affections of the kidneys, heart,
+and respiratory organs. They die at the rate of 1482 to 1000 of the
+male population generally.
+
+
+ _Cooks._
+
+The average age at death of cooks is fifty-four years. Heat affects
+cooks differently; some become extremely stout and unhealthy looking,
+while others, in consequence of the heat, working in cellar kitchens by
+artificial light, and deprived of the fresh air, become pale, suffer
+from headache, lose their appetite, and have occasional bleedings
+at the nose. Many of them suffer, too, from varicose veins, owing
+to standing so long on their feet. Others suffer from eczema of the
+hands. Subterranean kitchens are bad from a hygienic point of view.
+Every kitchen should be well ventilated and have good daylight. The
+introduction of gas stoves into kitchens has not improved matters.
+They are very convenient, but ventilation is interfered with, and
+the atmosphere is liable to be contaminated when the gas stoves are
+not provided with adequate means for carrying off the products of
+combustion. Often, too, the indiarubber tube that carries the gas emits
+an unpleasant odour. The tube may become cracked, allowing coal-gas
+to escape, and as arsenic has been found in some indiarubber tubes,
+this substance may enter into combination with the gases that are of
+themselves harmful, and thus further help to undermine the health of
+those working in the kitchen.
+
+
+ _Confection Makers._
+
+Confection makers suffer from caries of the teeth, and from ophthalmia
+and headache, and from the effects of great heat.
+
+
+ _Domestic Servants and Housemaids, etc._
+
+Domestic servants in well-to-do and upper middle-class families are
+not unhealthy. They are well fed, but either do not get or take as
+much open air exercise as they ought. It is in the maid-of-all-work,
+and in servants employed in the smaller houses where there are large
+families, and in lodging-houses, that we find the worst indications
+of the effects of domestic service. The sleeping accommodation for
+servants, even in large houses, is not always as good as it should
+be. Their rooms, which are at the top of the house, are small, badly
+lit, often without a fireplace, and therefore badly ventilated. Their
+hours of toil are long, and the demands made upon domestic servants
+are numerous, often exacting, and frequently protracted well on into
+the evening. Small wonder that, owing to their deprivation of fresh
+air, the monotony of their work in many instances, the conflict of
+tempers, and the imperfect food obtainable in poorer families and
+lodging-houses, many young women break down in health, become anæmic,
+suffer from headache and derangement of the digestive and pelvic
+organs. There is one illness domestic servants seem to be very prone
+to, and that is ulcer of the stomach. It used to be stated in medical
+text-books that cooks were more liable than any other class of female
+servants to ulcer of the stomach, a circumstance that was attributed
+to their frequently tasting very hot foods. My own experience at the
+Newcastle Infirmary is that housemaids suffer in at least as large a
+proportion as cooks do from ulcer of the stomach, but why I cannot say,
+unless it be that as a class they are more anæmic, and anæmia is a
+predisposing cause to gastric ulcer. It is an opinion held by several
+asylum physicians and others, that domestic servants form a very large
+percentage of the inmates of asylums. I have taken pains to ascertain
+the facts upon which this opinion rests, by applying to Dr McDowall,
+of the Northumberland County Asylum, and to Dr Calcott, of the
+Newcastle-upon-Tyne Asylum at Cox Lodge. The total admissions of women
+into the Northumberland County Asylum for five years, 1886 to 1890
+inclusive, were 415. Of these, 48, or 11.3 per cent., were domestic
+servants, 15 were housekeepers, and 189 housewives, by which is usually
+meant married women. The area from which these patients are drawn is
+agricultural and mining. Taking outdoor work as a healthy but often
+badly paid occupation as a contrast, I find that 11 field-workers were
+admitted as against 48 domestic servants. Dr McDowall does not think
+“there is an excessive amount of insanity among domestic servants.”
+It is only right to add that in addition to the above there were 101
+females admitted classed under “no occupation,” and that many of these
+were young women who were at home and helped in housework.
+
+The Newcastle-upon-Tyne Asylum, on the other hand, draws its patients
+from the city, where the typical domestic servant is more likely to
+be found than in the districts that supply the County Asylum. Dr
+Calcott has been good enough to send me a table showing the occupation
+of female patients received into the Newcastle City Asylum during
+the past twenty years, and embracing 1000 cases. The following is
+the percentages:--Housewives, _i.e._ married women, widows, and
+daughters acting as housekeepers to fathers, brothers, and relatives,
+47.7 per cent.; domestic servants, 14.60, or, including women keeping
+house for artisans, 2.03, a total percentage of 16.63. This is a large
+percentage for domestic servants compared with 0.46 for shop girls.
+The Whittingham Asylum, near Preston, Lancashire, draws patients from
+a different class of occupations to those in Newcastle. I find in the
+Report of that Asylum of 1899, that there were 196 females admitted
+during the year. Of these, 26 were domestic servants; housekeepers and
+housewives numbered 102, contrasted with 24 mill hands and factory
+operatives. Next to housekeepers, which includes married women,
+domestic servants stood highest in the list of admission.
+
+“Housemaids’ Knee” is an inflammation of the bursa in front of the
+knee-cap, and is caused by pressure and friction.
+
+
+ _Barmen and Dealers in Alcoholic Drinks._
+
+Publicans and licensed victuallers are notoriously a short-lived class.
+The modern tendency of brewers to buy out the smaller publicans and to
+form “tied” houses is causing the older type of landlords to disappear,
+and is replacing them by men often drawn from an inferior rank of
+life. In large industrial centres the men who are placed in charge of
+bars or who take over public-houses for themselves have frequently
+been previously engaged in the ordinary trades of the district. As
+subsequent events too often show, the life adopted, however gilded it
+may appear, is attended with considerable danger. The occupation of
+the publican is sedentary. Without any exercise in the open air, his
+long day is too often spent in an atmosphere reeking with the odour
+of spirits, tobacco smoke, and emanations from the men and women who
+lounge at the bar; and this, coupled with the numerous temptations to
+drink, and his irregular meals, sooner or later induces structural
+alterations in the liver, lungs, and heart, that bring life to a
+premature close. According to Ogle, innkeepers and publicans have a
+comparative mortality figure of 1521 as against 1000 of the general
+population, an unenviable position, which is corroborated by the
+statistics of the Scottish Amicable Insurance Society, which show
+that dealers in intoxicating drinks have a mortality of 68 per cent.
+in excess of the Actuaries’ or healthy Male Tables, and 49 per cent.
+in excess of the English Life Tables. The mortality is 51 per cent.,
+roughly speaking, above that for all males. In no other class of men,
+as might be expected from the opportunities offered, is the mortality
+from _alcoholism_ so high as in innkeepers and publicans. It is
+from five to seven times higher than the average. The only occupation
+that approximates to it from a mortality point of view is that of
+cabmen. There is a belief that the mortality among publicans from
+alcohol is diminishing, but Dr Tatham’s statistics for 1890–92, which
+appeared in the _British Medical Journal_ for January 1898, do
+not confirm this. Some barmen, it is true, are teetotallers, and many
+are extremely temperate, but all are living under conditions of great
+temptation. The dangerous nature of the occupation lies not so much
+in the fact that barmen may get repeatedly drunk and run the risk
+of delirium tremens, but in the opportunities that are offered of
+continually nipping. It is the frequent nipping, begun early in the day
+and continued through it, often without food and an increasing distaste
+for it, that slowly undermines the physical and mental health of the
+publicans, is the cause of the large number of suicides among them, and
+of the large number of barmen that are carried off by cirrhosis of the
+liver and kidney disease before they reach the age of forty.
+
+Working brewers are also unhealthy. They have, according to Ogle, a
+mortality figure of 1361 as against 1521 for publicans, but while they
+present a lower mortality figure and greater freedom from alcoholism,
+they have a higher mortality from heart and lung diseases, especially
+consumption, a circumstance which is attributed to their greater
+exposure to varying temperatures and to wet, their figures for phthisis
+being 334 as against 295 for publicans. Brewers and their assistants
+are more liable to accidents; these, like all alcoholic subjects, they
+bear badly. Dr Tatham’s statistics are more recent than Ogle’s, and
+they show that all occupations connected with the liquor traffic have
+even a higher mortality rate than those furnished by previous decennial
+reports. The figures are for brewers 1427, innkeepers and publicans
+1642, and for inn and hotel servants, 1725. Taking 100 as representing
+the mean mortality among all occupied males for each of the subjoined
+causes of death, the comparative mortality figures for publicans,
+innkeepers, and their servants are 723 from alcoholism, 600 from gout,
+271 from diabetes, 644 from diseases of the liver, 210 from urinary
+diseases, and 207 from suicide.
+
+
+ _Sewing-Machine Workers._
+
+If seamstresses and tailors in days gone by suffered, in consequence
+of plying the needle for many hours a day, from contracted fingers
+and rheumatic swellings of the joints; and tailors, owing to their
+cross-legged position when at work, from atrophy of the muscles of
+the limbs, bandy-legs, and deformities of the chest, the introduction
+of the sewing-machine about 1855, while removing these evils, was at
+first believed to have introduced others of its own. To sit working a
+sewing-machine, as thousands of anæmic women in this country are doing
+six days in every week, is to aggravate the physical conditions upon
+which their bloodlessness depends, to court neuralgia, and to encourage
+lethargy of some of the eliminating organs, but beyond exaggerating
+certain functional disorders, I do not think that to working the
+sewing-machine can be traced any real organic disease. It has been
+asserted that the vibration to which the spine is subjected is a cause
+of spinal-cord disease, and of such a disorder as locomotor ataxia.
+There is no truth in this statement. I know of no instances, nor is it
+likely that the jolting of the spine could cause locomotor ataxia any
+more than the movements of the knees induce disorders of the genital
+organs and encourage immoral practices, which some medical men claimed
+for the sewing-machine on its introduction. The one statement is just
+as unfounded as the other. Working the sewing-machine too long may be
+followed by muscular cramps, and even by loss of power in the limbs,
+due to irritation of the flexor and extensor muscles of the legs. The
+principal effects, however, are vague muscular pains in the limbs and
+loins, and a sense of fatigue, but I question whether these pains are
+more pronounced in sewing-machine workers than in shop girls and women
+who are doing other kinds of work. It is a sedentary occupation, but
+given a good constitution to start with, well-ventilated workrooms, and
+not too prolonged hours of toil, coupled with such open air exercise
+as a reasonable walk twice a day, between the home and the workroom,
+provides, along with good wages to get sufficient food, it cannot be
+said to be unhealthy. Women, recognising that the work is sedentary,
+ought themselves to take the necessary means to keep the bowels open,
+for obstinate constipation is not only a cause of anæmia, it ladens the
+blood with impurities that induce headache, the too frequent recurrence
+of which obliges the individual to give up her employment.
+
+
+ _Label-licking._
+
+In thread mills young girls are often employed to put labels on the
+bobbins. This they do by licking the labels, and as a consequence
+children are known to have suffered from swollen submaxillary glands,
+as reported in 1895 by Miss Anderson,[181] Principal Lady Inspector
+of Factories. This unwholesome practice is not confined to thread
+mills, it prevails in many industries in which small packets are
+being labelled for sale. The work is generally given to young persons
+and children. It is undertaken, therefore, at an age when growth is
+active, and the system is in need of all its digestive juices. The
+practice entails an enormous loss of saliva daily. Quite apart from
+this circumstance weakening the digestive functions, there is always
+the risk of the coloured labels containing, as Professor Thorpe’s[181]
+analysis showed, copper and lead. Besides, there is the risk that the
+adhesive part of the label owes its sticking properties not to gum,
+but to substances of an animal nature, such as serum, to the presence
+of which have been traced some minor forms of blood poisoning, and the
+painful affection known as “stamp-lickers’ tongue.” As a consequence
+ulcers in the mouth sometimes develop, and from these ulcers poisonous
+material is absorbed and carried by the lymphatics to the glands
+underneath the jaw, setting up an acute inflammation or adenitis.
+
+Stamp-lickers’ tongue is an infective process which generally yields to
+antiseptic treatment, such as a weak carbolic, boric, or hyposulphite
+of soda mouth-wash. It is not so generally known as it ought to be,
+that the licking of stamps may be followed by tubercular disease. The
+following fact is therefore worthy of being more publicly recorded. Dr
+Busquet,[182] a surgeon-major in the French army, and engaged in the
+Bacteriological Laboratory attached to the military hospital at Dey,
+in Algiers, received into the hospital a young soldier far advanced in
+tubercular disease of the lungs. He was a collector of foreign stamps.
+Unused stamps he generally fixed in his album by licking them. In
+order to test some stamps, Dr Busquet bought three hundred for his
+patient, many of which were for the purpose of exchange. These stamps
+were placed in sterilised water. At the end of twenty-four hours,
+Busquet inoculated guinea-pigs with the water. Of eight animals thus
+treated all became tuberculous, and at the post-mortem examination
+they showed various tubercular lesions in their internal organs.
+School boys and girls form the larger number of philatelists, and as
+they often wet the stamps with their tongue the danger incidental to
+this practice is apparent. What has been said of foreign stamps may
+not apply equally to label-licking, and yet labels are often lying
+about in a factory exposed to the dusty atmosphere of the workroom in
+which microbes of disease are known to abound. We cannot always be
+sure too that the solution of gum was sterile to commence with, and
+that it was spread upon the labels by healthy persons. There is no
+wish to exaggerate the importance of microbes in causing disease; all
+that is here insisted upon is that label-licking is an unhealthy and
+an unpleasant occupation, one that can be better and just as cheaply
+done by mechanical contrivances than by wasting children’s saliva.
+That large quantities of saliva are used up in the process is shown by
+the fact that half-timers will lick as many as forty to fifty gross of
+labels in one day, and an adult woman as many as ninety gross. Where
+factory owners have introduced the use of dampers, they have found that
+by such artificial means the fixing of labels on bobbins can be just as
+expeditiously performed.
+
+
+ _Glass Manufacture: Glass-Blowing._
+
+The manufacture of glass is a very old industry. The Egyptians made
+glass more than 4000 years ago. Probably they learned the art from
+the Phœnicians or Jews. When Rome was at its zenith the number of
+Jewish glass-makers was so great that a special quarter of the city
+was set apart for them. These men turned out beautiful works of art,
+as the specimens in the Vatican and the British and French Museums
+show. Glass is supposed to have been introduced into England in the
+year 676 A.D., but the first glass works in London were not
+established until 1557. Two centuries ago Lancashire led the way in
+making plate glass. British sheet glass began to be made in Birmingham
+in 1832. So far as plate glass for mirrors and windows is concerned
+the British-made article is bad to beat. St Helens in Lancashire
+is the home of the manufacture of this particular kind of glass,
+which is composed of sand, soda salt, lime, felspar (quartz), and
+occasionally red lead and black oxide of manganese. These when melted
+together form a silicate, the sand supplying the silicic acid. Boric
+can be substituted for silicic acid. These substances are all fused
+together at an extremely high temperature in circular furnaces, with
+several small openings through which the workmen, wearing blue-tinted
+spectacles, can view the molten mass. Boys dip the end of a long hollow
+iron tube into the lake of molten material and, removing a _blob_
+on the end of the tube, take it to the men standing close by, who blow
+down the iron tube and cause the glowing mass to become globular. They
+fix and regulate the shape of the globe by occasionally rolling it on a
+small iron table. As the mass at the end of the iron tube cools further
+expansion of the glass by blowing becomes impossible, and so it becomes
+necessary to again replace the unfinished product at the end of the
+rod in the furnace. This is in time removed and again blown, restored
+to the furnace and manipulated until a completely finished article is
+evolved. This has still to undergo a process of annealing or toughening
+so as to prevent it cracking or breaking readily. The process consists
+in again exposing the glass to a high temperature, gradually raised
+and just as gradually lowered. Frosted glass is made by forcing a jet
+of sand under very great pressure upon particular parts of the glass.
+Sheet glass, on the other hand, is formed from a large mass of molten
+material adherent to the end of a blow-pipe, which, when it becomes
+large enough, is swung round and round in the air until it becomes
+oblong. It is then cut and the mass is allowed to fall flat. In order
+to flatten it still more the sheet is put into an oven; when rendered
+pliable by the heat it is removed and smoothed out by wood. In the
+manufacture of plate glass no blowing is required. A pot of molten
+glass is carried by a travelling crane to the casting-table, which is
+made of smooth iron with an elevated rim. Upon this table the liquid is
+poured. By means of rollers the workmen spread the layer out equally
+until it is of uniform thickness. After cooling, the glass is annealed
+in the manner already described. It is subsequently ground with sand
+and water, and afterwards polished with emery or putty powder.
+
+The risks to health incurred by makers of glass are mainly those due
+to exposure to excessively high temperatures, _e.g._ bronchial
+and pulmonary affections; many of the men die from phthisis. They
+bear pneumonia badly owing to their intemperate habits. Dr Scheele,
+in the _Berlin. Klinische Wochenschrift_, March 1900, has drawn
+attention to what is known as “glass-blowers’ mouth.” Large swellings
+like air-cushions can be seen and felt in some glass-blowers, extending
+from the angle of the mouth to below the ears. The swellings look like
+mumps. They involve the parotid gland only. They crepitate under the
+finger, and by pressure can be made to disappear. It is only recently
+that these swellings in the cheeks of glass-blowers have attracted
+attention, and especially in France. The relaxation of the cheeks, the
+_joues casées_ of French glass-blowers, is by some attributed to
+a faulty method of blowing. From glass-blowers under my care in the
+Newcastle Infirmary I have ascertained that the malady is not unknown
+among the men in the works on Tyneside. Dr Scheele found that it was
+present in only 2.5 per cent. of blowers, some of whom had worked for
+years. In those who had thus suffered the duct that leads from the
+interior of the mouth to the parotid gland had become dilated owing
+to the repeated entrance of air into it under considerable pressure:
+the mucous membrane of the inside of the cheek, too, showed thick pale
+patches, _plaques opalines_, which Guinard regarded as the result
+of the great pressure and straining the buccal mucous membrane was
+exposed to during the act of blowing. Under ordinary forced expiration
+the pressure inside the closed mouth is equivalent to from 6 to 9
+millimetres of mercury, but in glassblowing it may rise to 90 and even
+as high as 110 mm. In the course of an ordinary day a good workman will
+blow as many as from 600 to 700 bottles.
+
+In consequence of the strain experienced by glass-blowers other defects
+are occasionally observed; one is deafness due to increased internal
+pressure in the middle ear, and the other is a painless deformity of
+the fingers (_main en crochet_) due to the manner in which the
+blow-pipe is grasped.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 85.--Glass-blower when in normal
+ condition. (After Dr Scheele, Berlin. Klin. Wochen., 1900).]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 86.--A later photograph of
+ Glass-blower in Fig. 85, showing relaxed condition of Cheeks.
+ (After Dr Scheele).]
+
+Glass-workers are exposed to other dangers. Dr Pröbsting,[183] an
+oculist in Cologne, has found that in 12 per cent. of the factory
+operatives in Ehrenfield who are upwards of forty years of age, the
+crystalline lens of the eye becomes opaque. One of the most frequent
+causes of this form of cataract is exposure to the intense heat on the
+part of glass-makers, especially the workmen who remove the molten
+material from the furnace. Owing to the manner in which they handle
+their implements these men generally stand with the left side of their
+face towards the furnace. It is generally the left eye that becomes the
+seat of cataract. Meyhöfer believes that the excessive perspiration of
+glass-makers plays an important part in producing this change in the
+lens. A third cause may be the brilliant white light that dazzles
+workers in glass, and which, by fatiguing the retina of the eye,
+reflexly influences the lens. Mr Simeon Snell’s experience does not
+quite corroborate that of Dr Pröbsting.[184]
+
+A new method of making hollow glass ware, _e.g._ tumblers, etc.,
+has lately been introduced. The blowing is no longer done by men
+exhaling air from their lungs, but by driving in compressed air by
+means of machinery. One machine managed by four men and seven boys can
+turn out 500 tumblers in an hour, or 5000 in a day, whereas the same
+number of operatives working under old methods can only throw off 40
+tumblers in an hour. In large glass factories the work often goes on
+night and day in double shifts, particularly on the Continent. The
+use of compressed air in glassblowing is very desirable, for by its
+use many of the ill effects consequent upon the present methods of
+blowing would soon disappear. The more frequent wearing of blue-tinted
+spectacles by the workmen, too, would tend to lessen the frequency of
+cataract.
+
+
+ _Glazed Ware Poisonous from other Causes than Lead.--Cyanide of
+ Potassium._
+
+The United States Consul at Mayence, in December 1900, uttered a
+word of warning to purchasers of silvered glass and porcelain,
+which is deserving of notice. In order to apply the silver by the
+galvano-caustic method in use, the ware has to be dipped in a bath
+highly charged with cyanide of potassium. However carefully treated,
+the surface is never perfectly smooth, but conceals innumerable fine
+cracks. The cyanide lies in the minute fissures and cannot be removed
+during manufacture. As a consequence both the use and the handling of
+the ware may be followed by poisonous effects. Cyanide of potassium
+contains the well-known poison, prussic acid. Owing to the danger to
+health incurred by the workmen and the public, some large firms have
+abandoned the manufacture of goods by this process, but the ware is
+still exported from Frankfort, Stuttgart, and Berlin. Attempts are
+being made to devise non-poisonous methods of plating these goods.
+
+
+ _Coal-heaving, Coal-trimming, and Chimney-sweeping._
+
+Men employed in the first two of the above occupations are much exposed
+to the weather and to dust given off during the tipping of coal, while
+in the case of chimney-cleaning the sweep is exposed to the effects
+of soot that has been formed during the combustion of coal. The men
+who perform the rough, heavy labour on quays and staithes, loading and
+unloading ships with coal, or who fill sacks with the fuel, are called
+coal-heavers, while the men who are in the holds of vessels, shovelling
+and distributing the coal therein, are known as coal-trimmers. Usually
+the men are well developed and of good physique, but as a class they
+are extremely intemperate. On Tyneside they earn good wages, but a
+large part of them goes in drink. Owing to the many delays to which
+steamers are exposed the work of these men is rather irregular, a
+circumstance which does not conduce to steady habits. Beyond the risk
+of accidents, and the hard and exposed nature of the calling of the
+coal-heaver, there is nothing that is particularly dangerous in it,
+if the men themselves are careful. The trimmers when in the further
+recesses of the holds of vessels work in a dusty atmosphere, but the
+dust readily escapes. On coming out of the holds they often bring up
+a black spit, but this is mostly pigmented mucus from the bronchi.
+Phthisis and pulmonary disease carry off a large percentage of
+coal-heavers and trimmers. It must be admitted that neglect of common
+colds, and the indifference to health created by intemperate habits,
+are to a large extent responsible for these maladies.
+
+_Chimney sweeps_ form pretty well a social class by themselves.
+Their occupation cannot be regarded as a healthy one. To pulmonary,
+cardiac, and kidney diseases sweeps are particularly liable. Soot has
+a peculiarly irritating effect on the skin. It induces eczema, and
+is apt to cause inflammation of the eyelids, hence the “blear” eye
+exhibited by many sweeps. Occasionally the soot enters the skin, and
+is transported by the cells along the lymphatic vessels to distant
+parts of the body. A short while ago the question was raised in the
+pages of the _Lancet_, Do coal miners suffer from cancer? In a
+paper which I read at the Sanitary Congress in Newcastle-on-Tyne five
+years ago, I showed, from statistics of admissions into the Newcastle
+and Sunderland Infirmaries and the Durham County Hospital, that coal
+miners were anything but exempted from cancer. It is interesting to
+note, too, that while coal dust when inhaled is followed only by an
+inflammatory reaction in the pulmonary tissue surrounding the entangled
+particles of dust, coal when burnt undergoes some peculiar chemical
+change, whereby soot has conferred upon it properties of a specially
+irritating nature, for only thus can we explain the prevalence of
+cancer in chimney sweeps, a disease with which hospital surgeons at
+home, particularly in London, have been long familiar. Taking Dr
+Ogle’s statistics of the deaths of 242 chimney sweeps, 49 were due to
+malignant disease. Expressed in other words, Ogle found that while
+among all males in England and Wales between twenty-five and sixty-five
+years of age the proportion of deaths from malignant disease was in
+the ratio of 36 per 1000 deaths from all causes, it was in sweeps 202.
+Reference may here be made to the opinions expressed by Dr Tatham in
+this book, _vide_ “Dust-Producing Occupations,” upon the mortality
+of sweeps from cancer. His statistics, which are more recent than
+Ogle’s, indicate that the mortality from different forms of cancer
+amounts to 156, compared with 44, the figure for occupied males in
+the aggregate. Chimney sweeps have a liability to cancer eight times
+greater than other persons. The disease tends to locate itself in the
+scrotum more than in other organs. To this subject Mr Henry T. Butlin,
+F.R.C.S., Surgeon to St Bartholomew’s Hospital, has given considerable
+attention, and has embodied his experience in a series of lectures
+delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons.[185] There is a widespread
+opinion that chimney sweeps’ cancer is seldom met with in any other
+part of the civilised world than in Great Britain; also, that during
+recent years, in this country, it is becoming rarer. Statistics show
+that it occurs very infrequently on the Continent. Many French hospital
+surgeons say they have never seen a case of cancer of the scrotum in a
+chimney sweep. In Vienna during eleven years, 1874 to 1884 inclusive,
+only one case of scrotal cancer was reported, and in that instance the
+patient was not a chimney sweep. During the years 1878 to 1885 not one
+case occurred in the large town hospitals of Berlin, and yet in four
+of the large London hospitals in one year, 1884, there were five cases
+of chimney sweeps’ cancer admitted; during 1881, into a similar number
+of Metropolitan hospitals there were received four patients suffering
+from this affection. It is sometimes stated that cancer in chimney
+sweeps has practically disappeared in Britain. This is not so. As Dr
+Tatham has shown in his article on “Dust-Producing Occupations,” there
+has been within the last twenty years a considerable decrease in the
+mortality of sweeps from this cause; but that it still claims annually
+a large number of victims in this trade is, unfortunately, too true.
+During a recent period of twenty years, there were admitted into St
+Bartholomew’s Hospital alone 39 cases of cancer of the scrotum, and
+of these patients 29 were chimney sweeps. So far, then, as London is
+concerned, there are every year in its hospitals one or two cases of
+chimney sweeps’ cancer in the wards. In Newcastle it is only rarely met
+with.
+
+There is a theory that the supposed decline of sweeps’ cancer is due to
+the prohibition of “climbing boys,” to the use of machinery, cleaner
+habits of sweeps, and the abolition of passing soot through sieves for
+agricultural purposes. That the disease we are alluding to is cancer
+there is no doubt. It often commences in the form of a wart or warts
+on the scrotum, and as these are very frequently followed by cancer,
+what is called the “soot wart” becomes the “soot cancer.” These warts
+may exist for years. In many instances they never take on malignant
+action at all. The warts are liable to be rubbed and irritated by
+the dirty clothes of the sweep and by soot, and in consequence they
+become larger and ulcerate, the ulceration extending superficially
+along the skin or penetrating deeper into the testicle. The glands in
+the groin become enlarged at first from irritation, but ultimately
+they assume the malignant characters of the original ulcer. Under any
+circumstance, even when the disease is far advanced, death comes but
+slowly; emaciation does not progress rapidly, strength is gradually
+lost, and the general health is undermined by the profuse and sickening
+discharges from the open sores. On post-mortem examination of the
+body secondary disease, as might be expected, is frequently found in
+the peritoneal cavity, liver, and lungs. On microscopical examination
+of the scrotal ulcer the appearances presented are those met with in
+epithelioma or squamous cell cancer.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 87.--German Sweep’s Costume.
+ (Reproduced with permission of Mr H. T. Butlin, F.R.C.S.)]
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 88.--Belgian Sweep’s Costume.
+ (Reproduced with permission of Mr H. T. Butlin, F.R.C.S.)]
+
+Although the dirty clothes of chimney sweeps and their want of personal
+cleanliness have been regarded as causes of the cancer, there is a
+feeling that the real cause resides in the soot itself, for there are
+many trades that are as dirty as chimney sweeping, and yet the men
+engaged therein do not suffer from scrotal cancer. Gardeners, who have
+been in the habit of using soot for the protection of plants from slugs
+(see paper by Mr D’Arcy Power, page 237), are known to have developed
+cancer in the hand. How soot causes cancer it is difficult to say.
+By some pathologists the sulphurous acid present in soot is blamed,
+by others, the ammonia compounds. The parasitic causation of cancer
+is still only a theory and requires confirmation. At any rate there
+is no proof of the existence in soot of a cancerous element. Soot
+when repeatedly applied to the skin causes it to become thickened, or
+harsh and dry, and just to the extent that it is capable of altering
+the structure of the skin, so may it predispose to cancer. The
+disease is most rife in chimney sweeps between the ages of forty-five
+and fifty. Whether the soot from one particular kind of coal has a
+greater influence compared with another it is not easy to say. The coal
+that is used for heating dwellings is of four kinds: (1) anthracite
+or smokeless coal; (2) hard coal or stone coal; (3) brown coal; (4)
+coke, wood, peat, and charcoal are also used. There is very little soot
+formed during the burning of anthracite. In England the fireplaces
+are open, but on the Continent stoves for heating purposes are more
+in evidence. At home there is a much larger quantity of hard or
+stone coal burnt in the dwellings than on the Continent, and to this
+fact has been attributed the greater freedom of chimney sweeps from
+cancer across the Channel. Butlin made extensive inquiries into the
+question of chimney sweeps’ cancer abroad, and elicited a good deal
+of information as to the personal habits of the men who follow this
+particular calling. In Belgium, for example, sweeps are in the habit of
+washing themselves to the waist daily, and of washing the whole body
+from head to foot once or twice a week. The chimney sweeps of Hanover
+wear special kinds of clothes, and after each day’s work they wash
+themselves with soap and warm water. In the North German towns several
+of the sweeps have baths fitted up in their own houses, and where this
+is not the case the fraternity own a bath-house, fitted up with all
+the necessary requirements, and to which the sweeps pay a daily visit.
+They also wear special garments, and a handkerchief over their mouth.
+Swiss chimney sweeps take a bath every evening. In some of the towns
+of France the precautions taken in regard to preventing the contact
+of soot with the body are not so good. It was found, however, that in
+Amiens, Lille, Rouen, etc., the sweeps wore blouses, and that they
+washed themselves thoroughly all over once a week. In Paris, sweeps’
+cancer is practically unknown. Chimney-sweeping in Paris is relegated
+to companies known as _fumistes_ (stove makers, menders, etc.).
+One establishment employs 100 men; these men dress in a linen blouse
+or jacket buttoned in front, trousers made from the same material,
+a coarse shirt and boots. After a day’s work the men take off their
+clothes in the workshop, wash, and on reaching home wash themselves
+again. Their working clothes are washed once a week.
+
+“Climbing boys” are still employed by sweeps on the Continent for
+cleaning chimneys. It is several decades since they were prohibited in
+Britain. In the north of Germany, boys from seven to fourteen years of
+age are employed for this purpose, and in Belgium Mr Butlin found that
+even still younger boys were engaged to do the work.
+
+Workers in tar and paraffin are also liable to cancer of the scrotum,
+and men employed in the production of anthracene, which is the last
+product of the distillation of gas-coal tar, are specially prone
+to suffer from warts and skin eruptions. Distillers of benzine
+and creosote suffer in a similar but slighter degree from warts.
+Tillmanns[186] of Leipzig, who made an inquiry into the health
+conditions of the men employed in the tar manufactories, stone coal tar
+distilleries, pine soot, or lampblack factories in Saxony, Hanover, and
+Holland, etc., states that “in lampblack factories, and in stone coal
+tar factories cancer of the skin and severe dermatitis do not appear to
+have been hitherto observed, as in the workers in the brown coal tar
+and paraffin industries.”
+
+Having reviewed this subject at considerable length, I reproduce the
+conclusions that Butlin arrived at--(1) That it is possible to prepare
+the skin for the occurrence of cancer by the constant or repeated
+application to it of certain substances during a period of years; (2)
+that the nocuous substances in this relation of which we have the most
+information are hard or stone coal soot, brown coal tar, and crude
+paraffin; (3) that there is evidence to cast grave suspicion on certain
+other substances, such as stone coal tar, but that those are far less
+to be feared.
+
+In order to prevent the occurrence of this malady in chimney sweeps,
+the individual should have his skin protected as far as possible
+against contact with the soot, and he ought to have a warm bath daily
+after his work. In the special clothing worn by Dutch, Belgian, and
+German sweeps, and in their practice of covering the mouth with a
+handkerchief, may possibly lie one explanation of their freedom from
+the disease compared with English sweeps, while in the use of the daily
+bath there assuredly lies protection.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Acts of Parliament relating to the Employment of Boys in the Sweeping
+of Chimneys in England:--
+
+ _George III._, 28, _chap._ 48 (1788).--To compel the
+ masters to provide proper clothes for the climbing boys and to
+ cause the boys to be washed and cleaned from the soot and dirt
+ at least once a week. Also that the boys shall attend public
+ worship on the Lord’s Day, on which day they are not to wear
+ their sweeping clothes. The masters are not permitted to take
+ more than six apprentices at one time, and no apprentice of less
+ than eight years of age.
+
+ _William IV._, 4 and 5, _chap._ 34–35 (1834).--The age of the
+ apprentices is not to be less than ten years.
+
+ _Victoria_, 3 and 4, _chap._ 85 (1840).--To provide that from
+ and after July 1, 1842, no sweep under the age of twenty-one
+ years shall climb a chimney, and that no apprentice of less than
+ sixteen years shall be taken.
+
+
+ _Manufacture and Use of Emery Wheels._
+
+Emery wheels are used for grinding steel goods, knife and fork
+smoothing, etc. A large proportion of the wheels run in this country
+are imported from the Continent and from America, but many are
+made at home. When serving on the Dangerous Trades Committee I had
+the opportunity of inspecting their manufacture in Manchester and
+elsewhere. The Departmental Committee was invited to report upon emery
+wheels,[187] less on account of danger to health in their manufacture
+than their breakage when running at great speed, and of their
+splinters, which are hurled with great force, dealing sad havoc in a
+crowded factory. The wheels are made from crushed emery stone. Emery
+rock,[188] which is imported from Smyrna or from the Island of Naxos,
+is an anhydrous oxide of aluminium with a large percentage of flint,
+silica, and iron. In Canada a similar kind of wheel is made from a
+stone called corundum, which, while quite as hard as emery, is also an
+oxide of aluminium. The rock in either instance is crushed by means of
+heavy rollers into a very fine powder, which is sifted and then blown
+by a fan into a dust chamber, where it is collected. A considerable
+amount of dust is generated at this particular stage, but as the
+processes are conducted in encased machinery there is little or no risk
+to the workmen who superintend the crushing of the rock. Nor did it
+appear to me that any risk to health was incurred by the men who built
+up the emery wheels. These are made of crushed emery rock, with such
+binding substances as shellac, indiarubber, oil, sulphur, and silicate
+of soda, all pressed together in a mould under great hydraulic power.
+Into some of the wheels brass wire webbing is inserted, so that in the
+event of one of them breaking when running there would be less chance
+of the whole wheel sundering.
+
+The danger commences during the running of emery wheels, a circumstance
+that can be readily imagined when it is known that a small wheel of 3
+inches in diameter will often make as many as 7400 revolutions in a
+minute, and a large one, 3 feet in diameter, 600.
+
+The Departmental Committee recommended that guards should be used in
+connection with the running of emery and corundum wheels. These should
+cover as much of the wheel as possible without interfering with the
+operations of the workman. During grinding a considerable amount of
+dust is given off. A suction pipe and fan should therefore be provided
+to draw the dust away from the face of the workman. Mr Archibald
+Newlands, H.M. Inspector of Factories, has invented a guard which not
+only protects the workmen from portions of broken emery wheel, should
+such an accident happen, but is so arranged as to aspirate and remove
+by suction the dust that is generated. In addition to the mineral and
+metallic dust that is given off during the operation of grinding,
+sparks are sometimes thrown off which might injure the eyes of the
+workman, hence the necessity for powerful suction.
+
+ THOMAS OLIVER.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LX
+
+ OCCUPATION DISEASES DUE TO EXCESSIVELY REPEATED
+ MUSCULAR ACTIONS.
+
+
+ _Fatigue Neuroses: Scriveners’ Spasm, or Writers’ Palsy._
+
+Under the head of occupation or fatigue neuroses it is customary to
+include affections characterised by spasm or paralysis of the muscles
+which prevent the individual performing certain muscular actions, by
+means of which he has hitherto earned his livelihood. The affection is
+met with in various occupations, usually, but not always, in those in
+which delicate movements--as, for example, those of the fingers--are
+required; hence as writing is one of the commonest of this class of
+occupations, it occurs as writers’ palsy. Accompanying the spasm or
+sudden contraction of the muscles that takes place, there is frequently
+pain, but there may be pain without spasm. Gowers, in his _Diseases
+of the Nervous System_, speaks of a motor and a sensory, or a
+spasmodic and neuralgic, form of scriveners’ palsy. Seventy years ago
+the affection was first described by Sir Charles Bell. The infirmity
+affects males oftener than females, and the weakness shows itself
+mostly between twenty and thirty years of age. While the repeated
+muscular movements required in writing become through fatigue the cause
+of the loss of power, there are other circumstances in operation,
+notably the inheritance of a weak nervous system, family worries, and
+financial difficulties. Excessive use of tobacco and intemperance in
+alcohol also favour its development. Since over-use of the muscles
+is a cause of the palsy, the malady naturally occurs in those people
+who earn their living by writing, _e.g._ clerks, copying-clerks
+particularly, and it would seem to be caused less by the amount than
+by the manner of writing. Steel pens have been blamed for causing
+scriveners’ palsy, because they have to be grasped more firmly and
+adjusted more exactly than quills. Doubtless the malady has become
+more general since their introduction, but the disease was previously
+not unknown in persons who only used quills. Besides, the number of
+people who are employed as clerks is greater now than formerly, and the
+conditions of life have materially altered. Quick writers do not suffer
+so much as slow and laborious toilers of the pen, owing to the greater
+range of their muscular movements. Sharp-pointed pens are more liable
+to cause paralysis than stub-pointed, because they have to be held more
+tightly, and require more and finer muscular adjustments.
+
+Once the malady is established, it is when any muscular effort is
+made that the defect is observed. An individual, for example, may
+feel nothing wrong with his hand until he begins to write, and then
+the muscles that control the movements of the fingers are thrown into
+a state of involuntary spasm, or there is pain which prevents him
+writing. I have at present under my care a schoolmaster whose right
+arm is perfectly still, and its muscular movements normal, until he
+attempts to write. In the middle of writing a word the fingers will
+be unexpectedly thrown into a state of spasm, so that the pen is more
+firmly gripped than before, and yet he is unable to lift the pen off,
+or move it further on the paper. He has no difficulty in writing on
+the blackboard owing to the wider range of muscular movements of the
+elbow and shoulder. In scriveners’ cramp there may be, in addition to
+spasm and pain, violent tremor, or there may be what is still rarer,
+actual paralysis. When the muscles during the act of writing are thrown
+suddenly into a state of spasm, the individual is conscious that he
+is grasping the pen too tightly, but he cannot help it. Any voluntary
+attempt to relax his hold of the pen makes no difference so far as his
+ability to finish the writing is concerned. The act is accomplished
+slowly: the letters and figures which he makes are irregular, while
+the handwriting resembles that which is attempted by a person riding
+in a jolting carriage or on the railway. The power of writing may
+be lost gradually or quickly. The presence of spasm either prevents
+the individual writing at all, or if the spasm is intermittent and
+accompanied by tremor, the handwriting is jerky and rather illegible.
+It is the attitude assumed by the muscles in the act of writing that
+induces tremor, for where no effort is made there are no tremulous
+movements. It is an interesting fact too, as showing how the affection
+is limited to a distinct group of muscles concerned in a particular
+act, that while a person who is the subject of scriveners’ palsy
+cannot write, he may be able to paint quite well or even to print
+various letters and words. The grasp of the affected hand is usually
+unimpaired, or there is just the slightest loss of power. In grasping
+the affected hand in scriveners’ spasm, I have noticed that if there is
+prolonged contraction of the muscles concerned in grasping, the act is
+sufficient to bring on tremor. The muscles of the fingers seem to be
+incapable of sustaining any effort without being thrown into a state of
+spasm or tremor. If there is any atrophy or loss of muscle substance
+it is generally slight. Usually there is very little alteration in
+the response of the nerves and muscles to electrical stimulation. In
+some persons it is increased, in others it is diminished. The patients
+complain of the arm and hand feeling tired, and of a general sense of
+languor and fatigue to which they have hitherto been strangers. They
+are easily fatigued and retire to rest early, for they feel the need
+of repose, and are conscious of the benefit that comes from it. Their
+general health remains on the whole good. They are, however, apt to
+suffer in consequence if they are unable to take their accustomed
+out-of-door exercise, and there is a degree of mental depression that
+comes from the disablement caused by their infirmity. The individual
+feels that he cannot earn his living as he used to, and so he worries.
+It is not that he is overcome by pain, although in some instances this
+is acute and of a severe neuralgic character, especially in the muscles
+of the thumb, the finger, and the forearm. It is mental anxiety that
+drags him down.
+
+Various theories have been put forward to explain writers’ palsy.
+According to Gowers these are--(1) weakness of groups of muscles with
+over-action of antagonists; (2) a reflex spasm due to stimulation
+of the sensory nerves in writing; (3) structural changes in those
+particular parts of the central nervous system that superintend the
+muscular movements concerned in this act. Writing is an acquired act
+learned by education, and it never becomes automatic. We require to
+concentrate our attention while writing, and so the fatigue is really
+as much, if not more, cerebral than muscular. Each of the above
+theories has its supporters, but it is difficult to make any one of
+them harmonise with all the facts. My own belief is that the malady is
+primarily central rather than peripheral. Spasm is one of the initial
+facts in the illness, and in writers’ palsy, as in all occupation
+neuroses, spasm and paresis overtake those muscles that have been
+trained to accomplish particular movements, especially movements of
+a complicated and delicate character. Altered nutrition of cerebral
+nerve centres is in all probability responsible for the defective
+muscular movements, while any pain that is felt is due to compression
+of the sensory nerve endings in the muscles during spasm. If there is
+any structural alteration in the nerve fibres it must be slight. This
+indicates that we are not dealing with a neuritis but a functional
+condition of the nerve fibres, such as occurs in neuralgia. Although
+the primary seat of the trouble is probably located in the cortex of
+the brain, there is a marked absence of headache and of impairment of
+intelligence. A recent author has thrown out a hint that, in cases of
+great nervous exhaustion and extreme fatigue, in which during life no
+physical signs of disease of any organs can be detected, and in which
+after death no gross structural changes are found, the cause in all
+probability resides in some obscure pathological condition of the large
+nerve cells in the cortex or grey matter of the brain. It is to such a
+condition that we are disposed to look for an explanation of the early
+symptoms of writers’ palsy.
+
+Scriveners’ spasm _per se_ is distinguished from the inability to
+write that is observed, for example, in hemiplegic patients who have
+had an apoplectic stroke, by its history, the limited extent of the
+spasm and loss of power.
+
+So long as the individual, the subject of scriveners’ spasm, insists
+upon writing, the more pronounced does his difficulty become. He must
+give up writing for a lengthened period if he wishes to get well.
+Should he, however, persist in following his occupation, the weakness
+may extend to other muscles, and he will then be thrown further
+_hors-de-combat_, a circumstance that will only tend to deepen
+still further his mental depression and make him more anxious with
+regard to his future. Feeling himself baffled, he may educate himself
+to write with his other hand, but in time this too may become affected.
+More than that, when he attempts to write with his left hand tremors
+may be induced in his right. In one of my patients a sudden involuntary
+act, such as sneezing or yawning, will sometimes induce violent tremor
+of the affected arm when the muscles are perfectly still. Absolute rest
+from the use of the pen and freedom from all worry are necessary to
+establish a cure, which unfortunately is readily broken by too early
+return to work.
+
+_Prevention and Treatment._--All are agreed that the less cramped
+the handwriting and the more that shoulder muscular movement can be
+brought into operation, the less is the likelihood of scriveners’
+spasm arising. Writing is a matter of education, hence children
+should be taught to use the muscles of the arm more freely. Pens
+should not be too fine-pointed if much writing is to be done, while
+the encircling of the lower part of the penholder by indiarubber
+obviates to some extent the necessity for taking too firm a grip of
+the pen. Lewis (_Twentieth Century Pract. Medicine_, vol. iii.,
+p. 471) recommends that the pen should be held between the index
+and middle fingers, as this requires less muscular effort than the
+ordinary method, but at the best it must be admitted that this is an
+awkward position, and although initial difficulties can be overcome by
+education, it is still doubtful whether the muscular movement required
+under those circumstances is, after all, so very much less. Quills
+and stylographs may be substituted for steel pens, and, as already
+mentioned, the non-affected hand may be taught to write. Type for hand
+writing might be substituted, since this brings a new set of muscles
+into play, and the movements are not so fatiguing. Once symptoms of the
+malady begin to show themselves, absolute cessation of all handwriting
+is necessary. The work should cease at once, for it is in the early
+stages that rest is beneficial and a cure possible.
+
+Internally, nervine tonics may be administered. Drugs as a rule do only
+a limited amount of good. I have got the best results from arsenic and
+bromides. Strychnine is recommended by some. If there is much pain
+such sedatives as morphia or belladonna may be required, but their use
+should be avoided as far as possible. Electricity, too, is worthy of a
+trial, especially in the voltaic rather than the faradic form, combined
+with massage or rubbing.
+
+
+ _Telegraphists’ Spasm, or Cramp._
+
+_Mal télégraphique_, or telegraphic spasm, was first described by
+Onimus, a Frenchman, in 1875; by Robinson in this country in 1882; and
+by Fulton in 1884, who described in detail the movements involved in
+the use of the Morse instrument. Twenty-five years ago the disease was
+a rarity. In the succeeding decade it was pretty prevalent. Probably
+it is now less frequent, owing to the telephone having been in many
+instances substituted for the telegraph. Dr Vivian Poore (Allbutt’s
+_System of Medicine_, vol. viii., p. 131) examined 400 cases
+of professional ailments, but he only found two patients who were
+telegraphists, and they had worked the Morse instrument. Telegraphists’
+spasm differs in no material way from what has been described as
+writers’ palsy. Since it is to working the Morse machine that the
+largest number of cases of telegraphists’ cramp has been traced, it is
+necessary to remind the reader that the Morse alphabet is composed
+of a series of dots and dashes, and that the transmitting instrument
+consists of a lever surmounted at one end with a knob, which when
+depressed by the hand of the operator makes an electrical connection
+with, or completes the electrical circuit between, the transmitting
+apparatus at one end of the telegraph wire and the receiving apparatus
+at the other. On each occasion that the lever is brought down by
+the hand of the operator, and an electrical connection is made, a
+bar of soft iron in the receiving instrument becomes magnetised and
+attracts an armature which is fastened at one end of a lever, while
+an inscribing point at the other end reproduces on a slip of ribbon
+or paper, kept moving by clockwork, the dots and dashes made by the
+transmitter. As the knob is generally held between the thumb, index,
+and middle fingers of the right hand, the elbow meanwhile being
+supported, it is clear that most of the movement is made by the
+extensor and flexor muscles of the fingers and of the wrists, including
+the adductor and opposing muscles of the thumb. Since each letter,
+with the exception of _E_, which is a single dot, and _T_ a
+single dash, consists of more than one dot or dash, while some require
+as many as four, the amount of sustained and co-ordinated movement
+is necessarily very great, and as the transmission is generally very
+rapidly effected, the operation when repeated for a great length of
+time, as in the transmission of speeches delivered in Parliament, must
+be followed by a considerable amount of fatigue. Fulton calculated
+that an operator might make between thirty and forty thousand muscular
+contractions in one hour, and since many telegraphists work eight hours
+a day, the strain on their muscles is necessarily very great. While the
+excessive use of tobacco and alcohol doubtless favours the development
+of telegraphists’ spasm, as of other occupation neuroses, there is
+not the least doubt that cerebral fatigue and muscular overstrain
+are the causes of it. In America, men have not been found to be more
+predisposed to it than women, or _vice versâ_. Once the symptoms
+of the malady have shown themselves, an operator when transmitting a
+message may be suddenly seized with muscular cramp, so that his hand
+cannot be quickly enough raised, and in consequence of this involuntary
+spasm, the pressure on the lever by the fingers is so long maintained
+that what ought to have been dots become dashes, or he transmits dots
+and dashes in such an abnormal sequence that the message received reads
+quite differently to that which it was intended to send. Mistakes
+of this kind have a distressing mental effect upon the operator, and
+they tend still further to derange the functional activity of his
+nervous system. There may be tremor of the hand as well as cramp of
+the muscles, but pain as a rule is absent. The muscles respond to
+electrical tests and do not waste to any extent. A telegraphist feeling
+that the muscular spasms are unfitting him for his daily duties may
+train his other hand to do the work. Conscious that by this means he
+will retain his appointment, he becomes more cheerful, and is able to
+rise to some extent above his infirmity. Whenever possible, such an
+individual should have a lengthy respite from his labours, for muscular
+rest is of very great importance. The treatment of telegraphists’ spasm
+is the same as that described under writers’ palsy. Prevention is
+better than cure. Learners are encouraged to practise with both hands,
+and as a consequence of this ambidexterity, not only are the cases
+becoming fewer every year, but they are seen and treated earlier by the
+Post Office Medical Attendants, whose experience is, that by causing
+the patients to desist there and then from keying for a few months
+recovery invariably follows. After all, it is but a small percentage of
+telegraphists who have “spasm,” probably not more than 1.3 per 1000.
+
+
+ _Pianoforte Players’ Cramp, etc._
+
+Pianoforte players’ cramp affects principally professionals, women more
+frequently than men. Like the infirmities mentioned in the preceding
+pages, there is muscular spasm, which may or may not be associated with
+pain. If the cramp is painful the individual cannot go on playing.
+Usually the spasm affects one or more of the fingers.
+
+Spasmodic muscular contraction is also met with in _violin players_, in
+_violincellists_ especially in the fingers of the left hand that are
+brought down upon the strings of the instrument, and in _seamstresses_,
+in whom once the affection is developed any attempt at sewing is
+followed by cramp of the fingers, so that sewing becomes impossible.
+Seamstresses’ cramp bears a resemblance to shoemakers’ spasm mentioned
+a little further on.
+
+Spasms of various trades have been described, _e.g._, _type-setters’_,
+_milkers’_ spasm, which is said to occur in the cowherds of the Tyrol,
+and _hammermen’s_ spasm. Workers in almost any trade, but especially
+those trades in which excessive muscular effort is combined with
+mental concentration, are liable to spasmodic seizures such as have
+been described, and to which in a general way the remarks already made
+on prevention and treatment may be said to apply.
+
+
+ _Shoemakers’ Spasm._
+
+In Vienna and Heidelberg there have occurred on several occasions
+epidemics of “idiopathic tetany.” Tetany is a disease characterised by
+muscular spasms involving the hands and feet, and sometimes, too, the
+muscles of the trunk, the face, neck, eyes, and larynx. Of 399 cases
+of idiopathic tetany collected by Frankl-Hochwart, 174 occurred in
+shoemakers and 95 in tailors, mostly between the ages of sixteen and
+twenty-five years. The epidemics have generally prevailed during the
+months of March and April. Risien Russell, who alludes to this subject
+in Allbutt’s _System of Medicine_, vol. viii., p. 51, says that
+probably some general toxic condition is in operation. If so, then
+idiopathic tetany would be caused by something on, or in, the thread
+that is used, since this material is common to the two occupations,
+and the illness should therefore be regarded as accidental, and not as
+incidental, to either the trade of the shoemaker or the tailor.
+
+
+ _Boot and Shoe Making._
+
+The last few decades have witnessed great changes in many trades that
+were formerly conducted as home industries, but perhaps in none more
+than in boot and shoe making. A few years ago it was no uncommon thing
+to find a cobbler working alone in his home, or in a small shop,
+assisted by one or two workmen. All boots and shoes were then handmade,
+the leather being cut and the pieces sewn together on the premises,
+so that a completely finished article was turned out by one person.
+The application of machinery has changed all this. It has flooded
+the market with ready-made boots and shoes, which, since they can
+be made more quickly, and in larger numbers, are cheaper than those
+made by hand, although not so enduring. In boot and shoe making, as
+in all factory production, subdivision of labour prevails. To one man
+is assigned the guidance of a machine which cuts the “uppers” or the
+“soles” of the shoes; another stitches the uppers, or “closes” them;
+while to yet another is given the harder task of “making” the shoe,
+_i.e._, of attaching the soles to the uppers. The extent to which
+machinery has already displaced handmade boots and shoes is depriving
+us of a class of workman who was capable of doing all that machinery
+now accomplishes, only he required much longer time. In rural districts
+cobblers will still be required, but their occupation in the future
+will be that of boot-menders rather than of boot-makers.
+
+ [Illustration: FIG. 89.--Shoemakers’ Chest: showing
+ great recession of lower part of Chest, due to pressure of
+ the last. (Dr Oliver’s patient, Newcastle Royal Infirmary.)]
+
+In reproducing the accompanying picture of one of my patients--a
+shoemaker--who was in the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Infirmary, I am wishful
+to give some literary permanence to a deformity which was very
+prevalent in workers in the trade a few years ago, a deformity known
+by the name of shoemakers’ chest, and which, as time goes on, will
+probably cease to exist. At his work the old type of shoemaker would
+sit on a low bench, with his thighs and knees tightly drawn towards
+each other, clasping the last with the boot upon it. His trunk would
+be bent down over his work, so that during the act of stitching and
+drawing the waxen threads through the holes made by his awl in the
+leather, his arms would be forcibly separated from his sides in order
+to tighten each stitch, while any beneficial expansion of the chest
+that this movement created was unfavourably counterbalanced by the
+increased pressure of the last upon his chest bone. As a consequence of
+this repeated pressure applied to the front of the chest, especially
+on younger men, the chest bone and ribs were driven in so as to form
+a deep hollow, such as is depicted in the lower part of the chest in
+the illustration (Fig. 89). The work, too, was sedentary, consequently
+the men suffered from indigestion, constipation, and piles, the latter
+being often aggravated by excessive indulgence in alcohol, to which
+shoemakers as a class were much addicted. It has sometimes been stated
+that they also suffered from cancer more than men engaged in other
+trades, but it is difficult from available statistics to prove or
+disprove this.
+
+In modern boot factories, instead of the “uppers” being stitched to the
+“soles,” they are often riveted. When bootmaking is carried on by this
+process at home, the workman is often found sitting in the attitude of
+the shoemaker described higher up. During the act of burnishing and
+filing the rough edges of the boot, there is a considerable degree of
+pressure exercised by the heel against the front of the chest. In the
+bootmaking trade the men who cut out and shape the leather to be made
+up are known by the name of “clickers.”
+
+Shoemakers formerly suffered from bronchitis and pulmonary phthisis
+in fairly large numbers, but much of this was due to the sedentary
+character of their occupation, their want of exercise in the open
+air, and their intemperate habits. The introduction of machinery, and
+the bringing of shoemaking under the Factory Acts, may to some extent
+effect an improvement in the health of shoemakers, but in many of the
+factories which I have visited, and where large numbers of persons are
+employed, the overheated rooms in which the work is carried on and
+the vitiated atmosphere rather predispose the workpeople to pulmonary
+catarrh, and tend to make the women anæmic. In addition, mercurial
+poisoning has been known to occur in the men employed in shoemaking
+factories, whose duty it is to mind the American or Blake machines. The
+mercury is placed in a well in the machine, to act as a lubricant, and
+as the metal is extremely volatile, poisoning may readily arise.
+
+ THOMAS OLIVER.
+
+
+
+
+ APPENDIX
+
+ SPECIAL RULES
+
+
+Nearly a century ago, the necessity for legislation designed to protect
+workers in textile factories was realised. In the year 1802 an Act was
+passed for the Preservation of Health and Morals of Apprentices and
+others employed in cotton mills. The statutes of 1833 and 1845 brought
+under inspection the manufacture of several materials other than
+cotton and wool. Subsequent Acts regulated employment in print works,
+bleaching and dye works, and the manufacture of lace; but the Acts
+passed in 1864 and 1867--afterwards embodied in the Act of 1878 (the
+principal Act)--practically included almost every occupation in the
+country.
+
+It soon became apparent that no definite clauses in any statute,
+however carefully drafted and considered, could afford satisfactory
+protection to health, life, and limb, in manifold and varied
+industries, found not only in the large centres of manufacture, but
+in almost every village or country district where a stream could be
+found for driving water-wheels of corn-mills, scutch-mills, cutlery
+grinding-hulls, wood-turning shops, etc., etc. Philanthropists,
+medical men, scientists, trade-unionists, poor-law guardians, managers
+of sick clubs, called for further protection to workers engaged in
+dangerous trades, and for the remedy (as far as was possible) of the
+evils arising from inhalation of injurious dusts and fumes, contact
+with poisonous, chemical, and mineral substances, manufacture of white
+lead, and the smelting and handling of blue lead. They pointed to
+“brass-casters’ ague”; to the deadly disease known as “phossy jaw,”
+prevalent amongst operatives in match-works, where yellow or white
+phosphorus is used; to plumbism amongst pottery workers and hand
+file-cutters; to potters’ and metal grinders’ lung ailments; and to
+many other diseases of occupation too numerous to be here mentioned.
+
+The Factory Act of 1891 provided in sections 8, 9, 10, and 11, what
+was universally accepted as a legal remedy based upon principles
+of humanity, moderation, and common sense. Power was given to the
+Secretary of State to frame special rules and requirements as to
+dangerous and unhealthy incidents of employment, the Act stating that--
+
+ “(1) Where the Secretary of State certifies that in his opinion
+ any machinery, or process or particular description of manual
+ labour used in a factory or workshop (other than a domestic
+ workshop), is dangerous or injurious to health, or dangerous
+ to life or limb, either generally, or in the case of women,
+ children, or any other class of persons, or that the provision
+ for the admission of fresh air is not sufficient, or that the
+ quantity of dust generated or inhaled in any factory or workshop
+ is dangerous or injurious to health, the Chief Inspector may
+ serve on the occupier of the factory or workshop a notice in
+ writing, either proposing such special rules, or requiring
+ the adoption of such special measures as appear to the Chief
+ Inspector to be reasonably practicable, and to meet the
+ necessities of the case.
+
+ “(2) Unless, within twenty-one days after receipt of the notice,
+ the occupier serves on the Chief Inspector a notice in writing
+ that he objects to the rules or the requirement, the rules shall
+ be established, or, as the case may be, the requirement shall be
+ observed.
+
+ “(3) If the notice of objection suggests any modification of the
+ rules or requirement, the Secretary of State shall consider the
+ suggestion, and may assent thereto, with or without any further
+ modification, which may be agreed on between the Secretary
+ of State and the occupier, and thereupon the rules shall be
+ established, or, as the case may be, the requirement shall be
+ observed, subject to such modification.
+
+ “(4) If the Secretary of State does not assent to any objection
+ or modification suggested, as aforesaid, by the occupier, the
+ matter in difference between the Secretary of State and the
+ occupier shall be referred to arbitration under this Act,
+ and the date of the receipt of the notice of this objection
+ by the Secretary of State shall be deemed to be the date of
+ the reference, and the rules shall be established, or the
+ requisition shall have effect, as settled by an award or
+ arbitration.”
+
+Penalties were provided for the contravention of special rules duly
+established. Schedule 1 of the Act of 1891 described in minute detail
+the methods of procedure when arbitration had to be resorted to.
+
+The list of trades scheduled as “Dangerous Trades,” together with the
+series of special rules legally instituted, is appended. This list
+can hardly fail to be of interest, seeing that the rules were framed
+after most exhaustive and careful inquiry by experts and scientists,
+whose opinions commanded respect. Year by year the practical good done
+by this legislation is more fully realised, but the test of time has
+shown the necessity for reconsideration of those clauses which relate
+to arbitration, and proposals to meet a now recognised difficulty are
+found in the Factory Bill read for the first time in the House of
+Commons on Thursday, 28th March 1901.
+
+Sections 79 to 86 of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, contain
+Amended Regulations as to Dangerous Trades, chiefly as to methods of
+procedure in making such regulations.
+
+ HAMILTON P. SMITH.
+
+
+Form 247C.
+
+ FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS, 1878 TO 1895.
+
+ _SPECIAL RULES._
+
+ WHITE LEAD FACTORIES.
+
+_In these Rules “person employed in a lead process” means a person
+who is employed in any work or process involving exposure to white
+lead, or to lead or lead compounds used in its manufacture, or who
+is admitted to any room or part of the factory where such process is
+carried on._
+
+_Any approval given by the Chief Inspector of Factories in pursuance
+of Rules 2, 4, 6, 9, or 12 shall be given in writing, and may at any
+time be revoked by notice in writing signed by him._
+
+
+ DUTIES OF OCCUPIERS.
+
+1. _New Works._--On and after 1st July 1899, no part of a white
+lead factory shall be constructed, structurally altered, or newly used,
+for any process in which white lead is manufactured or prepared for
+sale, unless the plans have previously been submitted to and approved
+in writing by the Chief Inspector of Factories.
+
+2. _Stacks._--(_a_) Every stack shall be provided with a
+standpipe and movable hose, and an adequate supply of water distributed
+by a rose.
+
+(_b_) _White Beds._--Every white bed shall, on the removal of the
+covering boards, be effectually damped by the means mentioned above.
+
+Where it is shown to the satisfaction of the Chief Inspector of
+Factories that there is no available public water service in the
+district, it shall be a sufficient compliance with this Rule if each
+white bed is, on the removal of the covering boards, effectually damped
+by means of a watering can.
+
+3. _Chamber Process._--Where white lead is made by the Chamber Process,
+the chamber shall be kept moist while the process is in operation, and
+the corrosions shall be effectually moistened before the chamber is
+emptied.
+
+4. _Corrosions._--(_a_) Corrosions shall not be carried except in trays
+of impervious material.
+
+(_b_) No person shall be allowed to carry on his head or shoulder a
+tray of corrosions which has been allowed to rest directly upon the
+corrosions, or upon any surface where there is white lead.
+
+(_c_) All corrosions, before being put into the rollers or washbecks,
+shall be effectually damped, either by dipping the tray containing them
+in a trough of water, or by some other method approved by the Chief
+Inspector of Factories.
+
+5. _Rollers._--The flooring round the rollers shall either be of smooth
+cement or be covered with sheet lead, and shall be kept constantly
+moist.
+
+6. _Drying Stoves._--On and after 1st January 1901, except as
+hereinafter provided--
+
+ (_a_) Every stove shall have a window, or windows, with a total
+ area of not less than 8 square feet, made to open, and so placed
+ as to admit of effectual through ventilation.
+
+ (_b_) In no stove shall bowls be placed on a rack which is more
+ than 10 feet from the floor.
+
+ (_c_) Each bowl shall rest upon the rack and not upon another
+ bowl.
+
+ (_d_) No stove shall be entered for the purpose of drawing until
+ the temperature at a height of 5 feet from the floor has fallen
+ either to 70° F., or to a point not more than 10° F. above the
+ temperature of the air outside.
+
+ (_e_) In drawing any stove or part of a stove there shall not
+ be more than one stage or standing place above the level of the
+ floor.
+
+Provided that if the Chief Inspector approves of any other means of
+ventilating a stove, as allowing of effectual through ventilation, such
+means may be adopted, notwithstanding paragraph (_a_) of this Rule; and
+if he approves of any other method of setting and drawing the stoves,
+as effectually preventing white lead from falling upon any worker, such
+method may be followed, notwithstanding paragraphs (_b_) and (_e_) of
+this Rule.
+
+7. _Drawing Dutch Stoves._--No person shall be employed in drawing
+Dutch stoves on more than two days in any week.
+
+8. _Deposits of dry white lead._--No dry white lead shall be deposited
+in any place that is not provided either with a cover or with a fan
+effectually removing the dust from the worker.
+
+9. _Packing._--On and after 1st January 1900, the packing of dry white
+lead shall be done only under conditions which secure the effectual
+removal of dust, either by exhaust fans or by other efficient means
+approved in each case by the Chief Inspector of Factories.
+
+This rule shall not apply where packing is effected by mechanical means
+entirely closed in.
+
+10. The floor of any place where packing of dry white lead is carried
+on shall be of cement, or of stone set in cement.
+
+11. _Employment of Women._--No women shall be employed or allowed in
+the white beds, rollers, washbecks, or stoves, or any place where dry
+white lead is packed, or in other work exposing her to white lead dust.
+
+12. _Weekly Medical Examination._--(_a_) A duly qualified medical
+practitioner (in these Rules referred to as the “Appointed Surgeon”)
+shall be appointed by the occupier for each factory, such appointment
+to be subject to the approval of the Chief Inspector.
+
+(_b_) No person shall be employed in a lead process for more than a
+week without a certificate of fitness granted after examination by the
+Appointed Surgeon.
+
+(_c_) Every person employed in a lead process shall be examined once a
+week by the Appointed Surgeon, who shall have power to order suspension
+from employment in any place or process.
+
+(_d_) No person after such suspension shall be employed in a lead
+process without the written sanction of the Appointed Surgeon.
+
+_Health Register._--(_e_) A register in a form approved by the Chief
+Inspector of Factories shall be kept, and shall contain a list of all
+persons employed in lead processes. The Appointed Surgeon will enter in
+the register the dates and results of his examinations of the persons
+employed, and particulars of any directions given by him. The register
+shall be produced at any time when required by H.M. Inspectors of
+Factories, or by the Certifying Surgeon, or by the Appointed Surgeon.
+
+13. _Medical Attendance._--Upon any person employed in a lead
+process complaining of being unwell, the occupier shall, with the
+least possible delay, give an order upon a duly qualified medical
+practitioner.
+
+14. _Respirators, Overalls, Head Coverings._--The occupier shall
+provide and maintain sufficient and suitable respirators, overalls, and
+head coverings, and shall cause them to be worn as directed in Rule 29.
+
+At the end of every day’s work they shall be collected and kept in
+proper custody in a suitable place set apart for the purpose.
+
+They shall be thoroughly washed or renewed every week; and those which
+have been used in the stoves, and all respirators, shall be washed or
+renewed daily.
+
+15. _Dining-room, Cloak-room._--The occupier shall provide and maintain
+a dining-room and cloak-room in which workers can deposit clothing put
+off during working hours.
+
+16. _Food._--No person employed in a lead process shall be allowed to
+prepare or partake of any food or drink except in the dining-room or
+kitchen.
+
+17. _Sanitary Drink._--A supply of a suitable sanitary drink, to be
+approved by the Appointed Surgeon, shall be kept for the use of the
+workers.
+
+18. _Lavatory._--The occupier shall provide and maintain a lavatory
+for the use of the workers, with soap, nail brushes, and at least one
+lavatory basin for every five persons employed. Each such basin shall
+be fitted with a waste pipe. There shall be a constant supply of hot
+and cold water laid on, except where there is no available public water
+service, in which case the provision of hot and cold water shall be
+such as shall satisfy the Inspector in charge of the district.
+
+The lavatory shall be thoroughly cleaned and supplied with clean towels
+after every meal.
+
+There shall, in addition, be means of washing in close proximity to the
+workers of each department, if required by notice in writing from the
+Inspector in charge of the district.
+
+There shall be facilities, to the satisfaction of the Inspector in
+charge of the district, for the workers to wash out their mouths.
+
+19. _Allowance of time for Washing._--Before each meal, and before the
+end of the day’s work, at least ten minutes in addition to the regular
+meal times shall be allowed to each worker for washing.
+
+A notice to this effect shall be affixed in each department.
+
+20. _Baths._--The occupier shall provide and maintain sufficient baths
+and dressing-rooms for all persons employed in lead processes, with hot
+and cold water, soap, and towels, and shall cause each such person to
+take a bath once a week at the factory.
+
+_Bath Register._--A bath register shall be kept, containing a list of
+all persons employed in lead processes, and an entry of the date when
+each person takes a bath.
+
+This register shall be produced at any time when required by H.M.
+Inspectors of Factories, or by the Certifying Surgeon, or by the
+Appointed Surgeon.
+
+21. The dressing-rooms, baths, and w.c.’s shall be cleaned daily.
+
+22. _Cleaning Floors._--The floor of each workroom shall be cleaned
+daily, after being thoroughly damped.
+
+
+
+
+ DUTIES OF PERSONS EMPLOYED.
+
+23. _Corrosions._--No person shall strip a white bed or empty a chamber
+without previously effectually damping as directed in Rules 2 and 3.
+
+24. No person shall carry corrosions, or put them into the rollers or
+washbecks, otherwise than as permitted by Rule 4.
+
+25. _Stoves._--No person shall set or draw a stove otherwise than as
+permitted by Rules 6 and 7.
+
+26. _Packing._--No person shall deposit or pack dry white lead
+otherwise than as permitted by Rules 8 and 9.
+
+27. _Weekly Medical Examination._--Every person employed in a lead
+process shall present himself at the appointed times for examination by
+the Appointed Surgeon, as provided in Rule 12.
+
+28. No person after suspension by the Appointed Surgeon shall work in a
+lead process without his written sanction.
+
+29. _Respirators, Overalls, Head Coverings._--Every person engaged in--
+
+ White beds,
+ Emptying chambers,
+ Rollers, washbecks or grinding,
+ Setting or drawing stoves,
+ Packing,
+ Paint mixing,
+ Handling dry white lead,
+
+or in any work involving exposure to white lead dust, shall, while so
+occupied, wear an overall suit and head covering.
+
+Every person engaged in stripping white beds, or in emptying chambers,
+or in drawing stoves, or in packing, shall in addition wear a
+respirator while so occupied.
+
+30. _Washing._--Every person engaged in any place or process named
+in Rule 29 shall, before partaking of meals or leaving the premises,
+deposit the overalls, head coverings, and respirators in the place
+appointed by the occupier for the purpose, and shall thoroughly wash
+face and hands in the lavatory.
+
+31. _Baths._--Every person employed in a lead process shall take a bath
+at the factory at least once a week, and wash in the lavatory before
+bathing; having done so, he shall at once sign his name in the bath
+register, with the date.
+
+32. _Food._--No person employed in a lead process shall smoke or use
+tobacco in any form, or partake of food or drink, elsewhere than in the
+dining-room or kitchen.
+
+33. _Ventilation._--No person shall in any way interfere, without the
+knowledge and concurrence of the occupier or manager, with the means
+and appliances provided for the removal of dust.
+
+34. _Reporting neglect of Rules._--The foreman shall report to the
+manager, and the manager shall report to the occupier, any instance
+coming under his notice of a worker neglecting to observe these Rules.
+
+35. _False pretences._--No person shall obtain employment under an
+assumed name or under any false pretence.
+
+ ARTHUR WHITELEGGE,
+ _Chief Inspector of Factories_.
+
+ M. W. RIDLEY,
+ _One of Her Majesty’s Principal
+ Secretaries of State_.
+
+1st June 1899.
+
+ _Note._--These Rules must be kept posted up in conspicuous
+ places in the factory to which they apply, where they may be
+ conveniently read by the persons employed. Any person who is
+ bound to observe these Rules and fails to do so, or acts in
+ contravention of them, is liable to a penalty; and in such cases
+ the occupier also is liable to a penalty unless he proves that
+ he has taken all reasonable means by publishing, and to the best
+ of his power enforcing the Rules, to prevent the contravention
+ or non-compliance. (Factory and Workshop Act, 1891, sections 9
+ and 11.)
+
+
+Form 249.
+
+ FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS, 1878 TO 1895.
+
+ _AMENDED SPECIAL RULES._
+
+ PROCESSES IN THE MANUFACTURE OF PAINTS, COLOURS,
+ AND IN THE EXTRACTION OF ARSENIC.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF OCCUPIERS.
+
+They shall provide washing conveniences, with a sufficient supply of
+hot and cold water, soap, nail-brushes, and towels, and take measures
+to secure that every worker wash face and hands before meals, and
+before leaving the works; and, in addition to the above, sufficient
+bath accommodation for the use of all persons employed in the
+manufacture of Milan Red, Vermilionette, or Persian Red.
+
+They shall provide suitable respirators and overall suits, kept in a
+cleanly state, for all workers engaged in any department where dry
+white lead or arsenic is used in either the manufacture or paint
+mixing, and overall suits for those engaged in grinding in water or
+oil, and for all workers in Milan Red, Vermilionette, or Persian Red,
+wherever dust is generated.
+
+They shall provide a sufficient supply of approved sanitary drink,
+which shall be accessible to the workers at all times, and shall cause
+such approved sanitary drink to be taken daily by workers in any
+department where white lead or arsenic is used in the manufacture, and
+shall provide a supply of aperient medicine, which shall be given to
+the workers, when required, free of charge.
+
+No food shall be eaten in any part of the works where white lead or
+arsenic is used in the manufacture.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF PERSONS EMPLOYED.
+
+Every person to whom is supplied a respirator or overall suit shall
+wear the same when at the special work for which such are provided.
+
+Every person shall carefully clean and wash hands and face before meals
+and before leaving the works.
+
+No food shall be eaten in any part of the works in which white lead or
+arsenic is used in the manufacture.
+
+No person shall smoke or use tobacco in any part of the works in which
+white lead or arsenic is used in the manufacture.
+
+ ARTHUR WHITELEGGE,
+ _H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories_.
+
+Under Section 9, Factory Act, 1891, any person who is bound to observe
+any special rules is liable to penalties for non-compliance with such
+special rules.
+
+
+Form 251.
+
+ FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS, 1878 TO 1895.
+
+ _SPECIAL RULES for Works, or parts of Works in which_ LEAD,
+ ARSENIC, OR ANTIMONY IS USED IN THE ENAMELLING OF IRON PLATES.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF OCCUPIERS.
+
+1. _Lavatories._--They shall provide washing conveniences, with
+a sufficient supply of hot and cold water, soap, nail-brushes, and
+towels, and take measures to secure that every worker wash face and
+hands before meals and before leaving the works.
+
+2. _Respirators, Overalls, Head Coverings._--They shall provide
+suitable respirators, overall suits, and head coverings for all workers
+employed in the processes of grinding, dusting, and brushing.
+
+3. _Dust._--They shall adopt measures on and after the first day
+of October, 1894, in the dusting and brushing processes for the removal
+of all superfluous dust, by the use of perforated benches or tables
+supplied with fans to carry the dust down through the apertures of such
+benches or tables, the under part of which must be boxed in.
+
+4. _Sanitary Drink._--They shall provide a sufficient supply of
+approved sanitary drink, and shall cause the workpeople to take it.
+
+5. _Medical Examination._--They shall arrange for a medical inspection
+of all persons employed, at least once a month.
+
+They shall see that no female is employed without previous examination
+and a certificate of fitness from the medical attendant of the works.
+
+They shall see that no person who has been absent from work through
+illness shall be re-employed without a medical certificate to the
+effect that he or she has recovered.
+
+6. _Medical Attendance._--Upon any person employed in the works
+complaining of being unwell, the occupier shall, with the least
+possible delay, and at his own expense, give an order upon a doctor for
+professional attendance and medicine. It is to be understood that this
+rule will not apply to persons suffering from complaints which have not
+been contracted in the process of manufacture.
+
+7. _Cloak-room._--They shall provide a place or places free from
+dust and damp in which the operatives can hang up the clothes in which
+they do not work.
+
+(_It is recommended that they shall provide for each female before
+the day’s work begins some light refreshment, such as a half-pint of
+milk and a biscuit._)
+
+
+
+ DUTIES OF PERSONS EMPLOYED.
+
+8. _Respirators, Overalls, Head Coverings._--Every person to whom is
+supplied a respirator or overall and head covering shall wear the same
+when at the work for which such are provided.
+
+9. _Washing._--Every person shall carefully clean and wash hands and
+face before meals and before leaving the works.
+
+10. _Food._--No food shall be eaten by any person in any part of the
+works except in the apartment specially provided for the purpose.
+
+11. _False Pretences._--No person may seek employment under an assumed
+name or under any false pretence.
+
+ Respirators { A good respirator is a cambric bag with or
+ { without a thin flexible wire made to fit
+ { over the nose.
+
+ Sanitary drink { Sulphate of magnesia 2 oz.
+ suggested { Water 1 gallon.
+ { Essence of lemon, sufficient to flavour.
+
+ ARTHUR WHITELEGGE,
+ _H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories_.
+
+_Note._--These Rules must be kept posted up in conspicuous places in
+the factory to which they apply, where they may be conveniently read by
+the persons employed.
+
+Any person who is bound to observe these Rules and fails to do so, or
+acts in contravention of them, is liable to a penalty; and in such case
+the occupier also is liable to a penalty unless he proves that he has
+taken all reasonable means by publishing and to the best of his power
+enforcing the Rules, to prevent the contravention or non-compliance.
+(Factory and Workshop Act, 1891, Sections 9 and 11.)
+
+
+ FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS, 1878 TO 1895.
+
+ _SPECIAL RULES._
+
+ THE MANUFACTURE OF EARTHENWARE AND CHINA.
+
+ DUTIES OF OCCUPIERS.
+
+1. They shall provide suitable overalls and head coverings for all
+female workers employed in the dipping house or dippers’ drying room,
+or in any processes of ware cleaning after the dipper, glost placing,
+china scouring, ground laying or majolica painting (which overalls
+and head coverings shall remain the property of the employers), and
+shall make arrangements for the safe custody of all overalls and head
+coverings worn by their operatives, and for the safe delivery thereof
+at the works every seven days to the representatives of the laundry or
+wash-house which shall be selected by the operatives, for the purpose
+of washing the same. They shall also provide a place in which the above
+workers can deposit clothing put off during working hours.
+
+2. They shall not allow any persons to cook or partake of any food,
+or to remain during meal times in the dipping house, dippers’ drying
+room, china scouring room, glost placers’ shop, ground laying shop, or
+majolica painting room.
+
+3. In the process of towing of earthenware, they shall use fans or
+other mechanical means for the removal of all dust; in the process of
+scouring china, they shall, as far as practicable, use mechanical or
+other efficient means for the removal of flint; and in all processes
+and descriptions of manual labour, they shall, as far as practicable,
+adopt measures for the removal of dust, and for the prevention of any
+injurious effects arising therefrom, either by the use of mechanical
+fans, ventilation, or other efficient means.
+
+4. They shall provide brooms, brushes, and all other necessaries for
+the daily sweeping of floors of workshops and of such stoves as are
+entered by the workers; and for the cleansing of work-benches and of
+stairs leading to workshops; and shall arrange that the floors of such
+workshops and stoves are sprinkled and swept every working day, and the
+scraps and dirt removed, and that work-benches and stairs are cleansed
+at least once a week. The daily sweeping of floors of potters’ shops
+shall be done after work has ceased for the day, unless there is some
+sufficient reason to the contrary.
+
+5. They shall provide washing conveniences and a sufficient supply
+of water, soap, and nail-brushes for all workers employed in the
+dipping-house or dippers’ drying-room, or in any processes of ware
+cleaning after the dipper, glost placing, china scouring, ground
+laying, or majolica painting, as close as is practicable to the
+workshops.
+
+6. All stoves, as well as all workshops and all parts of the factories,
+shall be effectually ventilated. Regard being had to the cubic capacity
+of the shops, etc., there shall be, wherever practicable, natural
+ventilation by doors and windows; and careful supervision of hot air
+and hot-water pipes used for heating, and of the consumption of gas.
+The required ventilation shall be accomplished by mechanical or other
+efficient means. The temperature of any workshop during working hours
+shall not be allowed to exceed 90 degrees (Fahrenheit).
+
+
+
+ DUTIES OF PERSONS EMPLOYED.
+
+7. Every person employed in the places and processes enumerated in Rule
+1 shall wear an overall suit or head covering when at their work, and
+no such person shall remove such overall suit or head covering from the
+works at which they are employed so long as they shall continue in such
+employ.
+
+8. Every person employed in the places or processes enumerated in Rule
+5 shall carefully clean and wash his or her hands and face before meals
+and before leaving the works.
+
+9. Every person employed in dipping, carrying ware from the dipper,
+cleaning ware after it has been dipped, glost placing, china scouring,
+ground laying, or majolica painting, shall during the meal times leave
+the shops in which those processes are carried on, and shall not cook
+or eat any food therein at any time.
+
+10. The measures taken by the employers for the ventilation of the
+various workrooms and stoves, and for the removal of dust, shall not be
+in any way interfered with by the workpeople without the knowledge and
+concurrence of the employer or manager of the works.
+
+11. Every male or female worker shall be responsible for the cleansing
+of that portion of the room in which he or she is employed, and shall
+see that the floors of shops and of such stoves as are entered by the
+workers, are sprinkled and swept, and the dust, scraps, ashes, and dirt
+be removed every day, and that the work-benches and stairs are cleansed
+at least once a week. The sweeping of floors and of potters’ shops
+shall be done after the working hours, unless there is some sufficient
+reason to the contrary, by an adult male, employed and paid by the
+workers and approved by the employer.
+
+ R. E. SPRAGUE ORAM,
+ _H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories_.
+
+ H. H. ASQUITH,
+ _One of Her Majesty’s Principal
+ Secretaries of State_.
+
+Home Office, Whitehall
+ 7th September 1894.
+
+
+Form 254.
+
+ FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS, 1878 TO 1895.
+
+ _SPECIAL RULES._
+
+ THE MANUFACTURE OF EARTHENWARE AND CHINA.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF OCCUPIERS.
+
+1. _Age._--After 1st August 1898, no person under 14 years of age,
+and after 1st August 1899, no person under 15 years of age, shall be
+employed in the
+
+ Dipping house, or Dippers’ drying room
+ or in any processes of--
+ Ware cleaning after the dipper,
+ Glost placing,
+ Colour dusting,
+ Ground laying,
+ Majolica painting,
+ Glaze blowing,
+ Transfer making, or
+ China scouring.
+
+2. _Monthly Examination._--All women and young persons employed in the
+places and processes named in Rule 1 shall be examined once a month by
+the Certifying Surgeon for the District, who shall after 1st August,
+1898, have power to order suspension from employment in any place or
+process named in Rule 1.
+
+No person after such suspension shall be allowed to work in any of the
+places or processes named in Rule 1 without the written sanction of the
+Certifying Surgeon.
+
+3. _Health Register._--A register, in the form which has been
+prescribed by the Secretary of State for use in earthenware and china
+works, shall be kept, and in it the Certifying Surgeon will enter the
+dates and results of his visits, the number of persons examined, and
+particulars of any directions given by him. This register shall contain
+a list of all persons employed in the places and processes named
+in Rule 1, and shall be produced at any time when required by H.M.
+Inspector of Factories or by the Certifying Surgeon.
+
+4. _Overalls and Head Coverings._--The occupier shall provide and
+maintain suitable overalls and head coverings for all women and young
+persons employed in the places and processes named in Rule 1.
+
+All overalls and head coverings shall be kept (see form 254*) in proper
+custody, and all overalls shall be washed at least once a week, and
+suitable arrangements shall be made for carrying out these requirements.
+
+A suitable place shall be provided in which the above workers can
+deposit clothing put off during working hours.
+
+5. _Food._--No person shall be allowed to prepare or partake of any
+food or drink, or to remain during meal times, in the dipping house or
+dippers’ drying room, or in a place in which is carried on any process
+named in Rule 1.
+
+The occupier shall make suitable provision to the reasonable
+satisfaction of the Inspector in charge of the district for the
+accommodation during meal times of persons employed in such places or
+processes (see form 254*).
+
+6. _Dust._--After 1st January 1899, the process of--
+
+ Towing of earthenware,
+ China scouring,
+ Ground laying,
+ Colour dusting,
+ Glaze blowing, or
+ Transfer making,
+
+shall not be carried on without the use of exhaust fans for the
+effectual removal of dust (see form 254*).
+
+In the process of ware cleaning after the dipper, exhaust fans shall be
+used, or arrangements made for the dust to fall into water.
+
+In all processes the occupier shall, as far as practicable, adopt
+efficient measures for the removal of dust and for the prevention of
+any injurious effects arising therefrom.
+
+7. _Ventilation._--All drying stoves as well as all workshops and all
+parts of factories shall be effectually ventilated to the reasonable
+satisfaction of the Inspector in charge of the District.
+
+8. _Lavatories._--The occupier shall provide and maintain sufficient
+and suitable washing conveniences for all persons employed in the
+places and processes named in Rule 1, as near as is practicable to the
+places in which such persons are employed.
+
+The washing conveniences shall comprise soap, nail-brushes, and towels,
+and at least one lavatory (see form 254*) basin for every five persons
+employed as above, and each such basin shall be fitted with waste-pipe,
+and have a constant supply of water laid on by tap.
+
+9. _Cleansing of Work-places._--The occupier shall see that the
+requirements of Rule 16 are duly observed, and shall provide brushes
+and all other necessaries for the purpose.
+
+10. _Boards._--The boards used in the dipping house, dippers’ drying
+room, or glost placing shop shall be cleansed every week, and shall not
+be used in any other department (see form 254*).
+
+
+
+ DUTIES OF PERSONS EMPLOYED.
+
+11. _Monthly Examination._--All women and young persons employed in the
+places and processes named in Rule 1 shall present themselves at the
+appointed time for examination by the Certifying Surgeon as provided in
+Rule 2.
+
+No person after suspension by the Certifying Surgeon shall work in any
+of the places or processes named in Rule 1 without the written sanction
+of the Certifying Surgeon.
+
+12. _Overalls._--Every person employed in the places and processes
+named in Rule 1 shall, when at work, wear an overall suit and head
+covering, which shall not be worn outside the factory or workshop, and
+which shall not be removed therefrom except for the purpose of being
+washed.
+
+The overalls and head coverings, when not being worn, shall be
+deposited in the place provided for the purpose under Rule 4.
+
+Clothing put off during working hours shall be deposited in the place
+provided for the purpose under Rule 4.
+
+13. _Food._--No person shall remain during meal times in the dipping
+house, dippers’ drying room, or in any place in which is carried on any
+process named in Rule 1; or prepare or partake of any food or drink
+therein at any time.
+
+14. _Ventilation. Dust._--No person shall in any way interfere, without
+the knowledge and concurrence of the occupier or manager, with the
+means and appliances provided by the employers for the ventilation of
+the workshops and stoves and for the removal of dust.
+
+15. _Washing._--No person employed in any place or process named in
+Rule 1 shall leave the works or partake of meals without previously and
+carefully cleaning and washing his or her hands.
+
+16. _Cleansing of Work-places._--The persons employed shall be
+responsible for the
+
+ daily sprinkling and sweeping of the floors of workshops and of
+ such stoves as are entered by the workpeople; and for the
+
+ daily removal of dust, scraps, ashes, and dirt; and for the
+
+ weekly cleansing of work-benches and of stairs leading to
+ workshops.
+
+Each person shall be responsible for the cleansing of that portion of
+the room in which he or she is employed.
+
+The sweeping of the floors of potters’ shops, stoves, dipping houses,
+and majolica painting rooms shall be done after working hours, by
+an adult male, employed and paid by the workers and approved by the
+employer.
+
+17. _Boards._--The boards used in the dipping house, dipper’s drying
+room, or glost placing shop shall be cleansed every week, and shall not
+be used in any other department.
+
+ ARTHUR WHITELEGGE,
+ _H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories_.
+
+May 1898.
+
+_Note._--These Rules must be kept posted up in conspicuous places
+in the factory to which they apply, where they may be conveniently read
+by the persons employed.
+
+Any person who is bound to observe these Rules and fails to do so, or
+acts in contravention of them, is liable to a penalty; and in such case
+the occupier also is liable to a penalty unless he proves that he has
+taken all reasonable means by publishing, and to the best of his power
+enforcing, the Rules, to prevent the contravention or non-compliance.
+(Factory and Workshop Act, 1891, Sections 9 and 11).
+
+
+Form 254*.
+
+ FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS, 1878 TO 1895.
+
+ _SPECIAL RULES._
+
+ THE MANUFACTURE OF EARTHENWARE AND CHINA.
+
+ DUTIES OF OCCUPIERS.
+
+
+1. _Age._--After 1st August 1890, no person under 14 years of age,
+and after 1st August 1899, no person under 15 years of age, shall be
+employed in the
+
+ Dipping house, or
+ Dipper’s drying room,
+
+ or in any processes of--
+
+ Ware cleaning after the dipper,
+ Glost placing,
+ Colour dusting,
+ Ground laying,
+ Majolica painting,
+ Glaze blowing,
+ Transfer making, or
+ China scouring.
+
+2. _Monthly Examination._--All women and young persons employed in the
+places and processes named in Rule 1 shall be examined once a month by
+the Certifying Surgeon for the district, who shall, after 1st August
+1898, have power to order suspension from employment in any place or
+process named in Rule 1.
+
+No person after such suspension shall be allowed to work in any of the
+places or processes named in Rule 1 without the written sanction of the
+Certifying Surgeon.
+
+3. _Health Register._--A register, in the form which has been
+prescribed by the Secretary of State for use in earthenware and china
+works, shall be kept, and in it the Certifying Surgeon will enter the
+dates and results of his visits, the number of persons examined, and
+particulars of any directions given by him. This register shall contain
+a list of all persons employed in the places and processes named
+in Rule 1, and shall be produced at any time when required by H.M.
+Inspector of Factories or by the Certifying Surgeon.
+
+4. _Overalls and Head Coverings._--The occupier shall provide and
+maintain suitable overalls and head coverings for all women and young
+persons employed in the places and processes named in Rule 1.
+
+All overalls and head coverings shall be kept by the occupier in
+proper custody and shall be washed at least once a week, and suitable
+arrangements shall be made for carrying out these requirements.
+
+A suitable place shall be provided in which the above workers can
+deposit clothing put off during working hours.
+
+5. _Food._--No person shall be allowed to prepare or partake of any
+food or drink, or to remain during meal times, in the dipping house or
+dippers’ drying room, or in a place in which is carried on any process
+named in Rule 1.
+
+The occupier shall make suitable provision to the reasonable
+satisfaction of the Inspector in charge of the District for the
+accommodation during meal times of persons employed in such place or
+processes, with a right of appeal to the Chief Inspector of Factories.
+Such accommodation to be provided in any room or rooms on the premises
+other than those referred to in Rule 13.
+
+6. _Dust._--After 1st January 1899, the process of--
+
+ Towing of earthenware,
+ China scouring,
+ Ground laying,
+ Colour dusting,
+ Glaze blowing, or
+ Transfer making,
+
+shall not be carried on without the use of exhaust fans for the
+effectual removal of dust, or other efficient means for the effectual
+removal of dust, to be approved in each particular case by the
+Secretary of State, and under such conditions as he may from time to
+time prescribe.
+
+In the process of ware cleaning after the dipper, exhaust fans shall be
+used, or arrangements made for the dust to fall into water.
+
+In all processes the occupiers shall, as far as practicable, adopt
+efficient measures for the removal of dust and for the prevention of
+any injurious effects arising therefrom.
+
+7. _Ventilation._--All drying stoves as well as all workshops and all
+parts of factories shall be effectually ventilated to the reasonable
+satisfaction of the Inspector in charge of the District.
+
+8. _Lavatories._--The occupier shall provide and maintain sufficient
+and suitable washing conveniences for all persons employed in the
+places and processes named in Rule 1, as near as is practicable to the
+places in which such persons are employed.
+
+The washing conveniences shall comprise soap, nail-brushes, and towels,
+and at least one wash-hand basin for every five persons employed as
+above, with a constant supply of water laid on, with one tap at least
+for every two basins, and conveniences for emptying the same and
+running off the waste water on the spot down a waste-pipe.
+
+9. _Cleansing of Work-places._--The occupier shall see that the
+requirements of Rule 16 are duly observed, and shall provide brushes
+and all other necessaries for the purpose.
+
+10. _Boards._--The boards used in the dipping house, dippers’ drying
+room, or glost placing shop shall be cleansed every week, and shall not
+be used in any other department, except after being cleansed.
+
+
+
+ DUTIES OF PERSONS EMPLOYED.
+
+11. _Monthly Examination._--All women and young persons employed
+in the places and processes named in Rule 1 shall present themselves
+at the appointed time for examination by the Certifying Surgeon as
+provided in Rule 2.
+
+No person after suspension by the Certifying Surgeon shall work in any
+of the places or processes named in Rule 1 without the written sanction
+of the Certifying Surgeon.
+
+12. _Overalls._--Every person employed in the places and processes
+named in Rule 1 shall, when at work, wear an overall suit and head
+covering, which shall not be worn outside the factory or workshop, and
+which shall not be removed therefrom except for the purpose of being
+washed. All overalls and head coverings shall be washed at least once a
+week.
+
+The overalls and head coverings, when not being worn, shall be
+deposited in the place provided for the purpose under Rule 4.
+
+Clothing put off during working hours shall be deposited in the place
+provided for the purpose under Rule 4.
+
+13. _Food._--No person shall remain during meal times in the dipping
+house, dippers’ drying room, or in any place in which is carried on any
+process named in Rule 1; or prepare or partake of any food or drink
+therein at any time.
+
+14. _Ventilation. Dust._--No person shall in any way interfere, without
+the knowledge and concurrence of the occupier or manager, with the
+means and appliances provided by the employers for the ventilation of
+the workshops and stoves and for the removal of dust.
+
+15. _Washing._--No person employed in any place or process named in
+Rule 1 shall leave the works or partake of meals without previously and
+carefully cleaning and washing his or her hands.
+
+16. _Cleansing of Work-places._--The persons employed shall be
+responsible for the
+
+ daily sprinkling and sweeping of the floors of workshops and of
+ such stoves as are entered by the workpeople; and for the
+
+ daily removal of dust, scraps, ashes, and dirt; and for the
+
+ weekly cleansing of work-benches and of stairs leading to
+ workshops.
+
+Each person shall be responsible for the cleansing of that portion of
+the room in which he or she is employed.
+
+The sweeping of the floors of potters’ shops, stoves, dipping houses,
+and majolica painting rooms shall be done after working hours, by
+an adult male, employed and paid by the workers and approved by the
+employer.
+
+17. _Boards._--The boards used in the dipping house, dippers’ drying
+room, or glost placing shop shall be cleansed every week, and shall not
+be used in any other department, except after being cleansed.
+
+ ARTHUR WHITELEGGE,
+ _H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories_.
+
+October 1898.
+
+_Note._--These Rules must be kept posted up in conspicuous places
+in the factory to which they apply, where they may be conveniently read
+by the persons employed.
+
+Any person who is bound to observe these Rules and fails to do so, or
+acts in contravention of them, is liable to a penalty; and in such case
+the occupier also is liable to a penalty, unless he proves that he has
+taken all reasonable means by publishing and to the best of his power
+enforcing the Rules, to prevent the contravention or non-compliance.
+(Factory and Workshop Act, 1891, Sections 9 and 11.)
+
+
+Form 254A.
+
+ FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS, 1878 TO 1895.
+
+ _SPECIAL RULES._
+
+ MAKING TRANSFERS FOR EARTHENWARE AND CHINA.
+
+ DUTIES OF OCCUPIERS.
+
+1. _Age._--No person under 15 years of age shall be employed in making
+Transfers for Earthenware or China.
+
+2. _Monthly Examination._--All women and young persons employed shall
+be examined once a month by the Certifying Surgeon for the District,
+who shall, after 1st May 1899, have power to order suspension from
+employment.
+
+No person after such suspension shall be allowed to work without the
+written sanction of the Certifying Surgeon.
+
+4. _Health Register._--A register, in the form which has been
+prescribed by the Secretary of State for use in earthenware and china
+works, shall be kept, and in it the Certifying Surgeon will enter the
+dates and results of his visits, the number of persons examined, and
+particulars of any directions given by him. This register shall contain
+a list of all persons employed, and shall be produced at any time when
+required by H.M. Inspector of Factories or by the Certifying Surgeon.
+
+4. _Overalls and Head Coverings._--The occupier shall provide and
+maintain suitable overalls and head coverings for all women and young
+persons employed in rooms in which colour processes are carried on.
+
+All overalls and head coverings shall be kept by the occupier in
+proper custody and shall be washed at least once a week, and suitable
+arrangements shall be made for carrying out these requirements.
+
+A suitable place shall be provided in which the above workers can
+deposit clothing put off during working hours.
+
+It shall be a sufficient compliance with the requirements of this rule
+as to head coverings if they are made of suitable glazed paper and
+renewed once a week. The head coverings shall be made so as completely
+to cover the hair, and to the satisfaction of the Inspector.
+
+5. _Food._--No person shall be allowed to prepare or partake of any
+food or drink, or to remain during meal times, in any place in which is
+carried on the making of transfers.
+
+The occupier shall make suitable provision, to the reasonable
+satisfaction of the Inspector in charge of the District, for the
+accommodation during meal times of persons employed in such places or
+processes, with a right of appeal to the Chief Inspector of Factories.
+
+6. _Dust._--Transfer making shall not be carried on without the use
+of exhaust fans for the effectual removal of dust, or other efficient
+means for the effectual removal of dust, to be approved in each
+particular case by the Secretary of State, and under such conditions as
+he may from time to time prescribe.
+
+7. _Lavatories._--The occupier shall provide and maintain sufficient
+and suitable washing conveniences for all persons employed, as near as
+is practicable to the places in which such persons are employed.
+
+The washing conveniences shall comprise soap, nail-brushes, and towels,
+and at least one wash-hand basin for every five persons employed as
+above, with a constant supply of water laid on, with one tap at least
+for every two basins, and conveniences for emptying the same and
+running off the waste water on the spot down a waste-pipe.
+
+
+
+ DUTIES OF PERSONS EMPLOYED.
+
+8. _Monthly Examination._--All women and young persons employed shall
+present themselves at the appointed time for examination by the
+Certifying Surgeon as provided in Rule 2.
+
+No person after suspension by the Certifying Surgeon shall work without
+the written sanction of the Certifying Surgeon.
+
+9. _Overalls._--Every person employed in any room in which colour
+processes are carried on shall, when at work, wear an overall suit and
+head covering, which shall not be worn outside the factory or workshop,
+and which shall not be removed therefrom except for the purpose of
+being washed. All overalls and head coverings shall be washed or
+renewed at least once a week.
+
+The overalls and head coverings, when not being worn, shall be
+deposited in the place provided for the purpose under Rule 4.
+
+Clothing put off during working hours shall be deposited in the place
+provided for the purpose under Rule 4.
+
+It shall be a sufficient compliance with the requirements of this rule
+as to head coverings if they are made of suitable glazed paper and
+renewed once a week. The head coverings shall be made so as completely
+to cover the hair, and to the satisfaction of the Inspector.
+
+10. _Food._--No person shall remain during meal times in any place in
+which is carried on the making of transfers; or prepare or partake of
+any food or drink therein at any time.
+
+11. _Ventilation. Dust._--No person shall in any way interfere, without
+the knowledge and concurrence of the occupier or manager, with the
+means and appliances provided by the employers for the ventilation of
+the workshops and for the removal of dust.
+
+12. _Washing._--No person employed shall leave the works or partake of
+meals without previously and carefully cleaning and washing his or her
+hands.
+
+ ARTHUR WHITELEGGE,
+ _H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories_.
+
+January 1899.
+
+_Note._--These Rules must be kept posted up in conspicuous places
+in the factory to which they apply, where they may be conveniently read
+by the persons employed.
+
+Any person who is bound to observe these Rules and fails to do so, or
+acts in contravention of them, is liable to a penalty; and in such case
+the occupier also is liable to a penalty, unless he proves that he has
+taken all reasonable means by publishing and to the best of his power
+enforcing the Rules, to prevent the contravention or non-compliance.
+(Factory and Workshop Act, 1891, Sections 9 and 11).
+
+
+Form 257.
+
+ FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS, 1878 TO 1895.
+
+ _SPECIAL RULES._
+
+ THE MANUFACTURE OF EXPLOSIVES IN WHICH DINITROBENZOLE IS USED.
+
+1. No person to be employed without a medical certificate, stating that
+he or she is physically fit for such employment.
+
+2. An examination of the workers at their work to be made at least once
+a fortnight by a Certifying Surgeon, who shall have power to order
+temporary suspension or total change of work for any person showing
+symptoms of suffering from the poison, or if after a fair trial he is
+of opinion that any person is by constitution unfit, he shall direct
+that such person shall cease to be employed.
+
+3. A supply of fresh milk, and of any drug that the medical officer may
+consider desirable, shall be kept where the workers in his opinion may
+require it.
+
+4. No meals to be taken in the workrooms.
+
+5. There shall be provided separate lavatories for men and women,
+with a good supply of hot water, soap, nail-brushes, and towels, and
+whenever the skin has come in contact with dinitrobenzole, the part
+shall be immediately washed.
+
+6. Overall suits and head coverings shall be supplied to all workers in
+shops where dinitrobenzole is used, these suits to be taken off or well
+brushed before meals and before leaving the works, and to be washed at
+least once a week.
+
+7. Suitable respirators (capable of being washed), folds of linen, or
+woollen material of open texture, or other suitable material, shall be
+supplied to those workers liable to inhale dust, and the wearing of
+such respirators shall be urged where the workers derive benefit from
+their use.
+
+8. Where dinitrobenzole has to be handled, the hands shall always be
+protected from direct contact with it, either by the use of indiarubber
+gloves (kept perfectly clean, especially in the inner side), or by
+means of rags which shall be destroyed immediately after use.
+
+9. Where dinitrobenzole is broken by hand, the instrument used shall be
+a wooden bar, spade, or tool with a handle long enough to prevent the
+worker’s face from coming into near contact with the material.
+
+10. In all rooms or sheds in which the process, either of purifying,
+grinding, mixing materials of which dinitrobenzole forms a part, is
+carried on, efficient “cowls,” ventilating shafts, and mechanical
+ventilating fans shall be provided to carry off the dust or fumes
+generated.
+
+11. Drying stoves shall be efficiently ventilated, and, when possible,
+be charged and drawn at fixed times, and a free current of air shall be
+admitted for some time prior to the workers entering to draw either a
+part or the whole of the contents.
+
+12. In the process of filling cartridges, the material shall not be
+touched by hand, but suitable scoops shall be used, and where patent
+ventilated cartridge filling machines are not used, there shall be
+efficient mechanical ventilation arranged in such a manner that the
+suction shall draw the fumes or dust away from and not across or over
+the faces of the workers.
+
+13. A register, in a prescribed form, shall be kept, and it shall be
+the duty of a responsible person named by the firm to enter, at least
+once a week, a statement that he has personally satisfied himself
+that each and all of the special rules have been observed, or if not,
+the reasons for such non-observance. The Surgeon to enter in this
+register the dates of his visits, the results of such visits, and any
+requirement made by him.
+
+14. The “dipping” rooms to be efficiently ventilated.
+
+ ARTHUR WHITELEGGE,
+ _H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories_.
+
+ _Note._--These Rules must be kept posted up in conspicuous
+ places in the factory to which they apply, where they may be
+ conveniently read by the persons employed.
+
+ Any person who is bound to observe these Rules and fails to do
+ so, or acts in contravention of them, is liable to a penalty;
+ and in such case the occupier also is liable to a penalty,
+ unless he proves that he has taken all reasonable means by
+ publishing and to the best of his power enforcing the Rules,
+ to prevent the contravention or non-compliance. (Factory and
+ Workshop Act, 1891, Sections 9 and 11.)
+
+
+Form 250.
+
+ FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS, 1878 TO 1895.
+
+ _SPECIAL RULES._
+
+ CHEMICAL WORKS.
+
+1. _Uncovered Pots and Pans._--In future every uncovered pot, pan, or
+other structure containing liquid of a dangerous character, shall be
+so constructed as to be at least 3 feet in height above the ground
+or platform. Those already in existence which are less than 3 feet
+in height, or in cases where it is proved to the satisfaction of an
+inspector that a height of 3 feet is impracticable, shall be securely
+fenced.
+
+2. There shall be a clear space round such pots, pans, or other
+structures, or where any junction exists a barrier shall be so placed
+as to prevent passage.
+
+3. _Caustic Pots._--Caustic pots shall be of such construction
+that there shall be no footing on the top or sides of the brickwork,
+and dome-shaped lids shall be used where possible.
+
+4. _Planks and Gangways._--No unfenced planks or gangways shall be
+placed across open pots, pans, or other structures containing liquid
+of a dangerous character. This rule shall not apply to black ash vats
+where the vats themselves are otherwise securely fenced.
+
+5. _Respirators._--Suitable respirators shall be provided for the use
+of the workers in places where poisonous gases or injurious dust may be
+inhaled.
+
+6. _Lighting._--The lighting of all dangerous places shall be made
+thoroughly efficient.
+
+7. _Syringes or Wash-bottles._--Every place where caustic soda
+or caustic potash is manufactured shall be supplied with syringes
+or wash-bottles, which shall be enclosed in covered boxes fixed in
+convenient places, in the proportion of one to every four caustic pots.
+They shall be of suitable form and size, and be kept full of clean
+water. Similar appliances shall be provided wherever, in the opinion of
+an inspector, they may be desirable.
+
+8. _Overalls, Bath._--Overalls, kept in a cleanly state, shall be
+provided for all workers in any room where chlorate of potash or other
+chlorate is ground. In every such room a bath shall be kept ready for
+immediate use.
+
+In every chlorate mill, tallow or other suitable lubricant shall be
+used instead of oil.
+
+9. _Respirators._--Respirators charged with moist oxide of iron or
+other suitable substance, shall be kept in accessible places ready for
+use in cases of emergency arising from sulphuretted hydrogen or other
+poisonous gases.
+
+10. _Salt Cake Departments._--In salt cake departments suitable
+measures shall be adopted by maintaining a proper draught, and by other
+means, to obviate the escape of low-level gases.
+
+11. _Weldon Bleaching Powder Chambers._--Weldon bleaching powder
+chambers, after the free gas has, as far as may be practicable, been
+drawn off or absorbed by fresh lime, shall, before being opened, be
+tested by the standard recognised under the Alkali Act. Such tests
+shall be duly entered in a register kept for the purpose.
+
+All chambers shall be ventilated, as far as possible, when packing is
+being carried on, by means of open doors on opposite sides and openings
+in the roof, so as to allow of a free current of air.
+
+12. _Co-operation of Workers: Penalty._--In cases where the
+co-operation of the workers is required for carrying out the foregoing
+rules, and where such co-operation is not given, the workers shall be
+held liable in accordance with the Factory and Workshop Act, 1891,
+section 9, which runs as follows:--“If any person who is bound to
+observe any special rules, established for any factory or workshop
+under this Act, acts in contravention of, or fails to comply with, any
+such special rule, he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine
+not exceeding two pounds.”
+
+ ARTHUR WHITELEGGE,
+ _H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories_.
+
+
+Form 260.
+
+ FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS, 1878 TO 1895.
+
+ _AMENDED SPECIAL RULES for Chemical Works in which is carried on
+ the_ MANUFACTURE OF BICHROMATE OR CHROMATE
+ OF POTASSIUM OR SODIUM.
+
+_In these Rules “persons employed in a chrome process” means a person
+who is employed in any work involving contact with chromate or
+bichromate of potassium or sodium, or involving exposure to dust or
+fumes arising from the manufacture thereof._
+
+_Any approval given by the Chief Inspector in pursuance of Rule 10
+shall be given in writing, and may at any time be revoked by notice in
+writing signed by him._
+
+
+ DUTIES OF OCCUPIERS.
+
+1. _Open Pans, &c., containing Dangerous Liquid._--No uncovered pot,
+pan, or other structure containing liquid of a dangerous character
+shall be so constructed as to be less than 3 feet in height above the
+adjoining ground or platform.
+
+This Rule shall not apply to any pot, pan, or other structure
+constructed before 1st January 1899, or in which a height of 3 feet is
+impracticable by reason of the nature of the work to be carried on:
+provided in either case that the structure is securely fenced.
+
+2. There shall be a clear space round all pots, pans, or other
+structures containing liquid of a dangerous character, except where
+any junction exists, in which case a barrier shall be so placed as to
+prevent passage.
+
+3. No unfenced plank or gangway shall be placed across any pot, pan, or
+other structure containing liquid of a dangerous character.
+
+4. _Lighting._--The lighting of all dangerous places shall be made
+thoroughly efficient.
+
+5. _Grinding, Separating, and Mixing of Raw Materials._--The grinding,
+separating, and mixing of the raw materials (including chrome
+ironstone, lime, and sodium and potassium carbonate) shall not be
+done without such appliances as will prevent, as far as possible, the
+entrance of dust into the workrooms.
+
+6. _Batches._--“Batches,” when withdrawn from the furnaces, shall
+either be placed in the keaves or vats while still warm, or be allowed
+to cool in barrows or other receptacles.
+
+7. _Evaporating Vessels._--Evaporating vessels shall be covered in, and
+shall be provided with ventilating shafts to carry the steam into the
+outside air.
+
+8. _Packing and Crushing of Bichromate._--Packing or crushing of
+bichromate of potassium or sodium shall not be done except under
+conditions which secure either the entire absence of dust or its
+effectual removal by means of a fan.
+
+9. _Age._--No child or young person shall be employed in a chrome
+process.
+
+10. _Monthly Medical Examination. Suspension._--(_a_) The occupier
+shall, subject to the approval of the Chief Inspector, appoint a
+duly qualified medical practitioner (in these Rules referred to as
+the Appointed Surgeon), who shall examine all persons employed in
+chrome processes at least once in every month, and shall undertake
+any necessary medical treatment of disease contracted in consequence
+of such employment, and shall, after the 30th day of April 1900, have
+power to suspend any such person from work in any place or process.
+
+(_b_) No person after such suspension shall be employed in any chrome
+process without the written sanction of the Appointed Surgeon.
+
+_Health Register._--(_c_) A register shall be kept in a form approved
+by the Chief Inspector, and shall contain a list of all persons
+employed in any chrome process. The Appointed Surgeon shall enter in
+the register the dates and results of his examinations of the persons
+employed and particulars of any treatment prescribed by him. The
+register shall be produced at any time when required by H.M. Inspectors
+of Factories or by the Appointed Surgeon.
+
+11. _Requisites for treating slight Wounds and Ulcers._--Requisites
+(approved by the Appointed Surgeon) for treating slight wounds and
+ulcers shall be kept at hand and be placed in charge of a responsible
+person.
+
+12. _Overalls and Respirators._--The occupier shall provide sufficient
+and suitable overall suits for the use of all persons engaged in the
+processes of grinding the raw materials; and sufficient and suitable
+overall suits or other adequate means of protection, approved in
+writing by the Appointed Surgeon, for the use of all persons engaged in
+the crystal department or in packing.
+
+Respirators approved by the Appointed Surgeon shall be provided for the
+use of all persons employed in packing or crushing bichromate of sodium
+or potassium.
+
+At the end of every day’s work they shall be collected and kept in
+proper custody in a suitable place set apart for the purpose.
+
+The overalls and respirators shall be thoroughly washed or renewed
+every week.
+
+13. _Cloak-room._--The occupier shall provide and maintain a cloak-room
+in which workers can deposit clothing put off during working hours.
+
+14. _Lavatory._--The occupier shall provide and maintain a lavatory
+for the use of the persons employed in chrome processes, with soap,
+nail-brushes, and towels, and a constant supply of hot and cold water
+laid on to each basin. There shall be at least one lavatory basin for
+every five persons employed in the crystal department and in packing.
+Each such basin shall be fitted with a waste-pipe, or shall be placed
+in a trough fitted with a waste-pipe.
+
+15. _Baths._--The occupier shall provide and maintain sufficient baths
+and dressing-rooms for all persons employed in chrome processes, with
+hot and cold water laid on, and a sufficient supply of soap and towels;
+and shall cause each person employed in the crystal department and in
+packing to take a bath once a week at the factory.
+
+_Bath Register._--A bath register shall be kept containing a list of
+all persons employed in the crystal department and in packing, and an
+entry of the date when each person takes a bath.
+
+The bath register shall be produced at any time when required by H.M.
+Inspectors of Factories.
+
+16. _Cleaning of Floors, &c._--The floors, stairs, and landings shall
+be cleaned daily.
+
+
+
+ DUTIES OF PERSONS EMPLOYED.
+
+17. _Batches._--No person shall deposit a “batch” when withdrawn
+from the furnace upon the floor nor transfer it to the keaves or vats
+otherwise than as prescribed in Rule 6.
+
+18. _Packing and Crushing of Bichromate._--No person shall pack or
+crush bichromate of potassium or sodium otherwise than as prescribed in
+Rule 8.
+
+19. _Medical Examination._--(_a_) Every person employed in
+a chrome process shall present himself at the appointed times for
+examination by the Appointed Surgeon as provided in Rule 10.
+
+(_b_) After the 30th day of April 1900, no person suspended by the
+Appointed Surgeon shall work in a chrome process without his written
+sanction.
+
+20. _Overalls._--Every person engaged in the processes of grinding
+the raw materials shall wear an overall suit, and every person engaged
+in the crystal department or in packing shall wear an overall suit or
+other adequate means of protection approved by the Appointed Surgeon.
+
+_Respirators._--Every person employed in packing or crushing
+bichromate of sodium or potassium shall in addition wear a respirator
+while so occupied.
+
+21. _Washing._--Every person employed in the processes named in
+Rule 20 shall before leaving the premises deposit the overalls and
+respirators in the place appointed by the occupier for the purpose, and
+shall thoroughly wash face and hands in the lavatory.
+
+22. _Bathing._--Every person employed in the crystal department
+and in packing shall take a bath at the factory at least once a week;
+and, having done so, he shall at once sign his name in the bath
+register, with the date.
+
+23. _Neglect to be Reported._--The foreman shall report to the
+manager any instance coming under his notice of a workman neglecting to
+observe these Rules.
+
+ ARTHUR WHITELEGGE,
+ _Chief Inspector of Factories_.
+
+ M. W. RIDLEY,
+ _One of Her Majesty’s Principal
+ Secretaries of State_.
+
+February 1900.
+
+_Note._--These Rules must be kept posted up in conspicuous places
+in the factory to which they apply, where they may be conveniently
+read by the persons employed. Any person who is bound to observe
+these Rules and fails to do so, or acts in contravention of them, is
+liable to a penalty; and in such cases the occupier also is liable to
+a penalty, unless he proves that he has taken all reasonable means by
+publishing and to the best of his power enforcing the Rules, to prevent
+the contravention or non-compliance. (Factory and Workshop Act, 1891,
+Sections 9 and 11.)
+
+
+Form No. 261.
+
+ FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS, 1878 TO 1895.
+
+ _SPECIAL RULES._
+
+ RED AND ORANGE LEAD WORKS.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF OCCUPIERS.
+
+_Drawing._--In drawing charges of massicot, or of red lead, or of
+orange lead, from the furnace they shall not allow the charges of
+massicot, or of red lead, or of orange lead, to be discharged on to
+the floor of the factory or workshop, but shall arrange that it be
+shovelled, not raked, into waggons.
+
+_Packing._--They shall arrange that no red or orange lead shall be
+packed in the room or rooms where the manufacture is actually carried
+on.
+
+They shall arrange that no red or orange lead shall be packed in casks
+or other receptacles except in a place provided with a hood connected
+with a fan, or shall provide other suitable means to create an
+effective draught.
+
+_Washing Conveniences._--They shall provide sufficient bath
+accommodation for all persons employed in the manipulation of red and
+orange lead, and lavatories, with a good supply of hot water, soap,
+nail-brushes, and towels for the use of such persons.
+
+_Monthly Examination._--They shall arrange for a monthly visit by a
+medical man, who shall examine every worker individually, and who shall
+enter the result of each examination in a register book to be provided
+by the said occupiers.
+
+_Sanitary Drink._--They shall provide a sufficient supply of approved
+sanitary drink for the workers.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF PERSONS EMPLOYED.
+
+In cases where the co-operation of the workers is required for carrying
+out the foregoing rules, and where such co-operation is not given,
+the workers shall be held liable in accordance with the Factory and
+Workshop Act, 1891, Section 9, which runs as follows:--
+
+ “If any person who is bound to observe any special rules
+ established for any factory or workshop under this Act, acts
+ in contravention of, or fails to comply with, any such special
+ rule, he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not
+ exceeding two pounds.”
+
+ ARTHUR WHITELEGGE,
+ _H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories_.
+
+
+Form 263.
+
+ FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS, 1878 TO 1895.
+
+ _SPECIAL RULES._
+
+ YELLOW LEAD.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF OCCUPIERS.
+
+They shall provide washing conveniences, with a sufficient supply of
+hot and cold water, soap, nail-brushes, and towels.
+
+They shall provide respirators and overall suits for the persons
+employed in all dry processes.
+
+They shall provide fans or other suitable means of ventilation wherever
+dust is generated in the process of manufacture.
+
+They shall provide a sufficient supply of Epsom salts and of an
+approved sanitary drink.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF PERSONS EMPLOYED.
+
+In cases where the co-operation of the workers is required for carrying
+out the foregoing rules, and where such co-operation is not given,
+the workers shall be held liable, in accordance with the Factory and
+Workshop Act, 1891, Section 9, which runs as follows:--
+
+ “If any person who is bound to observe any special rules
+ established for any factory or workshop under this Act, acts
+ in contravention of, or fails to comply with, any such special
+ rule, he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not
+ exceeding two pounds.”
+
+ Respirators { A good respirator is a cambric bag with or without
+ { a thin flexible wire made to fit over the nose.
+ Sanitary drink { Sulphate of magnesia 2 oz.
+ suggested { Water 1 gallon.
+ { Essence of lemon, sufficient to flavour.
+
+ B. A. WHITELEGGE,
+ _H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories_.
+
+
+Form 264.
+
+ FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS, 1878 TO 1895.
+
+ _SPECIAL RULES._
+
+ LEAD SMELTING WORKS.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF OCCUPIERS.
+
+They shall provide respirators and overall suits for the use of all
+persons employed in cleaning the flues, and take means to see that the
+same are used.
+
+They shall arrange that no person be allowed to remain at work more
+than two hours at a time in a flue. (A rest of half-an-hour before
+re-entering will be deemed sufficient.)
+
+They shall provide sufficient bath accommodation for all persons
+employed in cleaning the flues, and every one so employed shall take a
+bath before leaving the works.
+
+They shall provide washing conveniences, with a sufficient supply of
+hot and cold water, soap, nail-brushes, and towels.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF PERSONS EMPLOYED.
+
+In cases where the co-operation of the workers is required for carrying
+out the foregoing rules, and where such co-operation is not given,
+the workers shall be held liable, in accordance with the Factory and
+Workshop Act, 1891, Section 9, which runs as follows:--
+
+ “If any person who is bound to observe any special rules
+ established for any factory or workshop under this Act, acts
+ in contravention of, or fails to comply with, any such special
+ rule, he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not
+ exceeding two pounds.”
+
+ B. A. WHITELEGGE,
+ _H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories_.
+
+
+Form 268.
+
+ FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS, 1878 TO 1895.
+
+ _SPECIAL RULES, only applicable to works in which_
+ LEAD OR ARSENIC IS USED IN THE TINNING AND
+ ENAMELLING OF IRON HOLLOW WARE.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF OCCUPIERS.
+
+They shall provide washing conveniences with a sufficient supply of hot
+and cold water, soap, nail-brushes, and towels; and take measures to
+secure that every worker wash face and hands before meals and before
+leaving the works.
+
+They shall see that no food is eaten in any room where the process of
+tinning or enamelling is carried on.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF PERSONS EMPLOYED.
+
+In cases where the co-operation of the workers is required for carrying
+out the foregoing rules, and where such co-operation is not given,
+the workers shall be held liable in accordance with the Factory and
+Workshop Act, 1891, Section 9, which runs as follows:--“If any person
+who is bound to observe any special rules established for any factory
+or workshop under this Act, acts in contravention of, or fails to
+comply with, any such special rule, he shall be liable on summary
+conviction to a fine not exceeding two pounds.”
+
+ ARTHUR WHITELEGGE,
+ _H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories_.
+
+
+Form 266.
+
+ FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS, 1878 TO 1895.
+
+ _AMENDED SPECIAL RULES._
+
+ SPINNING AND WEAVING OF FLAX.
+
+ WEAVING SHEDS
+
+ (in which artificial humidity is produced).
+
+_Ventilation._--An efficient 14-inch extracting fan shall be provided
+for every 2500 square feet of floor surface, such ventilation to be
+arranged to the satisfaction of the Inspector of Factories, and to be
+kept in operation during working hours.
+
+_Humidity._--In every weaving factory where artificial humidity is
+produced, there shall be provided, maintained, and kept in correct
+working order two sets of standardised wet and dry bulb thermometers. A
+difference of at least two degrees shall be kept during working hours
+between the wet and dry bulbs (_e.g._, Dry Bulb 75, Wet Bulb 73).
+
+(1.) One set of thermometers is to be fixed in the centre and one at
+the side of the factory, or in such other position as may be directed
+or sanctioned by an Inspector of Factories, so as to be plainly visible
+to the operatives.
+
+(2.) The occupier or manager, or person for the time being in charge
+of each factory, shall read the thermometers twice in the day, viz.,
+between ten o’clock and eleven o’clock in the forenoon, and between
+three o’clock and four o’clock in the afternoon, on every day that any
+operatives are employed in the factory, and shall record the readings
+of each thermometer at each of such times on a form provided for the
+purpose for each set of thermometers, in the form and in accordance
+with the regulations contained in Schedule B. of the Cotton Cloth
+Factories Act, 1889, and the readings indicated at any time by the said
+thermometers shall be taken to represent the actual humidity of the
+room at such time.
+
+(3.) The form in which the readings of each thermometer provided for
+in sub-section (ii.) of this section are to be recorded shall be kept
+hung up near the thermometers; and after being duly filled up, shall be
+forwarded at the end of each month to the Inspector of the District,
+and a copy shall be kept at the factory for reference.
+
+
+ WET SPINNING ROOMS.
+
+_Overalls._--Where splashboards are not provided, waterproof overalls
+or aprons shall be provided by the occupier for all the workers, such
+overalls or aprons to be sufficient to protect the lower part of the
+chest to the satisfaction of the Inspector.
+
+_Troughs._--The lids of the troughs shall be kept in perfect repair to
+check escape of steam.
+
+_Floors._--Floors shall be kept in sound condition so as to prevent
+retention or accumulation of water.
+
+The same rules shall be adopted with respect to humidity as are
+required in the weaving sheds.
+
+
+ WET SPINNING ROOMS AND WEAVING FACTORIES.
+
+_Steam-Pipes._--Whenever steam is injected into any room, the pipes
+conveying the same shall be jacketed with non-conducting composition to
+the satisfaction of the Inspector of Factories.
+
+
+ ROUGHING AND SORTING AND HAND HACKLING ROOMS.
+
+_Fans._--Exhaust fans shall be provided so as to draw the dust
+forward and down from the face of the worker, unless some other
+arrangement shall be found equally effective, to the satisfaction of
+the Factory Inspector.
+
+_Respirators._--Respirators shall be provided for the use of the
+workers, if children or young persons, and be worn by them at work.
+
+
+ MACHINE HACKLING ROOMS.
+
+ Preparation and Card Rooms.
+
+_Fans._--Exhaust fans shall be provided on the side of the room
+where the machines are, and inlets provided from 6 to 7 feet from the
+ground on the opposite side, unless some other arrangement of such fens
+shall be found equally effective.
+
+_Respirators._--Respirators shall be provided for the use of the
+workers, if children or young persons, and be worn by them at work.
+
+
+ DRESSING ROOMS.
+
+_Ventilation._--Dressing rooms must be ventilated so as to render
+harmless any gas, vapour, or other impurities.
+
+ B. A. WHITELEGGE,
+ _Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Factories_.
+
+ M. W. RIDLEY,
+ _One of Her Majesty’s Principal Secretaries of State_.
+
+HOME OFFICE,
+ 18th April 1896.
+
+
+Form 270.
+
+ FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS, 1878 TO 1895.
+
+ _SPECIAL RULES._
+
+FACTORIES OR WORKSHOPS IN WHICH YELLOW CHROMATE OF LEAD IS USED, OR IN
+WHICH GOODS DYED WITH IT UNDERGO THE PROCESSES OF BUNDLING OR NODDLING,
+WINDING, REELING, WEAVING, OR ANY OTHER TREATMENT.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF OCCUPIERS.
+
+They shall provide washing conveniences, with a sufficient supply of
+hot and cold water, soap, nail-brushes, and towels.
+
+They shall provide respirators and overall suits for the persons
+employed in all dry processes.
+
+They shall provide fans or other suitable means of ventilation wherever
+dust is generated in the process of manufacture.
+
+They shall provide a sufficient supply of Epsom salts and of the
+sanitary drink mentioned below, or some other approved by H.M.
+Inspector of Factories.
+
+ Respirators { A good respirator is a cambric bag with or without a
+ { thin flexible wire made to fit over the nose.
+ Sanitary drink { Sulphate of magnesia 2 oz.
+ { Water 1 gallon.
+ { Essence of lemon, sufficient to flavour.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF PERSONS EMPLOYED.
+
+Every person to whom is supplied a respirator or overall suit shall
+wear the same when at the special work for which such are provided.
+
+Every person shall carefully clean and wash hands and face before meals
+and before leaving the works.
+
+No food shall be eaten in any part of the works in which yellow
+chromate of lead is used in the manufacture.
+
+ ARTHUR WHITELEGGE,
+ _H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories_.
+
+Under Section 9, Factory Act, 1891, any person who is bound to observe
+any special rules is liable to penalties for non-compliance with such
+special rules.
+
+
+Form 271.
+
+ FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS, 1878 TO 1895.
+
+ MIXING AND CASTING OF BRASS AND OF
+ CERTAIN OTHER ALLOYS.
+
+ _SPECIAL RULES._
+
+Under Section 8 of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1891, and Section 28
+of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1895, for the processes in the mixing
+and casting of Brass, Gun Metal, Bell Metal, White Metal, Delta Metal,
+Phosphor Bronze, and Manilla Mixture.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF OCCUPIERS.
+
+1. They shall provide adequate means for facilitating, as far as
+possible, the emission or escape from the shop of any noxious fumes or
+dust arising from the above-named processes. Such means shall include
+the provision of traps or of louvre gratings in the roof or ceiling of
+any shop in which such processes, or either of them, is or are carried
+on; or in case of a mixing or casting shop which is situated under any
+other shop, there shall be provided an adequate flue or shaft (other
+than any flue or shaft in connection with a furnace or fireplace) to
+carry any fumes from the mixing or casting shop, by or through any such
+shop that may be situated above it.
+
+2. They shall cause all such mixing or casting shops, whether defined
+as Factories or as Workshops under the Factory and Workshop Act, 1878,
+to be cleaned down and limewashed once at least within every twelve
+months, or once within every six months if so required by notice in
+writing from H.M. Inspector of Factories and Workshops, dating from
+the time when these were last thus cleaned down and limewashed; and
+they shall record the dates of such cleaning down and lime-washing in a
+prescribed form of register.
+
+3. They shall provide a sufficient supply of metal basins, water, and
+soap, for the use of all persons employed in such mixing or casting
+shops.
+
+4. They shall not employ, or allow within their Factory or Workshop
+the employment of, any Woman or Female Young Person, in any process
+whatever, in any such mixing or casting shop, or in any portion thereof
+which is not entirely separated by a partition extending from the floor
+to the ceiling.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF PERSONS EMPLOYED.
+
+5. They shall not partake of, or cook any food in any such mixing
+or casting shop, within a period of at least Ten Minutes after the
+completion of the last pouring of metal in that shop.
+
+ B. A. WHITELEGGE,
+ _H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories_.
+
+July 10, 1896.
+
+ _Note._--WOMEN and PERSONS under 18 YEARS OF AGE are by the
+ 39th section of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1878, expressly
+ FORBIDDEN either to TAKE A MEAL or to REMAIN in any casting shop
+ during the time stated on the Notice affixed in the factory
+ or workshop as being allowed for meals; and the obligation of
+ enforcing this section rests with the occupier.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+These Rules are required to be posted up in conspicuous places in the
+Factory or Workshop to which they apply, where they may be conveniently
+read by the persons employed. Any person who wilfully injures or
+defaces them is liable to a penalty not exceeding five pounds (Factory
+and Workshop Act, 1891, section 11). Occupiers of factories and
+workshops, and persons employed therein, who are bound to observe any
+special rules, are liable to penalties for non-compliance with the
+same. (Factory and Workshop Act, 1891, Sections 9 and 11.)
+
+
+Form 272.
+
+ FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS, 1878 TO 1895.
+
+ _SPECIAL RULES._
+
+ WOOL SORTING.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF OCCUPIERS.
+
+1. Bales of wool or hair shall, whenever opened for the purpose of
+being sorted, be so opened by men skilled in judging of the quality and
+condition of the material.
+
+2. All Alpaca, Pelitan, Cashmere, Persian, and Camel Hair shall be
+opened over a fan with a downward draught, in a room specially set
+apart for the purpose, separate and distinct from any sorting-room and
+from any room in which work (other than opening) is carried on.
+
+3. Van Mohair shall be washed and sorted while damp, if sorted at all.
+
+Persian shall be washed or disinfected as far as possible before being
+sorted.
+
+Damaged wool or hair, fallen fleeces and foreign skin-wool or hair of
+the descriptions named in Rules 2 and 4 shall be washed before being
+sorted.
+
+4. No Alpaca, Pelitan, Cashmere, Persian, Camel Hair, or Mohair shall
+be sorted except in rooms provided with extracting fans, so arranged
+that each sorting-board shall be independently connected with the
+extracting shaft by means of a funnel-shaped opening not less than ten
+inches across at the top, in such manner that the dust may be drawn
+downwards. The draught shall be maintained in constant efficiency
+while the sorters are at work, and shall be such that not less than 75
+cubic feet of air per minute are drawn by the fan from beneath each
+sorting-board.
+
+The extracting shaft shall be cleaned out at least once in each week.
+
+5. The dust collected by the fan shall be discharged into properly
+constructed receptacles, and not into the open air. This dust, together
+with the sweepings from the floors and walls of the sorting-room, and
+from under the sorting-boards, shall be removed at least twice a week,
+and burnt. All pieces of skin, scab, and clippings or “shearlings”
+shall be removed daily from the sorting-rooms, and be disinfected or
+destroyed. All bags in which dangerous wool or hair has been imported
+shall be picked clean and not brushed.
+
+6. No person having any open cut or sore upon any part of his body
+shall be allowed to sort.
+
+7. Proper provision shall be made for the keeping of the sorter’s
+clothing and food outside of the sorting-room. No meals shall be
+allowed to be taken in the sorting-room.
+
+During meal hours the windows shall be kept open.
+
+8. No bale wool or hair shall be stored in a sorting-room, nor wool of
+any description, unless the same be effectually screened off from the
+sorting-room. An air space of at least 1000 cubic feet shall be allowed
+for each sorter, exclusive of any portion screened off.
+
+9. The floor of the sorting-room shall be thoroughly sprinkled daily
+with a disinfectant solution, and swept daily (immediately after
+sprinkling) after the work is done.
+
+10. The walls and ceilings of the sorting-room shall be limewashed at
+least once a year.
+
+11. Requisites for treating scratches and slight wounds shall be kept
+at hand.
+
+12. Proper and sufficient appliances for washing, including basins,
+water, soap, nail-brushes, and towels, shall be provided in or near the
+sorting rooms, for the use of the sorters.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF PERSONS EMPLOYED.
+
+13. If, on opening a bale of wool or hair, any fallen fleece or damaged
+material is discovered, the person opening the bale shall report the
+discovery immediately to the foreman.
+
+14. Every sorter having an open cut or sore on any part of his body
+shall immediately report the fact to the foreman.
+
+15. No sorter shall keep in the sorting-room coats or other articles of
+clothing besides those he is wearing. No meals shall be taken in the
+sorting-room.
+
+16. If the draught at any sorting-board, or the fan or any other
+appliance necessary to the production of such draught, is found to be
+out of order, the sorter, or any other person becoming aware of the
+defect, shall report it to the foreman at once.
+
+ ARTHUR WHITELEGGE,
+ _H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories_.
+
+October 1897.
+
+ _Note._--These Rules are required to be posted up in
+ conspicuous places in the Factory or Workshop to which they
+ apply, where they may be conveniently read by the persons
+ employed. Any person who wilfully injures or defaces them is
+ liable to a penalty not exceeding five pounds. Occupiers of
+ factories and workshops, and persons employed therein, who are
+ bound to observe these Rules, are liable to penalties in case of
+ non-compliance. (Factory and Workshop Act, 1891, Sections 9 and
+ 11.)
+
+
+Form 272A.
+
+ FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS, 1878 TO 1895.
+
+ _SPECIAL RULES._
+
+ WOOL SORTING.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF OCCUPIERS.
+
+1. Bales of wool or hair shall, whenever opened for the purpose of
+being sorted, be so opened by men skilled in judging of the quality and
+condition of the material.
+
+2. All Alpaca, Pelitan, Cashmere, and Camel Hair shall be opened over
+a fan with a downward draught, in a room specially set apart for the
+purpose, separate and distinct from any sorting-room, and from any room
+in which work (other than opening) is carried on. All Persian shall be
+opened and sorted in a room specially set apart for this purpose.
+
+3. Van Mohair shall be washed and sorted while damp, if sorted at all.
+
+Damaged wool or hair, fallen fleeces and foreign skin-wool or hair of
+the descriptions named in Rules 2 and 4 shall be washed before being
+sorted.
+
+4. No Alpaca, Pelitan, Cashmere, Persian, Camel Hair, or Mohair shall
+be sorted except in rooms provided with extracting fans, so arranged
+that each sorting-board shall be independently connected with the
+extracting shaft by means of a funnel-shaped opening not less than ten
+inches across at the top, in such manner that the dust may be drawn
+downwards. The draught shall be maintained in constant efficiency
+while the sorters are at work, and shall be such that not less than 75
+cubic feet of air per minute are drawn by the fan from beneath each
+sorting-board.
+
+The extracting shaft shall be cleaned out at least once in each week.
+
+5. The dust collected by the fan from the sorting-boards shall be
+discharged into properly constructed receptacles, and not into the
+open air. This dust, together with the sweepings from the floors and
+walls of the sorting-room, and from under the sorting-boards, shall
+be removed at least twice a week, and burnt. All pieces of skin,
+scab, and clippings or “shearlings” shall be removed daily from the
+sorting-rooms, and be disinfected or destroyed. All bags in which
+dangerous wool or hair has been imported shall be picked clean and not
+brushed.
+
+6. No person having any open cut or sore upon any part of his body
+shall be allowed to sort.
+
+7. Proper provision shall be made for the keeping of the sorter’s
+clothing and food outside of the sorting-room. No meals shall be
+allowed to be taken in the sorting-room.
+
+During meal hours the windows shall be kept open.
+
+8. No bale wool or hair shall be stored in a sorting-room, nor wool of
+any description unless the same be effectually screened off from the
+sorting-room. An air space of at least 1000 cubic feet shall be allowed
+for each sorter, exclusive of any portion screened off.
+
+9. The floor of the sorting-room shall be thoroughly sprinkled daily
+with a disinfectant solution, and swept daily (immediately after
+sprinkling) after the work is done.
+
+10. The walls and ceilings of the sorting-room shall be limewashed at
+least once a year.
+
+11. Requisites for treating scratches and slight wounds shall be kept
+at hand.
+
+12. Proper and sufficient appliances for washing, including basins,
+water, soap, nail-brushes, and towels, shall be provided in or near the
+sorting-rooms, for the use of the sorters.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF PERSONS EMPLOYED.
+
+13. If, on opening a bale of wool or hair, any fallen fleece or damaged
+material is discovered, the person opening the bale shall report the
+discovery immediately to the foreman.
+
+14. Every sorter having an open cut or sore on any part of his body
+shall immediately report the fact to the foreman.
+
+15. No sorter shall keep in the sorting-room coats or other articles of
+clothing besides those he is wearing. No meals shall be taken in the
+sorting-room.
+
+16. If the draught at any sorting-board, or the fan or any other
+appliance necessary to the production of such draught, is found to be
+out of order, the sorter, or any other person becoming aware of the
+defect, shall report it to the foreman at once.
+
+ ARTHUR WHITELEGGE,
+ _H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories_.
+
+April 1898.
+
+_Note._--These Rules are required to be posted up in conspicuous
+places in the Factory or Workshop to which they apply, where they may
+be conveniently read by the persons employed. Any person who wilfully
+injures or defaces them is liable to a penalty not exceeding five
+pounds. Occupiers of factories and workshops, and persons employed
+therein, who are bound to observe these Rules, are liable to penalties
+in case of non-compliance. (Factory and Workshop Act, 1891, Sections 9
+and 11.)
+
+
+Form 273.
+
+ FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS, 1878 TO 1895.
+
+ _SPECIAL RULES._
+
+ BOTTLING OF AERATED WATER.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF OCCUPIERS.
+
+1. _Face-guards._--They shall provide all bottlers with faceguards,
+masks, or veils of wire gauze.
+
+They shall provide all wirers, sighters, and labellers with faceguards,
+masks, or veils of wire gauze, or goggles.
+
+2. _Gauntlets._--They shall provide all bottlers with full-length
+gauntlets for both arms.
+
+They shall provide all wirers, sighters, and labellers with gauntlets
+for both arms, protecting at least half of the palm and the space
+between the thumb and forefinger.
+
+3. _Fencing._--They shall cause all machines for bottling to be so
+constructed, so placed, or so fenced, as to prevent as far as possible,
+during the operation of filling or corking, a fragment of a bursting
+bottle from striking any bottler, wirer, sighter, labeller, or washer.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF PERSONS EMPLOYED.
+
+4. _Face-guards._--All bottlers shall, while at work, wear faceguards,
+masks, or veils of wire gauze.
+
+All wirers, sighters, and labellers shall, while at work, wear
+faceguards, masks, or veils of wire gauze, or goggles; except labellers
+when labelling bottles standing in cases.
+
+5. _Gauntlets._--All bottlers shall, while at work, wear on both arms
+full-length gauntlets. All wirers, sighters, and labellers shall, while
+at work, wear on both arms gauntlets protecting at least half of the
+palm and the space between the thumb and forefinger; except labellers
+when labelling bottles standing in cases.
+
+ ARTHUR WHITELEGGE,
+ _H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories_.
+
+August 1897.
+
+ _Note._--These Rules must be kept posted up in conspicuous
+ places in the Factory to which they apply, where they may be
+ conveniently read by the persons employed.
+
+ Any person who is bound to observe these Rules and fails to do
+ so, or acts in contravention of them, is liable to a penalty;
+ and in such case the occupier also is liable to a penalty,
+ unless he proves that he has taken all reasonable means by
+ publishing, and to the best of his power enforcing the Rules,
+ to prevent the contravention or non-compliance. (Factory and
+ Workshop Act, 1891, Sections 9 and 11.)
+
+
+Form 274.
+
+ FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS, 1878 TO 1895.
+
+ _SPECIAL RULES._
+
+ VULCANISING OF INDIA-RUBBER BY MEANS OF BISULPHIDE
+ OF CARBON.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF EMPLOYERS.
+
+1. No child or young person shall be employed in any room in which
+bisulphide of carbon is used.
+
+2. After May 1st, 1898, no person shall be employed for more than five
+hours in any day in a room in which bisulphide of carbon is used, nor
+for more than two-and-a-half hours at a time without an interval of at
+least an hour.
+
+3. In vulcanising waterproof cloth by means of bisulphide of carbon--
+
+ (_a_) the trough containing the bisulphide of carbon shall be
+ self-feeding and covered over;
+
+ (_b_) the cloth shall be conveyed to and from the drying chamber
+ by means of an automatic machine;
+
+ (_c_) no person shall be allowed to enter the drying chamber in
+ the ordinary course of work;
+
+ (_d_) the machine shall be covered over, and the fumes drawn
+ away from the workers by means of a downward suction fan
+ maintained in constant efficiency.
+
+4. Dipping shall not be done except in boxes so arranged that a suction
+fan shall draw the fumes away from the workers.
+
+5. No food shall be allowed to be eaten in any room in which bisulphide
+of carbon is used.
+
+6. A suitable place for meals shall be provided.
+
+7. All persons employed in rooms in which bisulphide of carbon is
+used shall be examined once a month by the Certifying Surgeon for the
+district, who shall, after May 1st, 1898, have power to order temporary
+or total suspension from work.
+
+8. No person shall be employed in any room in which bisulphide of
+carbon is used, contrary to the direction of the Certifying Surgeon
+given as above.
+
+9. A Register in the form which has been prescribed by the Secretary
+of State for use in Indiarubber Works shall be kept, and in it the
+Certifying Surgeon will enter the dates and result of his visits, with
+the number of persons examined, and particulars of any directions given
+by him. This Register shall contain a list of all persons employed in
+rooms in which bisulphide of carbon is used, and shall be produced
+at any time when required by H.M. Inspector of Factories or by the
+Certifying Surgeon.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF PERSONS EMPLOYED.
+
+10. No person shall enter the drying room in the ordinary course of
+work, or perform dipping except in boxes provided with a suction fan
+carrying the fumes away from the workers.
+
+11. No person shall take any food in any room in which bisulphide of
+carbon is used.
+
+12. After May 1st, 1898, no person shall, contrary to the direction of
+the Certifying Surgeon, given in pursuance of Rule 7, work in any room
+in which bisulphide of carbon is used.
+
+13. All persons employed in rooms in which bisulphide of carbon is used
+shall present themselves for periodic examination by the Certifying
+Surgeon, as provided in Rule 7.
+
+14. It shall be the duty of all persons employed to report immediately
+to the employer or foreman any defect which they may discover in the
+working of the fan or in any appliance required by these rules.
+
+ ARTHUR WHITELEGGE,
+ _H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories_.
+
+1897.
+
+ _Note._--These Rules are required to be posted up in
+ conspicuous places in the Factory or Workshop to which they
+ apply, where they may be conveniently read by the persons
+ employed. Any person who wilfully injures or defaces them is
+ liable to a penalty not exceeding five pounds. Occupiers of
+ factories and workshops, and persons employed therein, who are
+ bound to observe these Rules, are liable to penalties in case of
+ non-compliance. (Factory and Workshop Act, 1891, Sections 9 and
+ 11).
+
+
+Form 343.
+
+ FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS, 1878 TO 1895.
+
+ _SPECIAL RULES._
+
+ DRY AND DRYSALTED FOREIGN HIDES AND SKINS, AND
+ DRY AND DRYSALTED EAST INDIAN HIDES AND SKINS.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF OCCUPIER.
+
+1. _Protection for Neck, Arms, and Hands._--Efficient means of
+protection for the neck, arms, and hands shall be provided for the use
+of all persons employed in unpacking, sorting, packing, handling, or
+carrying any dry or drysalted foreign or East Indian hides or skins.
+
+2. _Storage of Food and Clothing._--Proper provision, to the
+reasonable satisfaction of the Inspector in charge of the District,
+shall be made for the keeping of the workmen’s food and clothing
+outside any room or shed in which any of the above described hides or
+skins are unpacked, sorted, packed, or stored.
+
+_Meals._--No meals shall be allowed to be taken in any such room
+or shed.
+
+3. _Washing._--Proper and sufficient appliances for washing,
+comprising soap, basins with water laid on, nail-brushes and towels,
+shall be provided and maintained for the use of the workmen, to the
+reasonable satisfaction of the Inspector in charge of the District.
+
+4. _Dressings._--Sticking plaster, and other requisites for treating
+scratches and slight wounds, shall be kept at hand, available for the
+use of the persons employed.
+
+5. _Wounds._--No person having any open cut, scratch, or sore upon
+face, head, neck, arm, or hand shall be allowed to work on the premises
+until the wound is healed, or completely covered by a proper dressing
+after being thoroughly washed.
+
+6. _Note to be Exhibited._--A copy of the appended notes shall be
+kept affixed with the Rules.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF PERSONS EMPLOYED.
+
+7. _Protection for Neck, Arms, and Hands._--Each person whilst engaged
+in unpacking, sorting, packing, handling, or carrying any dry or
+drysalted foreign or East Indian hides or skins shall use the means of
+protection provided by the Occupier in pursuance of Rule 1.
+
+8. _Storage of Food and Clothing._--No workman shall keep any food, or
+any articles of clothing other than those he is wearing, in any room
+or shed in which any dry or drysalted foreign or East Indian hides or
+skins are handled.
+
+He shall not take any food in any such room or shed.
+
+9. _Wounds._--Every workman having any open cut or scratch or raw
+surface however trifling, upon his face, head, neck, arm, or hand,
+shall immediately report the fact to the foreman, and shall not work on
+the premises until the wound is healed, or is completely covered by a
+proper dressing after being thoroughly washed.
+
+ ARTHUR WHITELEGGE,
+ _H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories_.
+
+August 1899.
+
+_Note 1._--These Rules must be kept posted up in conspicuous places in
+the factory to which they apply, where they may be conveniently read by
+the persons employed. Any person who is bound to observe these Rules
+and fails to do so, or acts in contravention of them, is liable to a
+penalty; and in such cases the occupier also is liable to a penalty,
+unless he proves that he has taken all reasonable means by publishing,
+and to the best of his power enforcing the Rules, to prevent the
+contravention or non-compliance. (Factory and Workshop Act, 1891,
+Sections 9 and 11.)
+
+_Note 2._--_Nature of the Disease._--The danger against which these
+Rules are directed is that of anthrax--a fatal disease affecting
+certain animals, which may be conveyed from them to man by the handling
+of hides of animals which have died of the disease. The germs of the
+disease (anthrax spores) are found in the dust and in the substance of
+the hide, and may remain active for years. In this country anthrax is
+rare, and precautions are taken to prevent infected hides from coming
+into the market, consequently there is little danger in handling the
+hides slaughtered in the United Kingdom: but in Russia, China, and
+the East Indies, and in many other parts of the world, the disease
+is common, and infected hides (which do not differ from others in
+appearance) are often shipped to British ports. Hence in handling
+foreign dry hides the above Rules should be carefully observed. Wet
+salted hides are free from dust, and less risk is incurred in handling
+them.
+
+The disease is communicated to man sometimes by breathing or swallowing
+the dust from an infected hide, but much more usually by the poison
+lodging in some point where the skin is broken: such as a fresh scratch
+or cut, or a scratched pimple, or even chapped hands. This happens most
+readily on the uncovered parts of the body, the hand, arm, face, and
+most frequently of all on the neck; owing either to an infected hide
+rubbing against the bare skin, or to dust from such a hide alighting
+on the raw surface. Hence the necessity for the coverings required by
+the Rules. But a raw surface covered by clothing is not free from risk,
+for dust lodging upon the clothes may sooner or later work its way to
+the skin beneath. Infection may also be brought about by rubbing or
+scratching a pimple with hand or nail carrying the anthrax poison.
+
+The first symptom of anthrax is usually a small inflamed swelling like
+a pimple or boil, often quite painless, which extends, and in a few
+days becomes black at the centre and surrounded by other “pimples.”
+The poison is now liable to be absorbed into the system and will cause
+risk to life, which can be avoided only by prompt and effective medical
+treatment in the early stage while the poison is still confined to the
+pimple. Hence it is of the utmost importance that a doctor should _at
+once_ be consulted if there is any suspicion of infection.
+
+
+Form 383.
+
+ FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS, 1878 TO 1895.
+
+ _SPECIAL RULES._
+
+ WOOL-COMBING.
+
+_For the purpose of Rules 1, 2, 12, and 13, “opening” of any wool or
+hair means the opening of the fleece, or, if it be not in the fleece,
+the opening out for looking over, or classing purposes._
+
+
+ DUTIES OF EMPLOYERS.
+
+1. _Opening._--No Alpaca, Pelitan, Cashmere, Persian, or Camel Hair
+shall be opened except--
+
+ (_a_) after steeping in water, or
+ (_b_) over an efficient opening board.
+
+For the purposes of this Rule, no opening board shall be considered
+efficient unless, over a central area of four square feet, the linear
+velocity of air passing through the screen shall average at least 150
+feet per minute for each square foot, the measurements to be taken on
+a uniform system approved by H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories; and no
+opening board shall have an area of less than seven square feet.
+
+2. All badly-damaged wool or hair, fallen fleeces, and skin, wool, or
+hair of the kinds named in Rule 1, shall be opened by an experienced
+man in the manner prescribed in Rule 1, and damped with a disinfectant
+and then washed without being willowed.
+
+3. Every bale of Van Mohair shall be steeped in water before being
+opened.
+
+4. _Willowing._--No Alpaca, Pelitan, Cashmere, Persian, Camel Hair, or
+Mohair shall be willowed except in a separate room provided with an
+efficient exhaust fan so arranged as to draw the dust away from the
+workmen and prevent it from entering the air of the room.
+
+No wool or hair shall be stored in a willowing room.
+
+The floor of every such room shall be sprinkled daily with a
+disinfectant solution and swept immediately after sprinkling.
+
+The walls and ceilings of every such room shall be limewashed at least
+once a year and swept down at least once a month.
+
+5. _Dust._--The dust collected by the willows or other dust
+extracting machines and from the opening boards shall be discharged
+into properly constructed receptacles, and not into the open air. This
+dust shall be removed at least once a week.
+
+6. _Storage of Clothing and Food._--Suitable provision shall be made
+for keeping the clothing and food of all persons who are employed in
+the warehouse, or in any room in which is carried on willowing or
+opening, or any other process through which the wool or hair passes
+before being washed.
+
+7. _Wounds._--No person having any open cut or sore upon any part of
+the body shall be employed in a place specified in Rule 6.
+
+8. _Meals._--No person shall be allowed to prepare or partake of any
+food in a place specified in Rule 6, or in a carding room.
+
+9. _Lavatories._--Sufficient and suitable washing conveniences shall
+be provided and maintained for all persons employed in the places
+specified in Rule 6.
+
+The washing conveniences shall comprise soap, nail-brushes, and towels,
+and at least one wash-hand basin for every five persons employed as
+above, each basin being fitted with a waste-pipe and having a constant
+supply of water laid on.
+
+10. _Dressings._--Requisites for treating scratches and slight wounds
+shall be kept at hand.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF PERSONS EMPLOYED.
+
+11. _Opening._--If, on opening a bale, any fallen fleeces or
+damaged material is discovered, the person opening the bale shall
+report the discovery immediately to the foreman.
+
+12. No Alpaca, Pelitan, Cashmere, Persian, or Camel Hair shall be
+opened otherwise than as permitted by Rule 1.
+
+13. No badly damaged wool or hair, fallen fleeces, or skin, wool, or
+hair of the kinds named in Rule 1 shall be opened otherwise than as
+permitted by Rule 2.
+
+14. No bale of Van Mohair shall be opened otherwise than as permitted
+by Rule 3.
+
+15. _Willowing._--No Alpaca, Pelitan, Cashmere, Persian, Camel Hair, or
+Mohair shall be willowed except as permitted by Rule 4.
+
+16. _Wounds._--Any person employed in a place specified in Rule 6, and
+having an open cut or sore upon any part of the body, shall immediately
+report the fact to the foreman.
+
+17. _Storage of Clothing and Food._--No clothing or food shall be kept
+in any place specified in Rule 6.
+
+18. _Meals._--No person shall prepare or partake of food in a place
+specified in Rule 6, or in a carding room, or bring any food into such
+room.
+
+19. _Washing._--No person employed in any place specified in Rule 6
+shall leave the works or partake of meals without previously washing
+his or her hands.
+
+20. _Failure of Fan, etc._--If the fan or any other appliance necessary
+for the carrying out of these Rules is out of order, any workman
+becoming aware of the defect shall immediately report the fact to the
+foreman.
+
+ ARTHUR WHITELEGGE,
+ _H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories_.
+
+May 1900.
+
+ _Note._--These Rules must be kept posted up in conspicuous
+ places in the factory to which they apply, where they may be
+ conveniently read by the persons employed. Any person who is
+ bound to observe these Rules and fails to do so, or acts in
+ contravention of them, is liable to a penalty; and in such cases
+ the occupier also is liable to a penalty, unless he proves that
+ he has taken all reasonable means by publishing, and to the best
+ of his power enforcing the Rules, to prevent the contravention
+ or non-compliance. (Factory and Workshop Act, 1891, Sections 9
+ and 11.)
+
+
+Form 384.
+
+ FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS, 1878 TO 1895.
+
+ _SPECIAL RULES._
+
+ LUCIFER MATCH FACTORIES IN WHICH WHITE OR YELLOW
+ PHOSPHORUS IS USED.
+
+_Definitions._--In these Rules “phosphorus process” means mixing,
+dipping, drying, boxing, and any other work or process in which White
+or Yellow Phosphorus is used; and “persons employed in a phosphorus
+process” means any person who is employed in any room or part of the
+factory where such a process is carried on.
+
+“Double-dipped matches” means wood splints, both ends of which have
+been dipped in the igniting composition.
+
+“Certifying Surgeon” means a Surgeon appointed under the Factory and
+Workshop Acts.
+
+Any approval or decision given by the Chief Inspector of Factories in
+pursuance of these Rules shall be given in writing, and may at any time
+be revoked by notice in writing signed by him.
+
+_Date of Commencement of Certain Rules._--Rules 5 (_a_), 5 (_b_), 6, 8,
+and 19, so far as they affect the employment of adult workers, shall
+not come into force until the 1st day of October 1900.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF EMPLOYERS.
+
+1. _Plans._--No part of a lucifer match factory shall be constructed,
+structurally altered, or newly used for the carrying on of any
+phosphorus process, unless the plans have previously been submitted in
+duplicate to the Chief Inspector of Factories, and unless he shall have
+approved the plans in writing, or shall not, within six weeks from the
+submission of the plans, have expressed his disapproval in writing of
+the same.
+
+2. Every room in which mixing, dipping, drying, or boxing is carried
+on--
+
+ _Ventilation._--Shall be efficiently ventilated by means of
+ sufficient openings to the outer air, and also by means of fans,
+ unless the use of fans is dispensed with by order in writing of
+ the Chief Inspector;
+
+ _Air Space._--Shall contain at least 400 cubic feet of air
+ space for each person employed therein; and in computing this
+ air space no height above 14 feet shall be taken into account;
+
+ _Lighting._--Shall be efficiently lighted;
+
+ _Floor._--Shall have a smooth and impervious floor. A floor
+ laid with flagstones or hard bricks in good repair shall be
+ deemed to constitute a smooth and impervious floor.
+
+3. _Separate Rooms._--(_a_) The processes of mixing, dipping, and
+drying shall each be done in a separate and distinct room. The process
+of boxing double-dipped matches or matches not thoroughly dry shall
+also be done in a separate and distinct room. These rooms shall not
+communicate with any other part of the factory unless there shall be
+a ventilated space intervening; nor shall they communicate with one
+another, except by means of doorways with closely-fitting doors, which
+doors shall be kept shut except when some person is passing through.
+
+_Mixing._--(_b_) Mixing shall not be done except in an apparatus so
+closed, or so arranged, and ventilated by means of a fan, as to prevent
+the entrance of fumes into the air of the mixing room.
+
+_Dipping._--(_c_) Dipping shall not be done except on a slab provided
+with an efficient exhaust fan, and with an air inlet between the dipper
+and the slab, or with a hood, so arranged as to draw the fumes away
+from the dipper, and to prevent them from entering the air of the
+dipping room.
+
+_Drying._--(_d_) Matches that have been dipped and cannot at once be
+removed to the drying room shall immediately be placed under a hood
+provided with an efficient exhaust fan, so arranged as to prevent the
+fumes from entering the air of the room.
+
+(_e_) Matches shall not be taken to a boxing room not arranged
+in compliance with sub-section (_f_) of this Rule until they are
+thoroughly dry, and matches shall not be taken to a boxing room that is
+so arranged until they are dried so far as they can be before cutting
+down and boxing.
+
+_Boxing._--(_f_) Cutting down of double-dipped matches and boxing of
+matches not thoroughly dry shall not be done except at benches or
+tables provided with an efficient exhaust fan, so arranged as to draw
+the fumes away from the worker and prevent them from entering the air
+of the boxing room.
+
+_Mechanical arrangements obviating Hand Labour._--Provided that the
+foregoing Rule shall not prevent the employment of any mechanical
+arrangement for carrying on any of the above-mentioned processes if the
+same be approved by the Chief Inspector as obviating the use of hand
+labour, and if it be used subject to the conditions (if any) specified
+in such approval.
+
+Provided further, that if the Chief Inspector shall, on consideration
+of the special circumstances of any particular case, so approve in
+writing, all or any of the provisions of the foregoing Rule may be
+suspended for the time named in such approval in writing.
+
+4. _Phosphorus Paste._--Vessels containing phosphorus paste shall, when
+not actually in use, be kept constantly covered, and closely fitting
+covers or damp flannels shall be provided for the purpose.
+
+5. _Appointed Dentist._--(_a_) For the purposes of these Rules the
+occupier shall appoint, subject to the approval of the Chief Inspector,
+a duly qualified and registered Dentist, herein termed the Appointed
+Dentist.
+
+_Suspension._--It shall be the duty of the Appointed Dentist to suspend
+from employment in any phosphorus process any person whom he finds to
+incur danger of phosphorus necrosis by reason of defective conditions
+of teeth or exposure of the jaw.
+
+_Preliminary Examination._--(_b_) No person shall be newly employed in
+a dipping room for more than 28 days, whether such days are consecutive
+or not, without being examined by the Appointed Dentist.
+
+_Periodical Examination._--(_c_) Every person employed in a phosphorus
+process, except persons employed only as boxers of wax vestas or other
+thoroughly dry matches, shall be examined by the Appointed Dentist at
+least once in every three months.
+
+_Special Examination in case of Toothache, etc._--(_d_) Any person
+employed in the factory complaining of toothache, or a pain or swelling
+of the jaw, shall at once be examined by the Appointed Dentist.
+
+_Reference of Cases to Certifying Surgeon._--(_e_) When the Appointed
+Dentist has reason to believe that any person employed in the factory
+is suffering from inflammation or necrosis of the jaw, or is in such a
+state of health as to incur danger of phosphorus necrosis, he shall at
+once direct the attention of the Certifying Surgeon and occupier to the
+case. Thereupon such person shall at once be examined by the Certifying
+Surgeon.
+
+6. _Exclusion of Certain Persons from Employment in Phosphorus
+Processes._--No person shall be employed in a phosphorus process--
+
+ after suspension by the Appointed Dentist; or
+
+ after the extraction of a tooth; or
+
+ after any operation involving exposure of the jawbone; or
+
+ after inflammation or necrosis of the jaw; or
+
+ after examination by the Appointed Dentist in pursuance of Rule
+ 5 (_d_);
+
+ or after reference to the Certifying Surgeon in pursuance
+ of Rule 5 (_e_), unless a certificate of fitness has
+ been given, after examination, by signed entry in the health
+ register, by the Appointed Dentist or by the Certifying Surgeon
+ in cases referred to him under Rule 5 (_e_).
+
+7. _Health Register. Entries by Occupier._--A health register, in
+a form approved by the Chief Inspector of Factories, shall be kept by
+the occupier, and shall contain a complete list of all persons employed
+in each phosphorus process, specifying with regard to each such person
+the full name, address, age when first employed, and date of first
+employment.
+
+_Entries by Certifying Surgeon._--The Certifying Surgeon will enter
+in the health register the dates and results of his examinations of
+persons employed in phosphorus processes, and particulars of any
+directions given by him.
+
+_Entries by Appointed Dentist._--The Appointed Dentist will enter
+in the health register the dates and results of his examinations of the
+teeth of persons employed in phosphorus processes, and particulars of
+any directions given by him, and a note of any case referred by him to
+the Certifying Surgeon.
+
+_Health Register to be produced when required._--The health register
+shall be produced at any time when required by H.M. Inspectors of
+Factories, or by the Certifying Surgeon, or by the Appointed Dentist.
+
+8. _Preliminary Examination by Certifying Surgeon. Certificate of
+Fitness._--Except persons whose names are on the health register
+mentioned in Rule 7, and in respect of whom certificates of fitness
+shall have been granted, no person shall be newly employed in any
+phosphorus process for more than 28 days, whether such days are
+consecutive or not, without a certificate of fitness, granted after
+examination by the Certifying Surgeon, by signed entry in the health
+register.
+
+This Rule shall not apply to persons employed only as boxers of wax
+vestas or other thoroughly dry matches.
+
+9. _Overalls._--The occupier shall provide and maintain sufficient
+and suitable overalls for all persons employed in phosphorus processes,
+except for persons employed only as boxers of wax vestas or other
+thoroughly dry matches, and shall cause them to be worn as directed in
+Rule 20.
+
+At the end of every day’s work they shall be collected and kept in
+proper custody in a suitable place set apart for the purpose.
+
+They shall be thoroughly washed every week, and suitable arrangements
+for this purpose shall be made by the occupier.
+
+10. The occupier shall provide and maintain--
+
+ (_a_) _Dining-room._--A dining-room, and
+
+ (_b_) _Cloak-room._--A cloak-room in which workers can
+ deposit clothing put off during working hours.
+
+11. _Food._--No person shall be allowed to prepare or partake of
+any food or drink in any room in which a phosphorus process is carried
+on, nor to bring any food or drink into such room.
+
+12. _Lavatory._--The occupier shall provide and maintain for the
+use of the workers a lavatory, with soap, nail-brushes, towels, and
+at least one lavatory basin for every five persons employed in any
+phosphorus process.
+
+Each such basin shall be fitted with a waste-pipe, or the basins shall
+be placed on a trough fitted with a waste-pipe. There shall be a
+constant supply of hot and cold water laid on to each basin.
+
+Or, in the place of basins, the occupier shall provide and maintain
+enamel or galvanised iron troughs, in good repair, of a total length
+of 2 feet for every five persons employed, fitted with waste-pipes
+and without plugs, with a sufficient supply of warm water constantly
+available.
+
+The lavatory shall be kept thoroughly cleansed, and shall be supplied
+with a sufficient quantity of clean towels twice in each day.
+
+_Additional means of Washing where required._--There shall, in
+addition, be means of washing in close proximity to the workers in any
+department, if so required in writing by the Inspector in charge of the
+District.
+
+13. _Mouth-wash._--The occupier shall provide for the use of every
+person employed in a phosphorus process an antiseptic mouth-wash
+approved by the Appointed Dentist, and a sufficient supply of glasses
+or cups.
+
+14. _Cleansing of Floors._--The floor of each room in which a
+phosphorus process is carried on shall be cleared of waste at least
+once a day, and washed at least once a week.
+
+15. _Copy of Rules to be given to Persons Employed._--A printed copy of
+these Rules shall be given to each person on entering upon employment
+in a phosphorus process.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF PERSONS EMPLOYED.
+
+16. _Use of Appliances provided by Occupier under Rule 3._--No person
+shall work in a mixing, dipping, drying, or boxing room under other
+conditions than those prescribed in Rule 3.
+
+17. _Phosphorus Paste._--No person shall allow a vessel containing
+phosphorus paste to remain uncovered except when actually in use.
+
+18. _Medical and Dental Examination._--All persons employed in a
+phosphorus process shall present themselves at the appointed times
+for examination by the Certifying Surgeon and Appointed Dentist, as
+provided in Rules 5, 6, and 8.
+
+19. _Toothache, etc., to be reported. Exclusion from Employment in
+Phosphorus Processes._--Every person employed in a phosphorus process
+and suffering from toothache or swelling of the jaw: or having had a
+tooth extracted, or having undergone any other operation involving
+exposure of the jaw, shall at once inform the occupier, and shall not
+resume employment in a phosphorus process without a certificate of
+fitness from the Appointed Dentist, as provided in Rule 6.
+
+No person, after suspension by the Appointed Dentist, or after
+reference to the Certifying Surgeon, shall resume employment in a
+phosphorus process without a certificate of fitness, as provided in
+Rule 6.
+
+20. _Overalls.-_-Every person employed in a phosphorus process for whom
+the occupier is required by Rule 9 to provide overalls shall wear while
+at work the overalls so provided.
+
+21. _Washing._--Every person employed in a phosphorus process shall,
+before partaking of meals or leaving the premises, deposit the overalls
+in the place appointed by the occupier for the purpose, and shall
+thoroughly wash in the lavatory.
+
+22. _Food._--No person shall prepare or partake of food or drink in any
+room in which a phosphorus process is being carried on, or bring any
+food or drink into such room.
+
+23. _Means of Removal of Dust and Fumes not to be interfered
+with._--No person shall in any way interfere, without the knowledge
+and concurrence of the occupier or manager, with the means and
+appliances provided for the removal of dust and fumes.
+
+24. _Foremen to Report Neglect of Rules._--Foremen and forewomen shall
+report to the manager any instance coming under their notice of a
+worker neglecting to observe these Rules.
+
+ ARTHUR WHITELEGGE,
+ _Chief Inspector of Factories_.
+
+ M. W. RIDLEY,
+ _One of Her Majesty’s Principal
+ Secretaries of State_.
+
+April 1900.
+
+ _Note._--These Rules must be kept posted up in conspicuous
+ places in the factory to which they apply, where they may
+ be conveniently read by persons employed. Any person who is
+ bound to observe these Rules and fails to do so, or acts in
+ contravention to them, is liable to a penalty, and in such cases
+ the occupier also is liable to a penalty, unless he proves that
+ he has taken all reasonable means by publishing, and to the best
+ of his power enforcing the Rules, to prevent the contravention
+ or non-compliance. (Factory and Workshop Act, 1891, Sections 9
+ and 11.)
+
+
+Form 385.
+
+ FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS, 1878 TO 1895.
+
+ _SPECIAL RULES, for works in which_
+ LEAD OR ARSENIC IS USED IN THE TINNING AND ENAMELLING
+ OF METAL HOLLOW WARE AND COOKING UTENSILS.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF OCCUPIERS.
+
+_Washing._--They shall provide washing conveniences, with a
+sufficient supply of hot and cold water, soap, nail-brushes, and
+towels; and take measures to secure that every worker wash face and
+hands before meals and before leaving the works.
+
+_Meals._--They shall see that no food is eaten in any room where
+the process of tinning or enamelling is carried on.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF PERSONS EMPLOYED.
+
+_Washing._--Every worker shall wash face and hands before meals
+and before leaving the works.
+
+_Meals._--No worker shall eat food in any room where the process
+of tinning or enamelling is carried on.
+
+ ARTHUR WHITELEGGE,
+ _H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories_.
+
+ _Note._--These Rules must be kept posted up in conspicuous
+ places in the factory to which they apply, where they may be
+ conveniently read by the person employed. Any person who is
+ bound to observe these Rules and fails to do so, or acts in
+ contravention of them, is liable to a penalty; and in such cases
+ the occupier also is liable to a penalty unless he proves that
+ he has taken all reasonable means by publishing, and to the best
+ of his power enforcing the Rules, to prevent the contravention
+ or non-compliance. (Factory and Workshop Act, 1891, Sections 9
+ and 11.)
+
+
+Form 386.
+
+ FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS, 1878 TO 1895.
+
+ _SPECIAL RULES._
+
+ ELECTRIC ACCUMULATOR WORKS.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF OCCUPIERS.
+
+_Bath, Lavatory._--They shall provide a bath and lavatory
+accommodation, with a plentiful supply of hot and cold water, soap,
+nail-brushes, and towels.
+
+_Respirators, Overalls._--They shall provide respirators and
+overall suits for all persons employed in the operation of mixing.
+
+_Gloves and Aprons._--They shall provide gloves and aprons for all
+persons employed in the occupation of rubbing.
+
+They shall see that the gloves are constantly inspected and renewed
+when defective.
+
+
+ DUTIES OF PERSONS EMPLOYED.
+
+In cases where the co-operation of the workers is required for carrying
+out the foregoing Rules, and where such co-operation is not given,
+the workers shall be held liable in accordance with the Factory and
+Workshop Act, 1891, Section 9, which runs as follows:--“If any person
+who is bound to observe any special rules established for any factory
+or workshop under this Act acts in contravention of, or fails to comply
+with, any such special rule, he shall be liable on summary conviction
+to a fine not exceeding two pounds.”
+
+ _Respirators._--A good respirator is a cambric bag with or
+ without a thin flexible wire made to fit over the nose.
+
+ ARTHUR WHITELEGGE,
+ _H.M. Chief Inspector of Factories_.
+
+
+
+
+ INDEX
+
+
+ Abel, Sir Frederick, process of treating gun-cotton, 600;
+ on tonite, 611.
+
+ Aberdeen, granite workers, suffer from chronic bronchitis, 275.
+
+ Abruzzi, lathyrism in the, 235.
+
+ Académie de Médecine (Paris), 57, 793.
+
+ Académie des Sciences (Paris), 114, 434.
+
+ Accident Insurance Associations (Germany), 50, 60, 512.
+
+ Accidents, in mines, 11, 12, 33, 157, 158, 161, 200, 508–33, 783;
+ in textile and non-textile industries, 12, 200;
+ their prevention in factories, 54;
+ to occupied and unoccupied males, 164;
+ on sailing- and steam-ships, 184;
+ on railways, 190–202;
+ in agriculture, 236, 783;
+ in electric works, 260;
+ caused by grindstones, 412, 784;
+ to bargemen, 530;
+ well-sinkers, 542;
+ quarriers, 560;
+ in manufacture and use of explosives, 601–9;
+ in tinplate works, 683;
+ aerated water works, 687, 786;
+ to eyes, in industrial occupations, 776–87;
+ in iron and steel works, 777;
+ boiler, 787.
+
+ Acetylene and its dangers, 497–504.
+
+ Acne in rag-grinders, 467.
+
+ Actinomycosis, disease caused by infected grain, 248.
+
+ Addison, Dr, 382.
+
+ Adenitis in label-lickers, 803.
+
+ Administrative decrees for sanitary regulation of factories in
+ France and Belgium, 55, 56.
+
+ Admiralty adopts eight hours’ day, 8.
+
+ Aerated water works, women employed in, 687–90;
+ Special Rules, 687, 854;
+ eye accidents in, 786.
+
+ Africa, pellagra in, 235.
+
+ Africa, South, enteric fever in, 175, 176, 178.
+
+ Africa, West Coast of, 171.
+
+ After-damp, in mines, 548–53.
+
+ Age, mortality of occupations in relation to, 127–29.
+
+ Agriculture, 232–37;
+ machinery accidents in, 236;
+ eye accidents, 783.
+
+ Agriculturists, 120;
+ mortality tables, 135, 149.
+
+ Ague, brassfounders’, 144, 455–62.
+
+ Air, of mines, 540–56;
+ of jute factories, 657;
+ diseases due to compressed and stagnant (in caissons, tunnels,
+ etc.), 728–48;
+ to diminished pressure of, 749;
+ to concussion of, 752.
+
+ Alabaster quarries, 558.
+
+ Albuminate of mercury, 437.
+
+ Alcohol and fatigue, 113.
+
+ Alcoholism, mortality among cutlers, 138, 595;
+ glass-makers, 139, 595;
+ chimney sweeps, 146;
+ musicians, 151;
+ hatters, 152;
+ hairdressers, 153;
+ tailors, 153, 154;
+ drapers, 154, 155;
+ shoemakers, 155, 824;
+ miners, 157, 160, 161, 405;
+ occupied and unoccupied men, 164, 595, 720;
+ in mercantile marine, 183, 185;
+ predisposes to plumbism, 305, 310;
+ quarriers, 563;
+ chemical workers, 572;
+ file-cutters, copper workers, carpenters, earthenware makers,
+ 595;
+ brewers, 595, 801;
+ hecklers and roughers, 697;
+ agriculturists, cotton operatives, 720;
+ drivers of public vehicles, 798, 801;
+ publicans and innkeepers, 801;
+ coal heavers and trimmers, 808.
+
+ Alkali Acts, 588, 597.
+
+ Alkali, manufacture of, 582;
+ hours of workers in, 586.
+
+ Alkali Union, 586, 588, 589.
+
+ Allahabad, lathyrism at, 235.
+
+ Allbutt’s _System of Medicine_, 309, 477, 819, 822.
+
+ _Allgm. Medic. Central Zeitung_, 474.
+
+ Almaden (Spain), quicksilver mines, 434, 438, 538.
+
+ Alpaca, 634.
+
+ Alpine tunnels, the, 737–43.
+
+ Alström, Mr (Rorstrand Potteries, Stockholm), 363.
+
+ Amalgamated Brass-Workers’ Association, 461.
+
+ Amberite, sporting powder, 619.
+
+ Amblyopia, blindness caused by bisulphide of carbon, 473, 768;
+ by dinitrobenzine, 482;
+ in tobacco factories, 768, 769.
+
+ America, railways in, 197, 198;
+ all file-cutting done by machinery, 346;
+ fireclay mines, 399, 400;
+ mercurial poisoning from hatters furriers’ processes in, 442;
+ mining accidents, 521, 522;
+ alkali works in, 598;
+ telegraphists’ spasm in, 820.
+
+ American, or Blake machine, in shoe-factories, 436, 825.
+
+ Ammonia soda process, 583.
+
+ Ammonite, for blasting, 619.
+
+ Ammonium-nitrate explosives, 603, 605, 606, 612, 615, 619.
+
+ Ammunition, manufacture of, 602, 603, 606.
+
+ Amorphous, or red, phosphorus, 417–19.
+
+ Amvis, for blasting, 619.
+
+ Anchylosis, 233.
+
+ Anchylostomiasis, 16; in miners, 537;
+ in tunnel miners (“maladie des tunnels”), 743.
+
+ Anderson, Miss A. M., 363, 671.
+
+ Andes, the, 749.
+
+ Andrews, Dr F. W., pathologist at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, 400;
+ on tetanus in jute-workers, 659.
+
+ Aneurism, affects sailors, 183, 184;
+ butchers, slaughterers, and tanners, 246;
+ (popliteal) common in jockeys and grooms, 245.
+
+ Aniline, 483, 591.
+
+ Aniline dyes, 317.
+
+ Ankle drop, a symptom of plumbism, 306.
+
+ _Annales d’Hygiène publique_, 442, 448, 806.
+
+ _Annales des Mines de Belgique_, 537.
+
+ Annealing, in glass manufacture, 805.
+
+ _Annuaire de la Législation du Travail_ (Belgium), 45.
+
+ _Annual Register_, 192.
+
+ Anthracene, 812.
+
+ Anthracosis, or miners’ phthisis, 273;
+ stokers’, 797.
+
+ Anthrax (charbon, splenic fever), 13, 19;
+ in wool-workers, 148, 244, 634–43;
+ drovers, shepherds, farmers, farriers, veterinary surgeons,
+ knackers, slaughterers, fell-mongers, hair- and horn-workers,
+ rag-sorters, plasterers, furriers, felt-workers,
+ mattress-makers, 244;
+ brush-workers, 244, 627;
+ tanners, 244, 246;
+ its history, 622;
+ statistics, 623;
+ outbreaks and notification of, 625, 626;
+ grouping of cases, 627;
+ preventive measures, disinfection and treatment, 629–33, 643;
+ cutaneous, 636;
+ pulmonary, 637;
+ intestinal, 641.
+
+ Antimony, smelting of, 270;
+ poisoning by, 324, 325;
+ compounds of, 592.
+
+ Apoplexy, heat, 171, 175, 180;
+ the “fireman’s frenzy” of stokers, 183, 184.
+
+ Appendicitis, 17.
+
+ _Arbeiten aus dem Kaiserlichen Gesundheitsamte_, 320, 368, 436,
+ 448, 625, 632.
+
+ Arbitration, and Factory Act of 1901, 5;
+ the principle of, 32;
+ for mines, 37, 39;
+ and Special Rules, 65–71;
+ match manufacturers, 423.
+
+ Arbitration Court at Stoke-on-Trent, 363.
+
+ _Archiv. de Med. Milit._, 750.
+
+ Ardeer, Scotland, nitro-glycerine explosion at, 609.
+
+ Arlidge, Dr, _Hygiene and Diseases of Occupations_, 137, 139, 140,
+ 274, 302, 328, 354, 380, 382, 384, 388, 467, 468, 498, 698,
+ 759;
+ _The Sanitation of Industries and Occupations_, 396.
+
+ Armstrong, Dr Henry E., Medical Officer of Health, Newcastle, 328,
+ 753.
+
+ Army, health of the, 166–81.
+
+ Arnaud, Dr, Marseilles, 424.
+
+ Arsenic, used for colouring purposes, 378;
+ symptoms and treatment of poisoning by, 455;
+ compounds of, 592;
+ its effects on eyes, 770;
+ Special Rules for extraction of, 831.
+
+ Arsenical pyrites, 538.
+
+ Arseniuretted hydrogen, 750.
+
+ Artificially- _v._ breast-fed children, 85.
+
+ Artisans and labourers, working-classes divided into, 111.
+
+ Asbestos, 25.
+
+ Ashanti Expeditions (1873 and 1895–96), “doctors’ wars,” 173, 180,
+ 181.
+
+ Ashley, Lord, 33.
+
+ Askam separator, for basic slag, 391.
+
+ Asprières, Aveyron, lead mining at, 284.
+
+ Asquith, H. H., 75, 354, 462, 468.
+
+ Asthma, induced by bichromate, 452;
+ in rag-sorters, 645;
+ flax-workers, 698;
+ sawyers, 791.
+
+ Ataxia, locomotor, 802.
+
+ Atkinson, Dr, Crewe, 796.
+
+ Atkinson, W. N., 541.
+
+ Atropin, antidote to mushroom poisoning, 237.
+
+ Australia, eight hours’ day in, 7;
+ anchylostomiasis among miners, 537.
+
+ Austria, factory legislation in, 46, 51, 54;
+ inspectorate in, 47, 48;
+ powers of health authorities, 49–51;
+ employment of women after childbirth, 54;
+ lucifer match industry in, 421, 422.
+
+ Austrian Industrial Code, 46.
+
+ Automatic couplings, on railways, 193, 197, 201.
+
+
+ Babes, Dr, Bucharest, 244.
+
+ Bacteriological Laboratory at Dey, Algiers, 803.
+
+ Bagehot, Walter, 64.
+
+ Baker, Mr, Chief of Factory Department, 35, 81, 696.
+
+ Bakers, death rate, 135, 505.
+
+ Ballard, Dr, 392.
+
+ Ballistite, 600, 619.
+
+ Balloonists, military, 750.
+
+ Balmskz, Dr, 481.
+
+ Bamberg, Dr, Stockholm, 379.
+
+ Bands, scroll- or draw-, 225.
+
+ Bargemen, accident death rate, 530.
+
+ Barium, compounds of, 592.
+
+ Barium nitrate, in explosives, 611.
+
+ Barium sulphate, 294, 366.
+
+ Barmen, high mortality of, 800.
+
+ Barometer-making, 439.
+
+ Barracks, military, 168.
+
+ Bartholomew, Gilbert, Managing Director of Bryant & May, 432.
+
+ Basalt or whinstone quarries, 558.
+
+ Basic slag, 276, 390–95;
+ pulmonary symptoms in grinders of, 393;
+ silicate of cotton made from refuse, 788.
+
+ Batch, fused mass of chrome, ironstone, etc., 449.
+
+ Bateman, Dr, 434.
+
+ Batley, rag-trade at, 644.
+
+ Battelli, Dr, Geneva University, 258.
+
+ Bayer, Dr, 284.
+
+ Beach, Sir Michael Hicks-, 193.
+
+ Beaconsfield, Lord, 192.
+
+ Bécourt, M., 448.
+
+ Bedson, Professor of Chemistry, Newcastle College of Science, 301,
+ 303, 310, 369.
+
+ Bee-stings, among field-workers, 236.
+
+ Beetling machines (linen manufacture), 695.
+
+ Belfast, centre of linen trade, 695.
+
+ Belgian Mills Co., Pearson _v._, 213.
+
+ Belgian Superior Council of Labour, 14.
+
+ Belgium, colliers’ diseases in, 16;
+ factory legislation and inspectorate in, 47, 49, 51;
+ employment of women after childbirth, 53;
+ use of white phosphorus limited in, 60;
+ fireclay mining in, 399;
+ lucifer match industry, 421, 424;
+ phosphorus necrosis in, 428;
+ mining accidents, 512, 519;
+ anchylostomiasis in miners, 537;
+ alkali works, 598;
+ miners’ nystagmus in, 764;
+ chimney sweeps, 811.
+
+ Bell, Sir Charles, 815.
+
+ Bellhangers, death rate, 755.
+
+ Bellite, for blasting, 619.
+
+ Belts and mill-gearing, 205, 208–11;
+ shaftings, pulleys, couplings, etc., 209.
+
+ Benefit Societies of the Printers and Type-casters of Vienna, 275.
+
+ Benzine, and its dinitro compounds, 475.
+
+ Benzine, dry cleaning by, 491–3.
+
+ _Berg-, Hütten-, und Salinen-wesen im Preussischen Staate,
+ Zeitschrift für des_, 518, 537.
+
+ _Berg- und Hütten-wesen im Königreiche Sachsen, Jahrbuch für das_,
+ 518.
+
+ Beriberi, seamen liable to, 183, 187.
+
+ _Berichte über die Verwaltung der Knappschafts-Berufsgenossenschaft_,
+ 517.
+
+ Berkfeld, his bacterial filter, 175.
+
+ Berlin, printers in, 325;
+ manufacture of incandescent electric lamps in, 439.
+
+ Berlin International Conference on Factories, 40.
+
+ _Berlin. Klin. Wochenschrift_, 805.
+
+ Bermondsey, case of anthrax in, 629.
+
+ Bernard, Claude, 550.
+
+ Bert, Paul, French physiologist, 736.
+
+ Bertarelli, M., 431.
+
+ Berthelot, Professor, 599.
+
+ Besançon process for treating white lead, 290, 294.
+
+ Bessemer metal, heat of, 772.
+
+ Bessemer process of steel manufacture, 758.
+
+ Bevel wheels (mill-gearing), 212, 217.
+
+ Bichât Hospital, Paris, lead colic patients in, 320.
+
+ Bichloride of mercury (corrosive sublimate), 442, 443.
+
+ Bichromate of potassium and sodium (bichromes), lesions resulting
+ from manufactureand use of, 447–54;
+ Special Rules for manufacture, 844.
+
+ Bilston, hollow ware tinning and enamelling works at, 319.
+
+ Birmingham, infant mortality, in, 78;
+ iron-plate enamelling at, 317;
+ sheet glass manufacture in, 804.
+
+ _Birmingham Medical Review_, 458.
+
+ Birmingham, Dr C. L., _Ganister Disease_, 396, 399.
+
+ Birtwistle, Hindle _v._, 214.
+
+ Bischof process, in white lead manufacture, 292.
+
+ Biscuit, earthenware after its first firing, 348, 383.
+
+ Bismarck brown pigment, 483.
+
+ Bisulphide of carbon, poisoning by, 19, 42, 481;
+ used in indiarubber works, 470, 855;
+ causes peripheral neuritis, 472;
+ and toxic hysteria, 473;
+ its effects on eyes, 768;
+ Special Rules for use of, 855.
+
+ Bituminous coal mines, America, 522.
+
+ Blackbeck, Haverthwaite, gunpowder explosions at, 608, 609.
+
+ Blackburn, cotton spinning at, 706;
+ death rate of cotton operatives in, 718.
+
+ Blackburn Observatory, daily records of moisture in weaving sheds,
+ 710.
+
+ Black-damp, in mines, 540–45.
+
+ Blackman’s ventilating fan, 698.
+
+ Blacksmiths, their diseases and death rate, 135, 757.
+
+ Blackwall Tunnel, 730.
+
+ Blake sole-stitching machine, 436, 825.
+
+ Blanket-stoving, 648;
+ causes bronchitis and emphysema, 649.
+
+ Blast furnacemen, their diseases, 756.
+
+ Blasting explosives, 559, 619;
+ fumes produced in mines by, 536;
+ eye accident from, 784.
+
+ Blasting gelatine (nitro-cotton dissolved into nitro-glycerine),
+ 555, 559, 614, 619.
+
+ Blaudet, M., 468.
+
+ Bleach packers, 577, 578.
+
+ Bleaching linen, 695.
+
+ Bleaching powder, manufacture of, 574–80;
+ hours of work, etc., 587.
+
+ Blindness, caused by accidents, 776.
+
+ Bloomfontein, 178.
+
+ Blowing room (cotton spinning), 702.
+
+ Blue and white beds, in a lead factory, 289.
+
+ Blyth, Wynter, 310.
+
+ Board of Trade, and railways, 191–202.
+
+ Bobbin-turners (jute works), 652.
+
+ Boers, the, 179.
+
+ Bohemia, ergotism in, 234;
+ lucifer match works in, 422.
+
+ Boiler Explosives Act, 565.
+
+ Boilermakers, their deafness, 752;
+ their health, 753, 754.
+
+ Boilermakers’ Society, 752.
+
+ Bolam, Dr R. A., 274, 277, 337, 792.
+
+ Bolt-heads and bolts for mill-gearing, 209.
+
+ Bones, fragility of, in lucifer match makers, 425.
+
+ Bookbinders, death rate, 150.
+
+ Bootmaking, 822.
+
+ Bottlers, of aerated water, 687;
+ eye accidents to, 786.
+
+ Bouquet, M., 57.
+
+ Bourgeois, _La Pustule Maligne et L’Œdème Malin_, 636.
+
+ Bournemouth, horses killed by electric shock at, 256.
+
+ Boyce, Professor, 629.
+
+ Boys, Professor C. V., 259.
+
+ Bradford, School Board and Board of Guardians Conference at, 91;
+ wool industry at, 634.
+
+ Brain work, and brain fatigue, 109.
+
+ Brakesmen, railway, 195.
+
+ Brandt, of Hamburg, discovers white or yellow phosphorus, 418.
+
+ Brandt, Brandau et Cie., Zurich, 740.
+
+ Brass, manufacture of, 455–66.
+
+ Brass-casters, 455, 461.
+
+ Brass cocks, buffing of, 371.
+
+ Brassfounders’ ague, 144, 455–62.
+
+ Brass-workers, death rate, 135, 144;
+ more unhealthy than copper-, 468;
+ Special Rules, 850.
+
+ Brass-workers’ Organisation, 460.
+
+ Brazil, pellagra in, 235.
+
+ Breaker card (jute), 653;
+ (flax), 694.
+
+ Breaker-mills, for ganister crushing, 397.
+
+ Brewers, death rate, 594, 595, 801.
+
+ Brickearth quarries, 558.
+
+ Bricklayers, death rate, 135;
+ eye accidents, 784, 785.
+
+ Bridges, Dr, Inspector of Factories, 705.
+
+ Bright’s disease, miners subject to, 157.
+
+ Brigue (Simplon Tunnel), 740, 741.
+
+ Brimstone, blanket-stoving with, 648.
+
+ Brine works (Germany), accidents in, 513–15.
+
+ _British Association Report_, 538.
+
+ British Medical Association, 73, 75, 87, 796.
+
+ _British Medical Journal_, 75, 109, 258, 308, 425, 466, 482, 502,
+ 550, 766, 769, 809.
+
+ Brocoorens, Dr, Grammont, 424.
+
+ Broken Hill, Australia, lead mining at, 283, 538.
+
+ Bromsgrove, nail-making at, 759.
+
+ Bronchial affections, among porcelain- and cement-makers, masons,
+ 274;
+ blast furnacemen, 756;
+ glass-makers, 805.
+
+ Bronchitis, in seamen, 183;
+ field-workers, 234;
+ Aberdeen granite workers, 275;
+ typographers, 329, 330;
+ coal and metal miners, 535;
+ rag-sorters, 645;
+ blanket-stovers, 649;
+ jute-workers, 660;
+ jam-makers, 680;
+ occupied and unoccupied males, agriculturists, cotton operatives,
+ 720;
+ boilermakers, shipwrights, 754;
+ sawyers, 791;
+ engine drivers, 796.
+
+ Bronzing, dry, 268;
+ brass, 465.
+
+ Brooklyn Suspension Bridge, 731, 734.
+
+ Brose, Dr, 773.
+
+ Brown, Dr Ed., 26.
+
+ Brunel, 191;
+ his use of caissons, 731.
+
+ Brünner, Mond, & Co., 583, 587, 588, 597.
+
+ Bruntscliffe, Yorks., gunpowder explosion at Victoria Colliery,
+ 608.
+
+ Brush-workers, 244;
+ anthrax in, 627.
+
+ Bryant & May, 425, 427, 432;
+ their allowance to necrosis patients, 20.
+
+ Buchanan, Dr George, Medical Officer Local Government Board, 467,
+ 705.
+
+ Buckingham, Duke of, 192.
+
+ Buda Pesth, manufacture of incandescent electric lamps at, 439;
+ steam roller system of milling, 505.
+
+ Budd, Dr William, 623.
+
+ Buffing, of brass cocks, and plumbism, 371;
+ of silver, eye affections, 771.
+
+ Buhrstone, French, 405–7, 784.
+
+ Bulhurst coal seam, North Staff., 555.
+
+ _Bulletin de l’Inspection du Travail_ (France), 45, 294.
+
+ _Bulletin Médical_, 803.
+
+ Bunsen burner, 546.
+
+ Burgess, Dr Duncan, Senior Physician, Sheffield Royal Hospital,
+ 409.
+
+ Burkitt, Dr, 554.
+
+ Burnishers of silver, eye affections, 771.
+
+ Burns, John, M.P., 14.
+
+ Burslem potteries, 346.
+
+ Busquet, Surgeon-Major, French Army, 803.
+
+ Butchers, 245.
+
+ Butlin, Henry T., Surgeon St Bartholomew’s Hospital, _Cancer of the
+ Scrotum in Chimney Sweeps_, 809, 811, 812.
+
+ Byssinosis, lung disease from inhaling cotton particles, 273.
+
+
+ Cabmen, and alcoholism, 798, 801.
+
+ Cage hoists, 220.
+
+ Caisson disease (compressed air illness), 537, 728–35;
+ its treatment, 735.
+
+ Caissons, for well-boring, bridge-building, etc., 728–31.
+
+ Calcium carbide, 497, 499–501.
+
+ Calcott, Dr, Newcastle Asylum at Cox Lodge, 799.
+
+ Calender machine, adapted to laundry work, 666.
+
+ Calico-printing, 317, 447.
+
+ Calliard or ganister stone, 396.
+
+ Calomel (the subchloride of mercury), 442, 443.
+
+ Camel’s wool or hair, 634.
+
+ Campbell and Greenwood’s guard, 229.
+
+ Camphor, 792.
+
+ Canada, use of corundum stone in, 813.
+
+ Cancer, affects glass-makers, 139;
+ chimney sweeps, 146, 809;
+ wool-workers, 148;
+ bookbinders, 150;
+ shoemakers, 155;
+ miners, 158, 161, 162;
+ occupied and unoccupied men, 164;
+ field-workers, 234;
+ gardeners, 237;
+ boilermakers, and shipwrights, 754;
+ workers in tar and paraffin, 812.
+
+ Cannonite, 619.
+
+ Carbide of calcium, 497, 499–501.
+
+ Carbon, all explosives contain, 610.
+
+ Carbon bisulphide, _see_ bisulphide of carbon.
+
+ Carbon monoxide, 610;
+ in tunnels, 744.
+
+ Carbonate of lead (_céruse_), 288, 292.
+
+ Carbonators, 291.
+
+ Carbonic acid (carbon dioxide), in mines, 544–46;
+ in weaving sheds, 713;
+ in tunnels, 744.
+
+ Carbonic anhydride, 610.
+
+ Carbonic oxide, or carbon monoxide, 536, 548–55.
+
+ Carbonising, process applied to cotton rags, 646.
+
+ Carbonite, blasting explosive, 555, 620.
+
+ Carding, jute, 653;
+ flax, 698;
+ cotton, 703.
+
+ Cardio-vascular disease, in quarriers, 563.
+
+ Carmarthen, tinplate works at, 681.
+
+ Carotting, brushing rabbit skins, 438, 441, 442, 446.
+
+ Carpenters, death rate, 594, 595;
+ subject to contracted tendons, hernia, varicocele, 791.
+
+ Carpet manufacturers, death rate, 135.
+
+ Carr, Henry, _Our Domestic Poisons_, 379.
+
+ Carragheen moss, Irish, 695.
+
+ Carriage wheels, 225.
+
+ Cartmen, 238.
+
+ Casters, printing trade, lead dust, 275;
+ transfer making, 455, 461.
+
+ Castings of iron or steel, 780.
+
+ Casualties at sea, 184.
+
+ Catania, 112.
+
+ Cataract, in glass blowers, 773, 806.
+
+ Cats, diphtheria caught from, 247;
+ experiments with benzine and toluene on, 476.
+
+ Cattani, discovers tetanus bacilli, 241.
+
+ Cattle, anthrax in, 624.
+
+ Caustic soda, manufacture of, 573.
+
+ “Cavalryman’s leg,” 245.
+
+ Celluloid, manufacture of, 792.
+
+ Cement dust, diseases caused by, 274.
+
+ Centanni, Professor, and hydrophobia, 244.
+
+ _Céruse_ (carbonate of lead), 288, 292.
+
+ Ceylon, 173.
+
+ Chabert, Dr, 623.
+
+ Chadwick, Sir Edwin, 26.
+
+ Chaff-cutting machines, 224;
+ eye accidents, 783.
+
+ Chain and nail making, 758.
+
+ Chalicosis, or silicosis, lung disease due to dust, etc., 273.
+
+ Chalk quarries, 558.
+
+ Chamberland, Pasteur-, his bacterial filter, 175.
+
+ _Chambers’ Encyclopædia_, 399.
+
+ Chance’s process, in sulphur manufacture, 582.
+
+ Charbon or anthrax, _see_ anthrax.
+
+ Charcoal, 811.
+
+ Charcot, Dr, 481.
+
+ Chauveau, M.A., 114, 630.
+
+ Chemical industry, causes of its decline in England, 5;
+ its decay on Tyneside, 6;
+ a survey of, 566–98;
+ table of average hours of labour and wages in, 585;
+ output method of wage-paying, 589;
+ health of workers in, 592–98;
+ Special Rules for, 843.
+
+ Chepstow, use of caissons at, 731.
+
+ Chert quarries, 558.
+
+ Cheshire salt mines, 508.
+
+ Chester, tobacco factory at, 769.
+
+ Chevallier, Dr, 448.
+
+ Cheyne-Stokes respiration, 478.
+
+ Chick-pea (lathyrus), 235.
+
+ Child-birth, employment of women in factories after, 53, 54.
+
+ Child-labour, 90–97.
+
+ Children, high mortality of lead-workers’, 303.
+
+ Children’s Employment Commission (1862), Report of, 35.
+
+ Chimney sweeps, death rate, 135, 145;
+ cancer in, 146, 809;
+ pulmonary, kidney, and heart disease in, 808;
+ their ablutions, 811.
+
+ China, or porcelain, 349.
+
+ China clay, 347, 382, 558.
+
+ China manufacturers, 36, 43;
+ death rate, 135;
+ liable to pulmonary disease and phthisis, 382–89;
+ Special Rules for, 834–41.
+
+ China-red powder, 370.
+
+ Chipping in iron and steel works, 779–82.
+
+ Chlorate of potass, 419, 420.
+
+ Chlorate mixtures, as explosives, 602.
+
+ Chlorine, 574–80, 583.
+
+ Choquet, Dr, 326.
+
+ Chromate of lead, 315.
+
+ Chromate of potassium, Special Rules for manufacture of, 844.
+
+ Chrome dyes, 315–17.
+
+ Chrome holes, ulcers caused by bichromate, 453.
+
+ Chrome ironstone, 449.
+
+ Chromo-lithographic works and transfer making, 365.
+
+ Cigar manufacture, 793;
+ a proper industry for women, 795.
+
+ Cincinnati, tobacco works in, 769.
+
+ _Cincinnati Lancet Clinic_, 769.
+
+ Cinnabar, 434;
+ extraction of quicksilver from, 438.
+
+ Circular saw, 227.
+
+ Circulatory diseases, among gunsmiths, steel-, zinc-, and
+ brass-workers, chimney sweeps, coopers, wood-turners, rope
+ makers, bricklayers, masons, carpet makers, tin- and
+ wool-workers, locksmiths, bakers, 135;
+ blacksmiths, 135, 757;
+ earthenware- and china-workers, 135, 136, 595;
+ glass-makers, 135, 139, 595;
+ copper-workers, 135, 140, 595;
+ iron-workers, 135, 141;
+ lead-workers, 135, 143, 595;
+ stone quarriers, 135, 143;
+ cutlers, file-makers, cotton operatives, 135, 595;
+ bookbinders, 150;
+ printers, musicians, 151;
+ miners, 158, 161;
+ brewers, carpenters, chemical workers, 595;
+ occupied and unoccupied males, 595, 720;
+ agriculturists, 720;
+ boilermakers and shipwrights, 754.
+
+ Cirrhosis of liver, in barmen, 801.
+
+ Cirrhosis of lung (potters’ phthisis), 389.
+
+ Classification of industries, 123.
+
+ Clay quarries, 558.
+
+ Claybury Asylum, Essex, 308.
+
+ Clichy (France), white lead works at, 311, 312.
+
+ Climbing boys, in chimney sweeping, 810, 811.
+
+ _Clinical Journal_, 746.
+
+ Cloth manufacture, 644.
+
+ Clowes, _Detection of Inflammable Gas_, 546.
+
+ Coachmen, liable to glanders and farcy, 238.
+
+ Coachpainters, and plumbism, 338.
+
+ Coal, four kinds of heating, 811.
+
+ Coal-dust, an explosive agent, 526.
+
+ Coal heavers and trimmers, subject to alcoholism, phthisis, and
+ pulmonary diseases, 808.
+
+ Coal miners, comparison of night and day shift work, 9;
+ and Workmen’s Compensation Act, 10, 11;
+ death rate of, 158;
+ technical education of, 529;
+ their diseases, 533–39;
+ more healthy than metal-, 534;
+ nystagmus, 761–64;
+ eye accidents to, 783.
+
+ Coal mines, accidents in,--Germany, 511–19;
+ France, 512, 520;
+ Belgium, 512, 519;
+ Italy, 520;
+ America, 521;
+ England, 523–28;
+ death rate from explosions, 525;
+ falls of coal and roof (“backbye” accidents), 526, 527;
+ safety lamps, 527;
+ transport and shaft accidents, 528;
+ explosions and explosives in, 548, 615–18.
+
+ Coal Mines Act (1850 and 1855), 33;
+ (1860), 34, 199;
+ (1872), 34, 37;
+ (1881 and 1887), 38;
+ Regulation Act, 511, 517, 529.
+
+ Coal Mines, Royal Commission (1862–4) on, 38.
+
+ Coalport China Co., 360.
+
+ Coal tar, in indiarubber work, 470;
+ its products, 590;
+ eye accidents from, 770.
+
+ Cobalt, oxide of, 348.
+
+ Colefax, M., 363.
+
+ Colic, an early symptom of plumbism, 15, 305;
+ of electricians, 320;
+ file-cutters, 343;
+ brass-workers, 460;
+ copper-workers, 468.
+
+ Collars, for mill-gearing, 209.
+
+ Collings, Jesse, 361.
+
+ Colour grinders, lead insanity, 308;
+ mixers, and plumbism, 335.
+
+ Colour and paint factories, 447;
+ Special Rules for, 831.
+
+ Combe’s method, for treating white lead, 290, 313.
+
+ _Comité Consultatif d’Hygiène_, 294.
+
+ _Commission Supérieure du Travail dans l’Industrie_, 49.
+
+ Compensation Acts, Workmen’s, 224.
+
+ Compositors, _see_ typographers.
+
+ Compositors, London Society of, 328;
+ Mortality Table, 330.
+
+ Compressed and stagnant air, diseases due to working in, 728–48.
+
+ Concussion of the air, effects of, 752.
+
+ Conductors, of electricity, 251, 252.
+
+ Confectioners, death rate, 135;
+ liable to caries of the teeth, ophthalmia, etc., 798.
+
+ _Congrès International des Accidents du Travail_ (Brussels), 14.
+
+ Conjunctivitis, due to dusty occupations, 783;
+ to lime, 785.
+
+ _Conseil de Salubrité_, 36.
+
+ Converters, in steel works, 757.
+
+ Cooks, in mercantile marine, 189;
+ health of domestic, 798.
+
+ Coopers, death rate, 135.
+
+ Cope Bros., tobacco manufacturers, 769.
+
+ Copper, arsenites of, 379.
+
+ Copper-miners, death rate, 156, 162;
+ a healthy occupation, 538.
+
+ Copper-smelting, 466–69.
+
+ Copper-workers, death rate, 135, 139, 594, 595;
+ their occupation less dangerous than that of brass-, 468.
+
+ Cops, for jute yarn, 654.
+
+ _Corchorus capsularis, C. olitarus_, jute fibre obtained from, 650.
+
+ Cordite, 599, 600, 619.
+
+ Cornbrook, Manchester, lyddite explosion at, 609.
+
+ Cornish clay, 347, 382.
+
+ Cornwall, tin miners, 162;
+ liable to phthisis, bronchitis, and pneumonia, 535;
+ intermarriage among quarriers in, 562.
+
+ Corrosive sublimate (bichloride of mercury), 437, 442, 443.
+
+ Corundum stone, for emery wheels, 813.
+
+ Cotton, manufacture of, 702–23.
+
+ Cotton Cloth Factories Act, 679, 706, 713.
+
+ Cotton dust, 276, 715.
+
+ Cotton factories, standard purity of air in, 41;
+ machinery in, 703;
+ humidity of the air in, 707–14.
+
+ Cotton famine in Lancashire, 75.
+
+ Cotton operatives, death rate, 135, 147;
+ (Blackburn), 721.
+
+ Cotton powder, or tonite, 620.
+
+ Cotton rags, 644.
+
+ Council of Hygiene (Paris), 327.
+
+ Couplings, automatic, on railways, 193, 197, 201;
+ for mill-gearing, 209.
+
+ Courtois, 293.
+
+ Courtois-Suffit, Dr, 431.
+
+ Coventry, prostration of trade (1861) in, 75;
+ sale of Godfrey’s cordial and opiates in, 79, 80.
+
+ Cowmen, 246, 247.
+
+ Cowpox, or vaccinia, cowmen and dairymaids liable to, 246.
+
+ Cows, communicate tuberculosis, diphtheria, scarlet fever, and
+ ringworm, 247.
+
+ Cradley Heath, chain making at, 759.
+
+ Craig, Montrose, nitro-glycerine explosion at, 607, 608.
+
+ Cramp, W. D., Factory Inspector, 354, 695.
+
+ Cranes, winches, etc., 221.
+
+ Crarae Quarry, Loch Fyne, gunpowder explosion at, 611.
+
+ Crèche, the, its proper sphere, 83;
+ for flax-workers, 701.
+
+ Cripps, Mr, K.C., 363.
+
+ Crocus, a fine powder for polishing steel, 411.
+
+ Crommelin, Louis, sketch of the Irish linen trade, 691.
+
+ Crouch ware, 347.
+
+ Cumberland, ironstone mines, 161;
+ lead mines, 283.
+
+ Cummings, D. C., Secretary Boilermakers’ Society, 753.
+
+ Cundill, Colonel, 607.
+
+ Cunningham, Dr George, 417.
+
+ Curgenven, Mr, 80.
+
+ Curing, in indiarubber works, 768.
+
+ Currents, electrical, 251.
+
+ Curtis’ and Harvey’s sporting powder, 611.
+
+ Cutlers, death rate, 135, 137, 594, 595.
+
+ Cutler’s glazer, or emery wheel, 412, 777, 813.
+
+ Cutlery, scale tang, 413.
+
+ Cyanide of potassium, in gold mining, 509;
+ in glazed ware, 807.
+
+ Cyanides, the, 592.
+
+ Cymmer, Glamorganshire, dynamite explosion at, 608.
+
+
+ Dairymaids, 246, 247.
+
+ Dangerous trades, or industries, historical sketch of legislation
+ for, 24–43;
+ their regulation in chief countries of Europe, 44–62;
+ Special Rules for, 59, 827–64;
+ principles of prospective legislation for, 63–72.
+
+ Dangerous Trades Committee, 14, 57, 68, 260, 316, 338–40, 342, 343,
+ 345, 346, 405, 406, 687, 757, 758, 784, 786, 789, 803, 813.
+
+ D’Arsonval, Dr, 258, 263.
+
+ Darwin, 94.
+
+ Davaine, and the anthrax bacillus, 623.
+
+ Davidson’s ventilating fan, 698.
+
+ Davis, Bremner, 258.
+
+ Deacon’s process for treating bleaching powder, 575, 578–80.
+
+ Deafness, in jute-workers, 660;
+ boilermakers and riveters, 752.
+
+ Dealers in alcoholic drinks, high mortality of, 800.
+
+ Deane, Miss, Factory Inspector, 302, 442.
+
+ Dearden, Dr, Manchester, 425.
+
+ _Decennial Supplements to Reports of Registrar-General_, 118–28,
+ 150, 389, 525, 530, 717, 719.
+
+ Decorators, lead insanity in, 308.
+
+ Decrees for sanitary regulation of factories in France and Belgium,
+ 55, 56.
+
+ Deepcar, near Sheffield, ganister works at, 784.
+
+ Deer and anthrax, 624.
+
+ Delpech and Hillairet, _Memoire ... des chromates_, 448, 452.
+
+ Denmark, inspectorate in, 49;
+ ventilation of factories in, 51;
+ employment of women after childbirth, 54;
+ use of white phosphorus interdicted in, 421.
+
+ Derby, Lord, 191.
+
+ Derbyshire mines, 158–60;
+ pig-lead in, 283.
+
+ Dermatoconiosis, skin disease caused by dust, 268;
+ flax-workers subject to, 269, 699.
+
+ Desilvering of lead, 287.
+
+ Destructors, dust, 279.
+
+ Detonators, 602, 603, 605, 606.
+
+ _Deutsche Milit. Zeitschrift_, 751.
+
+ _Deutsche Zeitschrift für Chirurgie_, 812.
+
+ Devon, tin mines, 162;
+ clay, 347.
+
+ Dhobie itch, a complaint among soldiers in India, 176.
+
+ Diabetes, in drapers, 154;
+ miners, 158;
+ engine drivers, 796;
+ publicans, etc., 802.
+
+ Diamond Match Co., Liverpool, 429.
+
+ Diarrhœa, seamen subject to, 185.
+
+ _Dictionary of Explosives_, 599.
+
+ Digestive diseases, in glass-makers, 139, 595;
+ iron and steel workers, 141;
+ lead-workers, 143, 595;
+ quarriers, 144, 563;
+ brass-workers, 145;
+ wool-workers, 148;
+ printers, musicians, 151;
+ tailors, 154;
+ ironstone miners, 161;
+ typographers, 275;
+ brewers, 595;
+ cutlers, file-cutters, carpenters, chemical workers, earthenware
+ makers, 595;
+ occupied and unoccupied men, 720;
+ engine drivers, 796.
+
+ Dijon Academy, 293.
+
+ Dilke, Sir C. W., 14.
+
+ Dinas rock, 396.
+
+ Dingle, Dr, Medical Officer of Health, Middlesborough, 394.
+
+ Dinitrobenzine, its effects on makers of high explosives, 475–90.
+
+ Dinitrobenzol, 615, 619;
+ manufacture of, 765–67;
+ its effect on the eyes, 766.
+
+ Dinitronaphthalene, 619.
+
+ Dinitrotoluene, 476.
+
+ Dioxide, sulphur, 580, 581.
+
+ Diphtheria, caused by cows’ milk and cats, 247.
+
+ Dippers (pottery), 383;
+ (brass), 465;
+ (dinitrobenzol manufacture), 765.
+
+ Disease, dust as a cause of occupation, 267–77.
+
+ Disease, industrial, various definitions of, 14, 15;
+ good effects of notification of, 22.
+
+ Diseases of Animals Act, 624.
+
+ Distoma hepaticum, or liver fluke, in shepherds, 249.
+
+ Districts, industrial, agricultural, mining, 120.
+
+ Divers’ paralysis, 746;
+ its treatment, 748.
+
+ Dock labourers, death rate from accidents, 530;
+ anthrax in, 628.
+
+ Doffer knife, for flax, 694.
+
+ Doffers, mill fever and skin eruptions in, 699.
+
+ Domestic servants, subject to ulceration of stomach, 798.
+
+ Dominion Carbide Works (Ottawa), 501.
+
+ Don, Valley of the, centre of the ganister-crushing industry, 396.
+
+ Donaldson, 97.
+
+ Dorset clay, 347.
+
+ Douchy mine (France), 730.
+
+ Dowling, _Influence of Tobacco on Vision; some Investigations made
+ in Tobacco Manufactories of Cincinnati_, 769.
+
+ Downcast shaft (mines), 540.
+
+ Drapers, death rate, 154.
+
+ Draw- or scroll-bands, 225.
+
+ Drawers, in cotton spinning, 703.
+
+ Dreschfeld, Dr, 481.
+
+ Dressing in iron and steel works, 779.
+
+ Drivers of public vehicles, subject to alcoholism, gout,
+ rheumatism, etc., 798.
+
+ Driving belts, for mill-gearing, 211.
+
+ Drovers, anthrax in, 244.
+
+ Dry bronzing, 268.
+
+ Dry grinders, mortality of, 409, 415, 416.
+
+ Drysalting hides and skins, Special Rules for, 856.
+
+ Dubini, of Milan, 743.
+
+ Dublin, shock from electric lamp at, 257.
+
+ Dudfield, Dr, 280.
+
+ Dudley, hollow ware manufacture at, 319;
+ chain making at, 759.
+
+ Dundee, chief jute manufacture seat, 651–62.
+
+ Dupré, Dr, 613, 716, 767.
+
+ Dupuytren’s contraction, in field-workers, 233;
+ gardeners, 237;
+ quarriers, 564.
+
+ Durham, coal mines in, 158–60;
+ lead mines, 283, 284.
+
+ Durham County Hospital, 808.
+
+ Dust as a cause of occupation diseases, 267–77.
+
+ Dust destructors, 279.
+
+ Dust-producing occupations, 134–65;
+ their relative mortality, 135.
+
+ Dust women, 278–81.
+
+ Dye works, poisoning in, 315–17;
+ and eye troubles, 770;
+ Special Rules for, 850.
+
+ Dyeing, 447.
+
+ Dynamite, 556, 559, 600, 614, 620;
+ gelatine, 559, 599, 600, 620.
+
+ Dynamos, 251.
+
+ Dysentery, among soldiers, 174, 177;
+ sailors, 183, 185.
+
+
+ E.C. powder, 619.
+
+ Ear affections, in quarrymen, 563.
+
+ Earle, Sir James, edition of Percivall Pott’s _Works_, 237.
+
+ Earthenware manufacture, 35, 36, 43;
+ death rate in, 135, 594, 595;
+ and plumbism, 360;
+ Special Rules for, 834–41.
+
+ East London, anthrax cases in, 627.
+
+ _Economic Journal_, 278, 795.
+
+ Eczema, 270.
+
+ Edge runner mills, 390, 391.
+
+ _Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal_, 434, 482.
+
+ Edwards, James H., ship-repairer, South Shields, 495.
+
+ Egypt, 171.
+
+ Egyptian flax, 699.
+
+ Egyptians, anthrax the “grievous murrain” of the, 622;
+ as glass makers, 804.
+
+ Ehrenfield, glass-makers at, 806.
+
+ Eissler, Professor, 599.
+
+ Electric accumulator works and lead poisoning, 320;
+ Special Rules for, 863.
+
+ Electric, baths, 375–77;
+ currents, 251;
+ generating works, 250–66;
+ generators, 208;
+ incandescent lamp manufacture, 439;
+ light, its effect on eyes, 773–75;
+ tramways, 323;
+ welding, its effect on eyes, 774.
+
+ Electric shock, deaths from, 253–60;
+ suggestions for treating apparent death from, 263.
+
+ Electrical furnaces, 497;
+ meters, 440.
+
+ _Electrical Review_, 258, 263.
+
+ Electrical treatment in plumbism, 315, 373–77.
+
+ Electrolysis of salt, 583.
+
+ Electronite, for blasting, 619.
+
+ Electroplating, 440.
+
+ Elterwater, Westmoreland, gunpowder explosion at, 608.
+
+ Elvatka guard, 227.
+
+ Emery rock, imported from Smyrna and Naxos, 813.
+
+ Emery wheel, or cutler’s glazer, 412, 773, 813.
+
+ Emphysema, in seamen, 183;
+ porcelain- and cement-makers, masons, 274;
+ millers, bakers, 505;
+ blanket-stovers, 649;
+ jute-workers, 660.
+
+ Employers’ Associations (France), 55.
+
+ Employers’ Liability Act (1880), 9, 20, 565.
+
+ Employment of Boys in the Sweeping of Chimneys in England Acts,
+ 812.
+
+ Enamelling, of iron plates, 317;
+ of hollow ware, 319;
+ Special Rules for, 833, 848, 863.
+
+ Encephalopathy, cerebral type of plumbism, 288, 307, 326, 366, 369.
+
+ _Encyclopédie d’Hygiène_, 325.
+
+ Engine drivers, their diseases, 796, 797.
+
+ Engine-makers, death rate, 755.
+
+ Engines, steam-, gas-, and oil-, 206.
+
+ England, the pioneer of factory legislation, 3;
+ causes of decline of chemical and metallurgical industries in, 5;
+ lagging behind in factory legislation, 45;
+ decay of lead mining in, 283;
+ white lead made by _old Dutch_ process in, 288.
+
+ _English Sanitary Science_, 76.
+
+ Enteric fever, 174;
+ among soldiers, 177–79;
+ sailors, with table of mortality, 187, 188;
+ among field-workers, 234;
+ boilermakers and shipwrights, 754.
+
+ Enteroconiosis, gastro-intestinal lesion caused by dust, 268, 273.
+
+ Epernon, Seine Valley, buhrstone imported from, 405.
+
+ Equalised Druids Society, 776.
+
+ Ergograph, instrument for estimating muscular work, 105.
+
+ Ergotism, disease caused by spurred rye, 234.
+
+ Erith, gunpowder explosion at, 607, 608.
+
+ Erysipelas, in butchers, slaughterers, tanners, 245;
+ upholsterers, 789.
+
+ Erysipelatous anthrax, 636.
+
+ Ethane, fire-damp in mines, 546.
+
+ Eulenberg, Dr, 324, 794.
+
+ Europe, use of phosphorus in, 421.
+
+ Expert-Besançon et Cie., Paris, their process for treating white
+ lead, 290, 294.
+
+ Explosions in collieries, 548.
+
+ Explosives, comparative safety of manufacture of, 17;
+ high, 475–90;
+ nitro-glycerine, 536;
+ gases from, 555;
+ in quarries, 559;
+ and explosions, 599–620;
+ Special Rules for manufacture of, 842.
+
+ Explosives Act, 565.
+
+ Eye diseases, caused by dinitrobenzine, 482;
+ in quarries, 564;
+ glass-makers, 806;
+ accidents, in industrial occupations, 776–87.
+
+
+ Faber, Dr, 325.
+
+ Factories, and the Workmen’s Compensation Act (1897), 12, 13;
+ survey of legislation for, 44–62;
+ ventilation and lighting in, 51;
+ prevention of accidents in, 54;
+ employment of mothers in, 73 _et seq._;
+ machinery in, 205.
+
+ Factory and Workshop Acts (1802 and 1833), 31;
+ (1844), 31, 41;
+ (1864 and 1867), 35, 36;
+ (1871), 35;
+ (1878), 35, 36, 64, 214, 220, 464, 564;
+ (1883), 39;
+ (1889), 40, 41;
+ (1891), 4, 40, 41, 58, 99, 199, 205, 214, 220, 461, 465, 564,
+ 827;
+ (1895), 41, 71, 99, 101, 203, 626;
+ (1901), 4, 199, 205, 213, 218, 697, 829.
+
+ Factory Acts, 28;
+ first extended to women, 32;
+ and the British Constitution, 63;
+ Special Rules under, 829–64.
+
+ Factory Bill of 1901, 47, 71.
+
+ Factory Commission (1875), 36, 80.
+
+ Factory Inspectorate, organised by Act of 1884, 31;
+ in various countries, 47–49.
+
+ Factory labour and infant mortality, 73–89.
+
+ Factory legislation, England the pioneer of, 3;
+ improves trade and conditions of labour, 5;
+ and effects of particular trades on health, 22;
+ Acts of 1802 and 1833, the landmarks of, 31;
+ its progress, 34;
+ laundries included in, 42;
+ England lagging behind in, 45;
+ Royal Commission (1876) on, 47;
+ home-work not controlled by, 99.
+
+ Fans for removal of dust, in steel-grinding, 411, 413, 777;
+ in lucifer match works, 420;
+ in hatters furriers’ processes, 446.
+
+ Faradic current, 481.
+
+ Farcy, in man, 240.
+
+ Farmers, mortality table, 128, 135, 244.
+
+ Farr, Dr, 118, 127, 136.
+
+ Farriers, anthrax in, 244.
+
+ Fascia, contraction of the palmar, 233, 237, 564.
+
+ Fatigue, its causes, 106;
+ and alcohol, 43.
+
+ Faversham, gunpowder explosion at Hall’s Factory, 608.
+
+ Fawcus, H. B., Royal Army Medical Corps, 733.
+
+ Feathers, induce ophthalmia and lung disease, 790.
+
+ Federal Council, Germany, 46, 48, 58, 61.
+
+ Federated Trades Council, 345.
+
+ Fell-mongers, anthrax in, 244.
+
+ Fell-workers, anthrax in, 244;
+ dust, 276.
+
+ Felspar, 347, 348.
+
+ Fencing, of machinery, 203–31;
+ of quarries, 565.
+
+ Fenton potteries, 346.
+
+ Fergusson, Sir James, 81.
+
+ Fettling, in iron and steel works, 779.
+
+ Fibrosis of lung, 272;
+ in potters, 387;
+ in ganister crushers, 396.
+
+ Field work, and maternity, 81.
+
+ Fieldworkers, their bodily ills, 405.
+
+ “Fiery” coal seams, 547.
+
+ Fierté-sous-Jouarre, buhrstone imported from, 405.
+
+ File-cutters, death rate, 135, 138, 594, 595;
+ dust diseases of, 275;
+ lead insanity, 308;
+ plumbism, 341, 770;
+ machinery _v._ hand, 341.
+
+ Fillers, in dinitrobenzol works, 765.
+
+ Filters, 175.
+
+ Finisher card (jute works), 653.
+
+ Finishers of silver, subject to eye affections, 771.
+
+ Fireclay, 399;
+ principal constituents of, 400.
+
+ Fire-damp in mines, 546–48.
+
+ Firemen, _see_ engine drivers.
+
+ Fire-stink, 554.
+
+ Fireworks, manufacture of, 602, 603, 605.
+
+ Firing ware, risks incurred in, 383.
+
+ Fish-curing, 673–78.
+
+ Fitters (iron works), 755.
+
+ Flax, 25, and linen, 691–701;
+ process of manufacture, 693;
+ bleaching, 695.
+
+ Flax-workers, skin diseases of, 269, 276;
+ liable to phthisis, ophthalmia, asthma, etc., 696, 698;
+ Special Rules for, 848.
+
+ Flint quarries, 558.
+
+ Flock fever, 466.
+
+ Flour mills, 505–7.
+
+ Fluke, liver (distoma hepaticum), in shepherds, 249.
+
+ Fly-wheels, engine, 207.
+
+ Folliculitis, in doffers, 699.
+
+ Fontaine, M., 57.
+
+ Foot-and-mouth disease, transmitted to man, 247.
+
+ Ford, Colonel, Chief Inspector of Explosives, 613.
+
+ Forecastles, in mercantile marine, 182, 186.
+
+ Forgemen, their health, 757.
+
+ Forks, strap-, 217.
+
+ Forth Bridge, 731, 732.
+
+ Fosbroke, G. H., Medical Officer of Worcestershire, 234.
+
+ Foster, Dr C. Le Neve, _Ore and Stone Mining_, 538, 554.
+
+ Foulkes, Mr, 80.
+
+ Fournier, of Dijon, 622.
+
+ Fournière, M., 113.
+
+ Fox, Francis, _The Great Alpine Tunnels_, 737.
+
+ Foxdale lead mines (Isle of Man), 545.
+
+ France, match industry in, 20, 421;
+ manufacture of white lead, 36;
+ factory inspectorate, 47, 48;
+ ventilation of factories, 51;
+ lead poisoning in potteries, 57, 58;
+ ergotism in, 234;
+ pellagra and lathyrism in, 235;
+ lead mining, 284;
+ zinc white _v._ white lead, 293;
+ _colique sèche_ in navy, 335;
+ pottery glaze used in, 359;
+ fireclay mining, 399;
+ phosphorus necrosis in, 428;
+ ceased to use yellow phosphorus, 429;
+ a _sans phosphore_ match, 431;
+ mining accidents, 512, 520;
+ alkali works, 598;
+ mine explosions, 615;
+ chimney sweeping in, 811.
+
+ Frankl-Hochwart, Professor, 822.
+
+ Freestone quarries, 558.
+
+ Fredreich’s _Blätter für gerichtliche Medicin_, 486.
+
+ Fritted lead, 349, 354, 356, 358, 363–65, 383;
+ standard solubility of, 357, 364.
+
+ Fromm, Dr, 325.
+
+ Fruit-preserving, 678.
+
+ Fulminate of mercury, 559, 602, 603, 620.
+
+ Fulton, Dr, 819.
+
+ Fung Shui, 174.
+
+ Fur-brushing dust, 276.
+
+ Furnacemen, blast and puddling, their diseases, 756.
+
+ Furriers, 244;
+ diseases of nails in, 270.
+
+ Fur-pullers, maladies of, 724, 725.
+
+ Furness, Inveraray, gunpowder explosion at, 608.
+
+ Fürth, mirror-silvering at, 435, 437, 441.
+
+ Fuses, 602.
+
+
+ Galena (sulphide of lead), 286, 347, 348, 360, 361, 538, 784.
+
+ Galezowski, _Des Amblyopias, etc._, 768, 770.
+
+ Galicia, match works in, 422.
+
+ Galloway, Professor W., 526.
+
+ Galvano-caustic method of glazing ware, 807.
+
+ Ganister (calliard) crushing and mining, risks of, 396–404;
+ condition of miner’s lung, 401, 404.
+
+ Gardeners, death rate, 129;
+ and Dupuytren’s contraction, 237;
+ subject to cancer, 237, 810.
+
+ Garman, Dr, Bryant & May’s Medical Officer, 425–27.
+
+ Gartsherrie (Scotland), fireclay mines at, 400.
+
+ Gas engines, 206;
+ safety starting-gear for, 208.
+
+ Gases from explosives, 555.
+
+ Gasfitters, lead insanity in, 308;
+ “gassing” symptoms, 333;
+ death rate, 755.
+
+ Gasmeter-makers, lead insanity in, 308.
+
+ Gastro-intestinal lesion (enteroconiosis), caused by dust, 273.
+
+ Gatebeck, Kendal, gunpowder explosion at, 608.
+
+ Gautier, Dr Armand, 311;
+ on house-painters’ plumbism in Paris, 333.
+
+ Gelatine, blasting, 555, 559, 614, 619;
+ dynamite, 559, 599, 600, 620.
+
+ Gelignite, 555, 559, 620.
+
+ Generating stations, electric, 250.
+
+ _Génie Civil._, 745.
+
+ Germany, factory legislation and inspectorate in, 46, 47, 51;
+ powers of health authorities, 51;
+ employment of women after childbirth, 54, 88;
+ prevention of accidents in factories, 54;
+ Special Rules for dangerous trades, 59;
+ Trade Accident Associations, 55;
+ letterpress printing works in, 61;
+ ergotism in, 234;
+ Imperial Health Office, 320, 325;
+ inquiry into labour conditions in electric accumulator works,
+ 320;
+ fireclay mining in, 399;
+ lucifer match industry, 422;
+ bichromate factories, 448, 449, 453;
+ mining accidents, 511–18;
+ metal- safer than coal-mining in, 519;
+ manufacture of coal-tar products, 590;
+ alkali works, 598;
+ mine explosives in, 616;
+ anthrax, 625, 632;
+ chimney sweeps in, 811.
+
+ Geroult, M., 339.
+
+ Gibb, Mr, General Manager N. E. Railway, 200.
+
+ Gillinder, Mr, 328.
+
+ Glamorgan, tinplate works in, 681.
+
+ Glanders, in man, 238;
+ in animals, 239.
+
+ Glasgow, chemical industry meeting at, 5;
+ file-cutting in, 340;
+ fireclay worked near, 399;
+ anthrax outbreak in, 625.
+
+ Glassblowers, and cataract, 773;
+ “glass-blowers’ mouth,” 805.
+
+ Glassmakers, 36;
+ death rate, 135, 139, 594, 595;
+ their risks, 804–807;
+ and cataract, 806.
+
+ Glass-polishers, and plumbism, 339.
+
+ Glass ware, new method of making hollow, 807.
+
+ Glazed ware, poisonous, 807.
+
+ Glazes, for pottery, 353–63, 368.
+
+ Glazing, of cutlery, 412.
+
+ Glibert, Dr, Medical Inspector, Labour Office, Belgium, 269, 270,
+ 698;
+ his definition of industrial disease, 15.
+
+ Glost placers (pottery), 384.
+
+ Goatskins, and anthrax, 628.
+
+ Goat’s wool, or hair (mohair), 634.
+
+ Gob-stink, 554.
+
+ Godfernaux, Raymond, 745.
+
+ Godfrey’s cordial, 79.
+
+ Goelet, Dr, 258, 263.
+
+ Gold and silver extraction, 440.
+
+ Gouda, Holland, galena used for glazing at, 360.
+
+ Gould, Edward, Factory Inspector, 392, 789.
+
+ Gout, in tailors, 154;
+ gardeners, 237;
+ butchers, 246;
+ occupied males, brewers, file-cutters, carpenters, earthenware-
+ and glass-makers, 595;
+ drivers of public vehicles, 798;
+ publicans, etc., 802.
+
+ Gowers, _Diseases of the Nervous System_, 815, 817.
+
+ Graham, Sir James, 191.
+
+ Grainers, lead insanity in, 308.
+
+ Grammont, Belgium, match factory at, 424.
+
+ Grand Committee on Trade (1902), 43.
+
+ Granger, Dr, 234.
+
+ Granite, dust, 274;
+ quarries, 559.
+
+ Graphite quarries, 558.
+
+ Gravel quarries, 558.
+
+ Graveri, Dr G., of Villanova-Sollaro, 431.
+
+ Gravesend (floating magazine), detonators explosion at, 608;
+ fireworks explosion at, 609.
+
+ Grease, or horsepox, 245, 246.
+
+ Great Britain, mining accidents in, 523.
+
+ Greek lead ore, 283.
+
+ Greenhow, Dr Headlam, 29, 77–79, 83, 137, 144, 382, 457–60.
+
+ Greenock, gunpowder explosion in the barque “Auchmountain” off,
+ 609.
+
+ Grinders of cutlery and other steel implements, 408;
+ mortality of, 409, 414–16;
+ subject to phthisis, asthma, “rot,” 409, 410, 414;
+ eye accidents to, 777.
+
+ Grinding-stones, 411, 412, 416, 784;
+ wheels, 412–15.
+
+ Grindley, W. H., 363, 365.
+
+ Grooms, subject to glanders, 238;
+ popliteal aneurism, 245.
+
+ Grotto del Cane, carbonic acid in, 546.
+
+ Guard, for engine fly-wheels, 207;
+ shuttle, 226;
+ Elvatka, 227;
+ Longmore’s, 228;
+ Victor, 228;
+ Woodhouse and Mitchell’s, 229;
+ Campbell and Greenwood’s, _ibid._;
+ against eye accidents in factories, 785.
+
+ Guards, goods (railways), 195.
+
+ Gubler, 423.
+
+ Guerrini, Dr Guido, 110.
+
+ Guggenbauer, 276.
+
+ Guinard, Dr, 806.
+
+ _Gulstonian Lectures_, 304.
+
+ Gun-cotton (cellulose hexa-nitrate), 555, 599, 600, 604, 610, 611,
+ 619.
+
+ Gunpowder, 555, 559, 599, 600, 602, 603, 605, 606, 610, 611.
+
+ Gunsmiths, death rate, 135, 145.
+
+ Guttmann, Professor, 599.
+
+ Guy, Dr, 130.
+
+ Guy and Ferrier, _Forensic Medicine_, 460.
+
+ Gypsum quarries, 558.
+
+
+ Hacklemakers, jute works, 652.
+
+ Hæmoglobin, 550–552.
+
+ Hæmoglobinæmia, 484.
+
+ Hafting of knives, 412.
+
+ Hairdressers, death rate, 152.
+
+ Hair workers, and anthrax, 244.
+
+ Haldane, Dr John, 484, 544;
+ _Causes of Death in Colliery Explosions and Fires_, 548.
+
+ Half-timers, decadence of the system, 7, 93;
+ arrested mental development of, 95.
+
+ Halifax, carpet making at, 635.
+
+ Halkyn, Flintshire, gun-cotton explosion at, 611.
+
+ Hall, Dr Arthur, 409.
+
+ Hall, H., 526.
+
+ Hall, Dr J. C., Sheffield, 343, 411, 415.
+
+ Halstead’s “Patent Unbreakable Square-hole Solid-ended Grub Screw,”
+ 215.
+
+ Hamilton, Dr, Certifying Surgeon for Cookstown, 698.
+
+ Hammermen’s paralysis, 757;
+ spasm, 821.
+
+ Hamstead Colliery, Staff., 545.
+
+ _Handbook of Service Explosives_, 599.
+
+ Hanley potteries, 346.
+
+ Hanover, chimney sweeps in, 811.
+
+ Hargreave’s “Mule Carriage Wheel Guard,” 225.
+
+ Harris’s patent, 336.
+
+ Hart, Ernest, 79.
+
+ Harting, Dr, 538.
+
+ Hartlepool, horse killed by electric shock at, 256.
+
+ Harvey’s sporting powder, 611.
+
+ Hasenclever apparatus, for bleach, 579.
+
+ Hatters, death rate, 152.
+
+ Hatters furriers’ processes, mercurial poisoning in, 441;
+ remedial measures, 446.
+
+ Head, Sir George, _Home Tour_, 644.
+
+ Heart disease, in potters, earthenware and china makers, 136;
+ cutlers, 138;
+ gunsmiths, 145;
+ sweeps, 146, 808;
+ tailors, 154;
+ drapers, shoemakers, 155;
+ occupied and unoccupied men, 164, 720;
+ soldiers, 169, 170;
+ sailors, 183, 184;
+ field workers, 232, 234, 720;
+ cotton operatives, 720;
+ puddling furnacemen, 756;
+ blacksmiths and forgemen, 757;
+ brewers, 801.
+
+ Heat apoplexy, 171, 175, 180;
+ the “fireman’s frenzy” of stokers, 183, 184.
+
+ Heathcote, Dr, 448.
+
+ Hecklers, flax, 693;
+ phthisis and bronchial troubles in, 696–98;
+ alcoholism, 697.
+
+ Heckling machines, 693.
+
+ Hedgers, eye accidents to, 783.
+
+ Hedley, Dr, Inspector of Mines, 11, 258.
+
+ Heidelberg, epidemic of idiopathic tetany in, 822.
+
+ Heinzerling, Ch., _Gefahren und Krankheiten in der chemischen
+ Industrie_, 444.
+
+ Heise, Dr, 449, 550.
+
+ Hemianæsthesia, 481.
+
+ Helmholtz, German physiologist, 106.
+
+ Hemp dust, 276.
+
+ Hernia, 19;
+ sailors, 183, 184;
+ field workers, 236;
+ butchers, etc., 245;
+ carpenters, 791.
+
+ Herodsfoot, Liskeard, gunpowder explosion at, 608.
+
+ Herrings, Scotch-cured, 674.
+
+ Hersent, French engineer at Bordeaux, 734.
+
+ Hesse, Dr, 538.
+
+ Hides and skins, anthrax and, 621–33;
+ dry-salting, Special Rules for, 856.
+
+ Hiene, J. W., _Effects of Copper on the Human Body_, 538.
+
+ High explosives, manufacture of, 475–90.
+
+ Hillairet, Dr, 448, 452.
+
+ Himalayas, the, 749.
+
+ Hindle _v._ Birtwistle, 214.
+
+ Hindoos, the, 179.
+
+ Hirt, Dr, 274, 276, 505.
+
+ _Historie de l’Académie royale des Sciences_, Paris, 434.
+
+ Hodge, Prof., 109.
+
+ Hodges, Prof., Queen’s Coll., Belfast, 692.
+
+ Hoe’s stereotyping machine, 331.
+
+ Hoffman, F. L., _The Mineral Industry_, 521.
+
+ Hogben, Dr, Queen’s Hospital, Birmingham, 144, 458–60.
+
+ Hoists, 218–22.
+
+ Holder, or clamp (flax machine), 693.
+
+ Holland, inspectorate in, 47;
+ employment of women after childbirth in, 54;
+ use of white phosphorus limited in, 60;
+ manufacture of phosphorus matches prohibited in, 421.
+
+ Holland, Andrew, Board of Trade, Ottawa, 501.
+
+ Hollow ware, tinning and enamelling of, 319;
+ new method of making glass, 807;
+ Special Rules for, 848, 863.
+
+ Home-work, 98–103;
+ not controlled by factory legislation, 99;
+ its effect upon wages, 103.
+
+ Hong Kong, the Happy Valley in, 170.
+
+ Hop-pickers, subject to ophthalmia, 783.
+
+ Hope, Dr, Liverpool, 85.
+
+ Hopwood, F. J. S., Assist. Sec. Rly. Dept., Board of Trade, 198.
+
+ Horgen, Switzerland, death from electricity at, 253.
+
+ Horn-workers, liable to anthrax, 244.
+
+ Horsehair, and anthrax, 621–33.
+
+ Horsekeepers, subject to influenza, 244;
+ to horsepox or “grease,” 245.
+
+ Horsepox or “grease,” 245, 246.
+
+ Horses, 238–45;
+ and anthrax, 624.
+
+ Hounslow, gunpowder explosion at, 609.
+
+ House painters, and white lead, 292, 293;
+ and plumbism, 333–36.
+
+ Huber and Röhl, _Ueber acute u. chron. Intoxdurch Nitrokorp d.
+ Benzolreihe_, 484.
+
+ Huddersfield, lyddite explosion at, 609, 612;
+ woollen cloth industry at, 634.
+
+ Hughes, his use of caissons at Rochester Bridge, 731.
+
+ Huguenots, linen industry revived in North of Ireland by, 691.
+
+ Hundt, Bergassessor, _Die Bekampfung der Wurmkrankheit im
+ Oberbergamtsbezirke Dortmund_, 537.
+
+ Hunter, Dr, 81.
+
+ Hunter, Dr James, Edinburgh, 731.
+
+ Huntington and M’Millan, _Metals_, 287.
+
+ Huntley, Mr, Engineer, Redheugh Bridge, Newcastle, 728, 733.
+
+ Huskisson, 190.
+
+ Hyatt, discoverer of celluloid, 792.
+
+ Hydatid cyst, in shepherds, 248.
+
+ Hydrochloric acid, 570, 571.
+
+ Hydro-extractor, for removing excess of spirit in benzine, 491;
+ adapted to laundry work, 665.
+
+ Hydrogen sulphide, 611.
+
+ Hydrogen, sulphuretted, 555, 582.
+
+ Hydrophobia, 242–44.
+
+ Hygiene, industrial, how to promote, 22, 23.
+
+ Hygiene Committee, France, 294.
+
+ Hygiene Congress at Turin, 288.
+
+ Hygiene Council of Paris, 311.
+
+ Hygrometer, in cotton spinning works, 709.
+
+ Hyperæsthesia, a feature in chronic poisoning by dinitrobenzine,
+ 480.
+
+
+ Idiopathic tetany, or shoemakers’ spasm, 822.
+
+ Idria (Illyria), cinnabar mines at, 438, 538.
+
+ Imperial Health Office, Germany, 320, 325.
+
+ Incandescent electric lamps, manufacture of, 439.
+
+ India, 171, 175;
+ lathyrism in, 235;
+ its export of jute, 651;
+ jute mills in, 662.
+
+ Indiarubber works, 471;
+ vulcanisation process in, 471;
+ bisulphide of carbon, 768.
+
+ Industrial Code, 46, 50.
+
+ Industrial Councils existing on Continent--suggested formation in
+ England of, 23.
+
+ Industrial disease, various definitions of, 14, 15;
+ notification of, 22.
+
+ Industrial districts, 120.
+
+ Industrial hygiene, how to promote, 22, 23.
+
+ Industrial injury, scientific protection of works against, 28.
+
+ Industrial methods, more scientifically studied on Continent, 6.
+
+ Industrial Occupation, a process of evolution, 1, 21.
+
+ Industrial Revolution, an epoch in the world’s history, 2.
+
+ Industries, classification of, 123.
+
+ Infant mortality and factory labour, 73–89;
+ in Dundee, 662.
+
+ Inflammable or spirit paints, use of, 494–96.
+
+ Influenza, in tailors and drapers, 154;
+ ironstone miners, 161;
+ occupied and unoccupied men, 164;
+ horses, 244.
+
+ Injurious industries, historical sketch of legislation for, 24–43;
+ scientific protection of workers, 28;
+ their regulation in chief countries of Europe, 44–62;
+ principles of prospective legislation for, 63–72;
+ Special Rules for, 59, 827–64.
+
+ Innkeepers, mortality of, 801.
+
+ Insanity, in lead-workers, 308, 309.
+
+ Inspection, rules of factory, 47.
+
+ Inspectorate of factories, organised by Act of 1844, 31.
+
+ Inspectors, women appointed (1893) as, 41.
+
+ Insured children, higher death rate of, 80.
+
+ Intake roads (mines), 540.
+
+ International, competition, 6;
+ committees suggested for industrial hygiene, 23.
+
+ International Congress of Hygiene and Demography, 630.
+
+ Intestinal anthrax, 641.
+
+ Iodoform manufacture, its effect on eyes, 769.
+
+ Ireland, lucifer match works in, 419;
+ linen trade in, 691.
+
+ Irish Carragheen Moss, 695.
+
+ Iron and steel industries, 756–60.
+
+ Iron hollow ware, tinning and enamelling of, Special Rules, 848.
+
+ Iron plates, enamelling of, 317.
+
+ Iron pyrites, oxidation produces black-damp, 541–43.
+
+ Iron-workers, death rate, 140;
+ eye diseases of, 771–75;
+ eye accidents of, 776–83.
+
+ Ironers, in laundries, 670.
+
+ Ironstone miners, included (Act of 1860) under head of coal miners,
+ 34, 524;
+ death rate, 160.
+
+ Iselle, the Italian side of Simplon Tunnel, 740–42.
+
+ Italian miners, diseases of, 16;
+ accidents to, 520.
+
+ Italy, pellagra (_malattia della miseria_) in, 235;
+ experiments in non-poisonous matches, 431.
+
+
+ Jacquemart, Dr, Paris, 794.
+
+ _Jahrbuch für das Berg- Hütten- und Salinen-wesen im Preussischen
+ Staate_ 518.
+
+ Jam-making, 678;
+ its risks, 679.
+
+ James of Hereford, Lord, 199, 201, 202, 363–65.
+
+ Jaundice, in military balloonists, 750.
+
+ Jenner, Sir William, 178.
+
+ Jews, as glass-makers in Rome, 804.
+
+ Jockeys, popliteal aneurism in, 245.
+
+ Joiners, 790.
+
+ Johnson, Henry J., 363, 365.
+
+ Jones, Chester, 363.
+
+ Jones, Dr Lewis, 258, 263, 315.
+
+ Jones, Dr Robert, Claybury Asylum, Essex, 308.
+
+ _Journal of Morphology_, 109.
+
+ _Journal of Pathology_, 544.
+
+ _Journal of Physiology_, 484, 550.
+
+ _Journal of the Sanitary Institute_, 396.
+
+ Jungfleish, _Dangers du sécretage des poils par le mercure_, 442.
+
+ Jussieu, Antoine de, 434.
+
+ Jute, dust caused by, 276;
+ preparation of the fibre, 651;
+ process of manufacture, 652;
+ health conditions in factories, 654;
+ analyses of air in factories, 657;
+ tetanus produced by, 659;
+ mill fever, 661.
+
+
+ Kaffre, Azzyat Bridge (Nile), 731.
+
+ _Kaiserlichen Gesundheitsamte, Arbeiten aus dem_, 320, 368, 436,
+ 448, 625, 632.
+
+ Kaolin, Chinese for porcelain clay, 347, 385.
+
+ Kassowitz, Professor, 426.
+
+ Keaves, vats for bichromate manufacture, 449.
+
+ Kennall Vale, Redruth, gunpowder explosion at, 609.
+
+ Kerr, Dr, 91.
+
+ Keygi, Professor, 325.
+
+ Kidderminster, carpet making at, 635.
+
+ Kidney disease, and plumbism, 15;
+ in tanners, 801;
+ chimney sweeps, 808.
+
+ Kieselguhr dynamite, 612.
+
+ Kirving, undercutting coal, 527, 534.
+
+ Kitasato, Professor, bacilli of tetanus first isolated by, 241.
+
+ Knackers, glanders in, 238;
+ anthrax, 244.
+
+ _Knapp’s Archives of Ophthalmology_, 773.
+
+ _Knappschafts-Berufsgenossenschaft für das Deutsche Reich,
+ Statistik der_, 512.
+
+ _Knappschafts-Berufsgenossenschaft, Berichte über die Verwaltung
+ der_, 517.
+
+ Knecht, E., _Manual of Dyeing_, 447.
+
+ Knies, Professor, 770.
+
+ Knight, Robert, Secretary Boilermaker’s Society, 753.
+
+ Knowles “Improved Safety Hoist,” 219, 231.
+
+ Koch, Dr, and the anthrax bacillus, 623;
+ on the identity of human and bovine tuberculosis, 797.
+
+ Kocher, Dr, Berne, 425, 426.
+
+ Krupp ball system, in steel works, 390.
+
+ Kubler, Dr, 625.
+
+ Kuborn, Dr, Serang, 16.
+
+ Kuiper, Dr, Jena, 426.
+
+ Kummerbund, the, 174.
+
+ Kunkel, A. J., _Handbuch der Toxikologie_, 437.
+
+ Kussmaul, Adolf, _Untersuchungen über dem constitutionellen
+ Mercurialismus_, 435, 437, 438.
+
+ Kyphosis, or stooping gait, in field workers, 233.
+
+
+ Labellers, aerated water, 687;
+ eye accidents to, 786.
+
+ Label-lickers in thread mills, death rate, 803.
+
+ _Labour Gazette_, 362.
+
+ _Labour Leader_, 449.
+
+ Labour, Ministry of, needed in England, 23.
+
+ Labour, Royal Commission on, 41, 186.
+
+ Labourers, agricultural, 135, 232–37;
+ working classes divided into artisans and, 111;
+ accident death rate of general, 530;
+ railway, risk of tuberculosis, 797.
+
+ Labouring Population, Report (1838) on Sanitary Condition of the,
+ 45.
+
+ Lady Assistant Commissioners, Report (1893) of, 74, 83.
+
+ La Hague, plumbism in electric accumulator works at, 320.
+
+ Lailler, _Hygiène des Professions et des Industries_, 422.
+
+ Lamb’s wool, 634.
+
+ Lampblack factories, 812.
+
+ Lancashire, infant mortality in, 75;
+ wages of male and female workers, 88;
+ child labour in, 92;
+ mines, 158, 160;
+ mortality of cotton operatives, 719, 720;
+ tobacco workers in, 795;
+ plate glass manufacture in, 804.
+
+ _Lancet_, 110, 448, 475, 478, 487, 635, 808.
+
+ Lapping, of cutlery, 412.
+
+ Lathyrism, caused by chick-pea, 235.
+
+ Laundresses, pulmonary consumption in, 669.
+
+ Laundries, 42, 663–72;
+ machinery in, 665, 666;
+ factory _v._ home industry, 667;
+ health of workers in, 669–72.
+
+ Laurie, A. P., 8, 354,
+
+ Lawrence, Dr, 623.
+
+ Layet, Professor, on minium, 288.
+
+ Lazarus, surgeon-dentist, 474.
+
+ Lead and its compounds, 282–372;
+ its use in potteries, 346–65.
+
+ _Lead in the Manufacture of Pottery, Report on the Use of_, 357.
+
+ Lead dust, 275.
+
+ Lead factories, blue and white beds in, 289.
+
+ Lead foil makers, plumbism in, 370.
+
+ Lead insanity, _see_ encephalopathy.
+
+ Lead mining, 25;
+ and the health and surroundings of the miners, 282–86;
+ plumbism almost unknown in, 538.
+
+ Lead oxide, 287.
+
+ Lead poisoning, _see_ plumbism.
+
+ Lead smelting works, 42;
+ and plumbism, 286;
+ Special Rules for, 848.
+
+ Lead workers, death rate, 135, 141, 594, 595;
+ high mortality of their children, 303;
+ encephalopathy in, 307;
+ their clothes, 369;
+ Special Rules for, 829, 846, 847.
+
+ Leadless glaze, for pottery, 360, 361, 363.
+
+ Leathart, Mr, of Newcastle, 313.
+
+ _Leather Trades Circular and Review_, 633.
+
+ Le Blanc process, for manufacture of hydrochloric and sulphuric
+ acids, carbonate of soda, caustic soda, and bleaching powder,
+ 569–84.
+
+ Lee, Professor, 769.
+
+ Leeds, woollen cloth manufacture in, 634.
+
+ Lefebre, Dr, 270.
+
+ Lefevre, Dr, Brest, 335.
+
+ Legge, Dr T. Morison, Medical Inspector of Factories, 297, 300,
+ 319, 320, 338, 352, 363, 372, 400, 590, 624, 627, 632, 659.
+
+ Legislation for dangerous trades, historical sketch of its
+ development, 24–43;
+ for mines, 33;
+ principles of prospective, 63–72;
+ _see also_ factory legislation.
+
+ Leicester, hosiery manufacture in, 635.
+
+ Leipzig, anthrax in, 625.
+
+ Leloir, Dr, 270.
+
+ Lémaistre, Dr, 386.
+
+ Lepine, Dr, 734.
+
+ Letterpress Printing Works (Germany), 61.
+
+ Levy, Dr, 109.
+
+ Lewis, Mr, Factory Inspector, Swansea district, 467.
+
+ Lewis, Professor Vivian, 504, 819.
+
+ Licensed victuallers, death rate, 800.
+
+ Liège, anchylostomiasis at, 537.
+
+ Lightermen, accident death rate, 530.
+
+ Lighting of factories, 51.
+
+ Lignite mines (Germany), accidents in, 513–15, 518.
+
+ Lime, burns caused by, 785.
+
+ Lime dressers, 578.
+
+ Limes, use of, 175.
+
+ Limestone quarries, 498, 558, 562.
+
+ Limoges, and plumbism from transfer making, 366, 367;
+ and its porcelain, 385;
+ phthisis in works at, 386, 387.
+
+ Linen and flax, 691–701;
+ process of manufacture, 693;
+ bleaching, 695.
+
+ Linen and Hempen Manufacture of Ireland (1711), 692.
+
+ Linen rags, 644.
+
+ Linotyping and plumbism, 331, 332.
+
+ Liquor traffic, death rate in, 801.
+
+ Litharge, 287.
+
+ Litho-transfer works, 365–67.
+
+ Little Bolton, 76.
+
+ Littlejohn, Dr Harvey, 343, 345.
+
+ Liver diseases, in cutlers, 138;
+ stone quarriers, 141;
+ musicians, 151;
+ hairdressers, tailors, 153, 154;
+ drapers, 154;
+ miners, 157, 161;
+ occupied and unoccupied males, 164, 720;
+ soldiers, 174;
+ sailors, 183;
+ publicans, 802.
+
+ Llewellyn, Mr, 363.
+
+ Lloyd, Dr J. H., _Occupation Diseases_, 442.
+
+ Lockerby & Wilson, 501.
+
+ Lockjaw, or tetanus, 240–42;
+ its micro-organism, 241.
+
+ Locksmiths, death rate, 135, 755.
+
+ Locomotor ataxia, 802.
+
+ Loewenthal, R., _Manual of Dyeing_, 447.
+
+ Logements Insalubres (Paris), Commission des, 293.
+
+ Loire River, 730.
+
+ Lombardy, anchylostomiasis endemic in, 743.
+
+ London, outbreak of anthrax in, 625.
+
+ London and North Western Railway Insurance Society for Drivers and
+ Firemen, 796.
+
+ London Society of Compositors, 328;
+ Mortality Tables of, 330.
+
+ Londonderry, Lord, 27.
+
+ Longmore’s guard, 228.
+
+ Longton potteries, 346.
+
+ Looms, 225.
+
+ Lorinser, of Vienna, 421.
+
+ Louis, Henry, translator of Schmeisser’s _Goldfields of
+ Australia_, 509.
+
+ Louis, Professor, _Coal Mining_, 11, 282.
+
+ Lucifer Match Factories, Commission on, 417.
+
+ Lucifer match works, 35, 36, 43;
+ fragility of bones of employés in, 425;
+ Special Rules for, 859.
+
+ Lucifer matches, containing lead, 371;
+ and phosphorus, 417–33;
+ _safety_ and _strike-anywhere_, 419, 421, 422.
+
+ Ludlow, Harvey, 623.
+
+ Lumbago, in field workers, 232;
+ jam-makers, 680.
+
+ Lunacy, in field workers, 234;
+ lead-workers, 308, 309.
+
+ Lung disease due to dust (pneumoconiosis), 271;
+ in cotton operatives, 721;
+ brewers, 801.
+
+ Lyddite (picric acid, trinitrophenol), 599, 600, 609–11, 619.
+
+
+ Macaulay, Lord, 27.
+
+ MacCormac, Bart., Sir William, 699.
+
+ McDowall, Dr, Northumberland County Asylum, 799.
+
+ M’Keown, Dr W. A., _Treatise on Unripe Cataract_, 502.
+
+ M’Kinlay, Dr, 770.
+
+ M’Laren, B., _Preventible Colliery Accidents_, 516.
+
+ MacMunn, Dr, Wolverhampton, 484, 766.
+
+ Machine-makers, death rate, 755.
+
+ Machine tools, 212.
+
+ Machinery, its effect on workers, 116;
+ safe-guarding of, 203–31;
+ prime movers, 205–208;
+ means of stopping, 212;
+ accidents in agricultural, 236.
+
+ Machines, planing, 229.
+
+ Madrid, cigar factories in, 794.
+
+ Magitot, Dr, Paris, 424.
+
+ Magnus, Professor, 776.
+
+ Maize, 235.
+
+ _Mal chimique_, phosphorus necrosis, 418.
+
+ _Mal de montagnes_, 749.
+
+ Malakoff, Professor, 775.
+
+ Malaria, an old theory about, 174;
+ and soldiers, 177, 180;
+ sailors, 183;
+ caused by mosquitoes, 180, 186.
+
+ Maljean, Dr, 750.
+
+ Malt liquor, the London dock labourers and, 114.
+
+ Manchester, indiarubber works in, 470.
+
+ Manchester warehousemen, death rate, 154.
+
+ Manganese mud, 574, 575.
+
+ Mann, Dixon, _Forensic Medicine_, 477, 482.
+
+ Manson, Professor, on beriberi, 187.
+
+ Manufacturers, their right of arbitration, 5;
+ Special Rules for, 35, 827–64.
+
+ Marble quarries, 559.
+
+ Marie, Dr, 481.
+
+ Marine Service, health in the, 182–89.
+
+ Marl quarries, 558.
+
+ Marsh’s apparatus, 381.
+
+ Masons, death rate, 135;
+ phthisis, etc., in, 273, 274;
+ eye accidents to, 784, 785.
+
+ Massachusetts, anthrax in, 625.
+
+ Massicot, 287.
+
+ Match industry, and phosphorus necrosis, 20, 418–28.
+
+ Match Manufacturers Arbitration, 422.
+
+ Matches, _safety_ and _strike-anywhere_, 419, 421, 422.
+
+ Maternity _v._ factory labour, 77, 82;
+ field work and, 81.
+
+ Mather & Platt (Salford), on work before breakfast, 8.
+
+ _Matin, le_, 257.
+
+ Mattress-makers, liable to anthrax, 244;
+ their diseases, 789, 790.
+
+ Maxwell, Sir John Stirling, 14.
+
+ May, S. W., Factory Inspector, 354.
+
+ Mayence, glazed ware at, 807.
+
+ Meachem, F. G., 543.
+
+ Meakin, G. E., 363.
+
+ _Medical Chronicle_, 479.
+
+ Medical Department of the Privy Council, inquiries between 1859
+ and 1872 conducted by, 76.
+
+ Medical Society of London, 378, 379.
+
+ _Melbourne Argus_, 257.
+
+ Melier, Dr, 793.
+
+ Mercantile Marine, 182;
+ cooks in, 189;
+ accident death rate, 530.
+
+ Merchant Shipping Act, 182, 189.
+
+ Mercurial compounds, preparation of, 442.
+
+ Mercurial poisoning, 19, 22, 26;
+ industries liable to, 435–41;
+ mode of causation, 436;
+ symptoms of, 437;
+ preventive measures, 444;
+ in mines, 538.
+
+ Mercury, and its salts, dangers in use of, 434–46.
+
+ Mercury, fulminate of, 559, 602, 603, 620.
+
+ Merganthaler linotype machine, 331.
+
+ Metadinitrobenzine, 475.
+
+ Metal hollow ware, Special Rules for tinning and enamelling of,
+ 863.
+
+ Metallic dust, 273.
+
+ Metalliferous mines, regulation of, 38, 528;
+ accidents in German, 513–15, 518;
+ more unhealthy than coal, 534.
+
+ Metalliferous Mines (Isle of Man) Act (1891), 564.
+
+ Metalliferous Mines Regulation Acts (1872 and 1875), 564.
+
+ Metallochrome powder, 365.
+
+ Metallurgical industry, causes of its decline in England, 5.
+
+ Meters, electrical, 440.
+
+ Methæmoglobin, 484.
+
+ Methane, fire-damp in mines, 546.
+
+ Metropolitan Meat Market, 245.
+
+ Metropolitan District Railway, air of the, 744.
+
+ Metz, cases of anthrax at, 625.
+
+ Meyhöfer, Dr, 806.
+
+ Middlesborough, North Eastern Steel Works, 390–94.
+
+ Midland Medical Association, 466.
+
+ Migerka, Dr, _Staubarten in Wort und Bild_, 274.
+
+ Military balloonists, 750.
+
+ Military explosives, 619.
+
+ Milkers’ spasm, 821.
+
+ Mill fever, in jute workers, 661;
+ doffers, 699.
+
+ Mill-gearing and belts, 205, 208–11;
+ shaftings, pulleys, couplings, etc., 209.
+
+ Millers, death rate, 505.
+
+ Millstone building, buhrstone used for, 405, 407;
+ health of masons, 405, 406;
+ eye accidents to, 784.
+
+ Millwrights, death rate, 755.
+
+ Miners, accidents to, 11;
+ death rate, 156;
+ subject to phthisis, bronchitis, pneumonia, 273, 535;
+ nystagmus, 534;
+ eye accidents to, 776.
+
+ Miners, lead, their health and surroundings, 282–86.
+
+ Miners’ Permanent Benefit Relief Fund, 11, 531, 776 (Germany),
+ 512–18.
+
+ Miners’ Central Association, 531, 532.
+
+ Mines, explosions and explosives in, 26, 615–18;
+ Acts, 28, 40;
+ premature death in, 30;
+ no protective legislation till 1842, 31;
+ inquests not held on accidental deaths, _ibid._;
+ legislation since 1860 for, 33, 37;
+ the air of, 540–56.
+
+ Mines and Manufactures, Report of Commission (1843) on, 35.
+
+ _Mines Legislation in Germany, France, and Belgium_, Mr
+ Tremenheere’s _Special Reports on_, 28.
+
+ Mining, 508–39.
+
+ Mining districts, 120.
+
+ Mining, Royal Commission (1841) on, 31.
+
+ _Ministére de l’Industrie et du Travail_, Brussels, 698.
+
+ Ministry of Labour needed in England, 23.
+
+ Minium, 287.
+
+ Miram, M., experiments in matches, 430.
+
+ Mirror-silvering, 435, 437, 440.
+
+ Mixers, in dinitrobenzol manufacture, 765.
+
+ Mixing and casting of brass and other alloys, Special Rules for,
+ 464.
+
+ Mohair, 634.
+
+ Molten metal, and eye accidents, 781.
+
+ Monmouthshire, mines in, 158–60;
+ tinplate works in, 681.
+
+ Mononitrobenzine, 475, 483.
+
+ Mononitrotoluene, 476.
+
+ Mont Cenis Tunnel, 737.
+
+ Montfils, Dr, 623.
+
+ Morgan’s “Patent Safety Catch,” 221, 231.
+
+ Morse instrument (telegraphy), 819.
+
+ Mortality, of occupations, 118–33;
+ tables of, in dust-producing occupations, 135, 142, 274, 275;
+ in unhealthy occupations, 149;
+ occupied and unoccupied men, 162;
+ in sailing- and steam-ships, 184, 188;
+ in railwaymen, 200;
+ from plumbism, 298, 351;
+ from mining accidents, 513–32 _passim_;
+ in different and certain occupations, 594, 595;
+ from manufacture and use of explosives, 603, 605;
+ chief explosions in England, 608, 609;
+ explosions in coal mines, 617, 618;
+ in cotton operatives, 718–21;
+ in boilermakers and iron shipbuilders, 754.
+
+ Morveau, Guyton de, 293.
+
+ Mosquitoes, and malaria, 180, 186.
+
+ Mosso, Professor, Turin University, 105.
+
+ Motais, Dr, Paris, 327.
+
+ Motes in the eye, from steel-grinding, 777.
+
+ Mother-of-pearl grinding causes phthisis, 276.
+
+ Mothers in factories, employment of, 73 _et seq._
+
+ Motor cars, manufacture of, and plumbism, 322.
+
+ Moulton, Fletcher, 363.
+
+ Mountain climbers, and diminished atmospheric pressure, 749.
+
+ Moxon, Professor, 747.
+
+ Mules, self-acting, 223–25;
+ in cotton spinning, 703.
+
+ Mungo rags, 644.
+
+ Murray, Dr William, Birmingham, _Chronic Brass Poisoning_, 466.
+
+ Muscarin, poisonous constituent in mushroom-poisoning, 237.
+
+ Muscular system, effect of dinitrobenzine poison on, 479.
+
+ Muscular work, means for measuring, 105.
+
+ Mushroom-poisoning, and field-workers, 237.
+
+ Musicians, death rate, 151.
+
+ Myrbane (nitro- and dinitrobenzine), 591.
+
+
+ Nail and chain making, 758.
+
+ Nail diseases in furriers, 270.
+
+ Naphtha, in indiarubber works, 470;
+ in dry cleaning works, 491.
+
+ Naphthalene, 475.
+
+ Napias, M. le Docteur, 57.
+
+ Nasal septum ulceration, caused by bichromes, 451.
+
+ _Nature_, 252.
+
+ Navy, health of the, 184.
+
+ Naxos, Island of, emery stone quarries in, 813.
+
+ Necrosis, _see_ phosphorus necrosis.
+
+ Needle-grinding, dust from, 276.
+
+ Nervous diseases, in potters, etc., 136;
+ cutlers, file-cutters, 138, 595;
+ glass-makers, 139, 595;
+ iron-workers, 141;
+ lead-workers, 143, 595;
+ brass-workers, 145;
+ wool-workers, 148;
+ printers, musicians, 151;
+ tailors, drapers, 154;
+ miners, 158, 161, 162;
+ occupied and unoccupied men, 164, 595, 720;
+ due to dinitrobenzine, 480, 481;
+ copper-workers, carpenters, earthenware makers, 595;
+ agriculturists, cotton operatives, 720;
+ blacksmiths, 757.
+
+ Neuritis, peripheral, in indiarubber workers, 472.
+
+ Neurosis, occupation or fatigue, 764, 815.
+
+ New Almaden mines, California, 538.
+
+ New Australian Electric Light Co. (Richmond), 257.
+
+ New South Wales, eight hours’ day in, 8.
+
+ Newcastle-on-Tyne, cases of plumbism at, 297–300;
+ fireclay, 399, 400;
+ copper-smelting at, 466.
+
+ Newcastle Asylum at Cox Lodge, 799.
+
+ Newcastle City Asylum, 800.
+
+ Newcastle Royal Infirmary, 298, 312, 336, 360, 732, 793, 799, 806,
+ 808, 823.
+
+ Newett, Dr, Ligoneill, 695.
+
+ Newlands, Archibald, Factory Inspector, 814.
+
+ Niagara Falls, 498.
+
+ Nieden, Dr, 482, 764.
+
+ Nitrate, of mercury, 446;
+ of silver, 441;
+ of soda, 581.
+
+ Nitrate mixtures, 446;
+ as explosives, 602.
+
+ Nitric acid, 442, 581.
+
+ Nitric peroxide, 555, 556.
+
+ Nitric oxide, 556.
+
+ Nitro-benzine, 591.
+
+ Nitro-cellulose, 600, 603, 614, 619.
+
+ Nitro-compounds, 483, 602.
+
+ Nitro-cotton, 600, 614.
+
+ Nitro-glycerine, 555, 600, 612;
+ explosives, 536, 603, 605;
+ physiological effects of, 613.
+
+ Nitro-powders, 599.
+
+ Nitrogen, and black-damp, 542, 543;
+ and after-damp, 549.
+
+ Nitrous fumes, 581.
+
+ Nobel, Alfred, discovers blasting gelatine, 600, 614.
+
+ Noble, 611.
+
+ Non-textile industries, accidents in, 12;
+ machinery in, 227–30.
+
+ North Eastern Steel Works, Middlesborough, 390.
+
+ Northamptonshire mines, 158–61.
+
+ Northumberland County Asylum, 799.
+
+ Northumberland and Durham Miners’ Permanent Relief Fund, 11, 532.
+
+ Northumberland Miners’ Mutual Confident Association, 9.
+
+ Northumberland mines, 158–61.
+
+ Norway, phosphorus necrosis in, 421.
+
+ Norwich, effect of electric shock on dogs at, 256.
+
+ Nottingham, annual meeting of British Medical Association at
+ (1892), 87.
+
+ Nottinghamshire mines, 158–60.
+
+ Novgorod, Russia, anthrax at, 625.
+
+ Nuisance Removal Act, 29.
+
+ Nuremberg, mirror-silvering at, 435.
+
+ Nurserymen, mortality of, 129.
+
+ Nystagmus, miners’, 534, 761–64.
+
+
+ Oakeshott, Miss Grace, 795.
+
+ Occupation disease, its causation, 15, 16;
+ difficulty of recognising, 17;
+ dust as a cause of, 267–77;
+ due to excessively repeated muscular actions, 815–25.
+
+ Occupations, mortality of, 118–33.
+
+ Occupied and unoccupied men, mortality of, 162, 594, 595, 719, 720.
+
+ Ocean Accident Insurance Co., 21.
+
+ Œdematous anthrax, 636.
+
+ Official Miners’ Permanent Relief Fund of the German Empire,
+ 512–18.
+
+ Ogle, Dr, 120, 125, 128, 136, 137, 152, 535, 755, 800, 809.
+
+ Oil engines, 206;
+ safety starting-gear for, 208.
+
+ Oligocythemia, 484.
+
+ Oliver, a sledge hammer, 759.
+
+ Oliver, Prof. Thomas, on death from electric shock, 258;
+ _Lead Poisoning_ (Gulstonian Lectures), 304;
+ on Allbutt’s _System of Medicine_, 309, 477;
+ his Report on Lead Compounds in Pottery, 351;
+ _Acetylene, the New Illuminant, etc._, 502.
+
+ Olten, death from electric shock at, 253.
+
+ Omdurman, effect of lyddite shells at, 600.
+
+ Onimus, Dr (France), on telegraphists’ spasm--mal télégraphique,
+ 819.
+
+ Openers, tinplate works, 681.
+
+ Ophthalmia, in flax workers, 698;
+ hop pickers, 783;
+ confectioners, 798.
+
+ _Ophthalmic Society of the United Kingdom, Transactions of_, 770.
+
+ Opiates, administered to infants, 78–80.
+
+ Opium, used in fen districts for ague, 234.
+
+ Oram, R. E. Sprague, Factory Inspector, 462.
+
+ Orange lead works, Special Rules for, 846.
+
+ Orthonitrobenzine, 475.
+
+ Osborn, Mr, Factory Inspector, 705, 716.
+
+ Osteo-arthritis, in field-workers, 232;
+ quarriers, 564.
+
+ Osteomyelitis, 276.
+
+ Ostlers, subject to glanders and farcy, 238.
+
+ Ottawa, fire at Dominion Carbide Works, 501.
+
+ Overwork, on railways, 193.
+
+ Oxidation of iron pyrites causes black-damp, 541–43.
+
+ Oxide, lead, 287;
+ of cobalt, 348.
+
+ Oxygen, and black-damp, 541–45;
+ and fire-damp, 547;
+ in explosives, 610.
+
+ Oxyhæmoglobin, 484.
+
+
+ Paardeberg, 178;
+ lyddite fumes at, 611.
+
+ Pagliani, Professor, 112, 739.
+
+ Paint, manufacture of white, 313, 447;
+ and colour factories, Special Rules for, 831.
+
+ Painters, and lead colic, 17;
+ lead insanity in, 308;
+ and plumbism, 333–38, 770;
+ washing of their clothes, 369;
+ eye troubles due to arsenic, 770.
+
+ Paints, use of inflammable or spirit, 494–96.
+
+ Palmar fascia, contraction of the (among gardeners), 233, 237.
+
+ Pantin-Aubervilliers, France, match works at, 421, 429–32;
+ plumbism at, 429.
+
+ Paperhangers, eye troubles due to arsenic, 770.
+
+ Paper makers, 644.
+
+ Paraffin, cancer among workers in, 812.
+
+ Paralysis, in file-cutters, 343;
+ electric treatment of, 374;
+ treatment of divers’, 746, 748.
+
+ Paranitrobenzine, 475.
+
+ Paris, lead poisoning in, 311, 333, 334;
+ tobacco factories in, 794.
+
+ Parkes and Kenwood, _Hygiene and Public Health_, 379.
+
+ Parsons, Dr, 647.
+
+ Pasteur, his treatment of hydrophobia, 243;
+ of anthrax, 623;
+ on disease-carrying germs, 797.
+
+ Pasteur-Chamberland bacterial filter, 175.
+
+ Paterson, Miss, Factory Inspector, 302.
+
+ Pathology and physiology of work and fatigue, 104–17.
+
+ Pattinson process for desilvering lead ore, 287.
+
+ Paul, M. Constantin, 302.
+
+ Peacock, Dr, 382.
+
+ Pearson _v._ Belgian Mills Company, 213.
+
+ Peel, Sir Robert, 191.
+
+ Pellagra (_malattia della miseria_), due to bad maize, 235.
+
+ Pembrey, Llanelly, dynamite explosion at, 608.
+
+ Pennsylvania, anthrax caused by tannery refuse in, 624.
+
+ Pens, and writers’ palsy, 815, 818, 819.
+
+ Percy, Dr, _Fuel_, 396.
+
+ Peripheral neuritis, caused by bisulphide of carbon in indiarubber
+ works, 472;
+ by dinitrobenzine, 486.
+
+ Perron, M., of Besançon, 468.
+
+ Perroncito, Professor, Turin, 743.
+
+ Persulphocyanic acid, 431.
+
+ Petroleum Acts (1871–1881), 499.
+
+ Phenylene-diamine, 483.
+
+ Philatelists, danger of stamp-licking, 804.
+
+ Philip, Dr, Edinburgh, 473.
+
+ _Philosophical Transactions_ (1665), 434.
+
+ Phosphorus, its use limited in Switzerland, Holland, and Belgium,
+ 60;
+ and lucifer matches, 417–33, 592.
+
+ Phosphorus necrosis (“phossy jaw,” _mal chimique_), 14, 16, 18–20,
+ 22, 418, 420, 421, 424;
+ its cause and prevention, 426–428;
+ its treatment, 433.
+
+ Phossy-jaw, see phosphorus necrosis.
+
+ Photography, use of bichromes in, 448.
+
+ Phthisis, potters’, 15, 135, 136;
+ its incidence, 131, 132;
+ in dusty occupations, 135;
+ earthenware makers, 135, 595;
+ cotton operatives, 135, 720, 721;
+ locksmiths, bakers, 135, 505;
+ blacksmiths, 135, 505, 757;
+ coopers, wood-turners, rope-makers, bricklayers, masons, carpet
+ manufacturers, tin-workers, 135;
+ cutlers, 135, 137, 595;
+ file-cutters, 135, 139, 342, 595;
+ glass-makers, 135, 595, 805;
+ copper-workers, 135, 140, 595;
+ gunsmiths, 135, 145;
+ zinc, iron, and steel workers, 135, 141;
+ stone quarriers, 135, 143, 562;
+ lead-workers, 135, 143, 595;
+ brass-workers, 135, 145;
+ chimney sweeps, 135, 146;
+ wool-workers, 135, 148;
+ agriculturists, 135, 234, 720;
+ textile workers, 147;
+ in certain unhealthy occupations, 149;
+ bookbinders, 150, 151;
+ printers, 150, 151, 275;
+ hatters, 152;
+ tailors, 154;
+ drapers, shoemakers, 155;
+ miners, 157, 159, 161, 162, 535;
+ in occupied and unoccupied men, 164, 595, 720;
+ soldiers, 168;
+ sailors, 183;
+ gardeners, 237;
+ can be caused by dust, 272;
+ in porcelain and cement makers, masons, 274;
+ typographers, 275, 329, 330;
+ mother-of-pearl grinders, 276;
+ Durham lead miners, 284;
+ at Limoges potteries, 386;
+ indiarubber makers, 473;
+ millers, 505;
+ brewers, 595, 801;
+ carpenters, chemical and flax workers, 595;
+ laundresses, 669;
+ boilermakers and shipbuilders, 754;
+ upholsterers, 789;
+ railwaymen, 796;
+ publicans, 801;
+ coal heavers and trimmers, 808.
+
+ Physiology and pathology of work and fatigue, 104–17.
+
+ Physique of working classes, 7.
+
+ Pianoforte-players’ cramp, 821.
+
+ Picklers, in tinplate works, 682;
+ women as assistant, 684.
+
+ Picric acid, _see_ lyddite.
+
+ Pidoux, Dr, 327.
+
+ Piecing, of flax, 693.
+
+ Piedmont, anchylostomiasis endemic in, 743.
+
+ Pig-keepers, 249.
+
+ Pigments, manufacture of, 566.
+
+ Placers in potteries, 383.
+
+ Plague, seamen subject to, 183.
+
+ Planing machines, 229.
+
+ Plasterers, anthrax in, 244;
+ eye accidents from lime to, 785.
+
+ Plate-glass factories in England, 804.
+
+ Platelayers, 195.
+
+ Plate wheels, 218.
+
+ Playfair, Lord, 80.
+
+ Pleurisy, in field-workers, 234;
+ steel grinders, 410.
+
+ Pliny, _Natural History_, 63;
+ “diseases of slaves,” 25.
+
+ “Plug and feather” method of using explosives in quarries, 559.
+
+ Plumbers, and white lead, 292;
+ lead insanity, 308;
+ plumbism, 333, 770.
+
+ Plumbism, 14, 16–19, 21, 22, 26;
+ colic and kidney disease due to, 15;
+ in potteries, 57, 58, 136, 351, 353, 360–62;
+ among cutlers, 137, 595;
+ file-cutters, 138, 341–43, 595, 770;
+ glaziers, 142;
+ lead-workers, 142, 595;
+ painters, 142, 770;
+ occupied and unoccupied males, 164, 595, 720;
+ operatives in electric works (including motor cars and tramways),
+ 259, 320, 322, 323;
+ lead smelting works, 286;
+ white lead works, 295–300;
+ mortality tables, 297, 298, 371;
+ and pregnancy, 301;
+ its symptoms, 304;
+ and alcoholism, 305, 310;
+ encephalopathy (lead insanity), 307–309;
+ preventive and curative treatment of, 310–15;
+ in Paris, 311;
+ due to soldering, 323;
+ among typographers, 324–32;
+ plumbers, 333, 770;
+ house painters, 333–37;
+ coach painters, 337;
+ glass-workers, 339, 595;
+ earthenware makers, 360, 595;
+ in chromo-lithograph and transfer making, 366;
+ tile-making, 368;
+ produced by washing lead-workers’ and painters’ clothes, 369;
+ lead foil makers, shoe-finishers, 370;
+ electric treatment of, 373–77;
+ in mirror-silvering works, 441;
+ among chemical workers, 595;
+ its effect on the eyes, 770.
+
+ Pommata, Dr, Brigue, 741, 743.
+
+ Pneumatic chipper in steel works, 781, 783.
+
+ Pneumoconiosis, lung disease caused by dust, 268, 271;
+ in quarriers, 563.
+
+ Pneumonia, in field-workers, 234;
+ masons, porcelain and cement makers, 274;
+ typographers, 329, 330;
+ steel grinders, 410;
+ millers, bakers, 505;
+ miners, 535;
+ jute workers, 660;
+ agriculturists, cotton operatives, 720;
+ boiler makers and shipbuilders, 754;
+ engine drivers and firemen, 797;
+ glass-makers, 805.
+
+ Poikilocytosis, 484.
+
+ Poincaré, Dr, 794.
+
+ Poisoning by dinitrobenzine, 477–86;
+ acute, 477;
+ subacute, 478;
+ chronic, 479;
+ precautions against, 487;
+ treatment of, 489.
+
+ Poisonous substances, control of their use in manufacture, 42.
+
+ _Poisons Industriels_, Paris, 284, 302, 360, 794.
+
+ Poisson, Dr, 794.
+
+ Pol and Watelle, MM., on effects of compressed air at Douchy mine,
+ 730.
+
+ Polishing of cutlery, 412.
+
+ Pollender, Professor, on the anthrax bacillus, 623.
+
+ Ponteau, M., experiments in matches, 430.
+
+ Pontypool, first tinplate works at, 681.
+
+ Poole, Dorset, fireclay working at, 400.
+
+ Poore, Vivian, 819.
+
+ Pope, Dr Walter, 26, 434.
+
+ Porcelain, diseases of workers, 274;
+ three kinds of, 349;
+ stoves, 367.
+
+ Porphyry quarries, 558.
+
+ Porter, Dr, 343.
+
+ Potassium and sodium bichromate, lesions resulting from manufacture
+ and uses of, 447–54.
+
+ Potassium chlorate, 419.
+
+ Potassium, cyanide of, in glazed ware, 807.
+
+ Pott, Percivall, 237.
+
+ “Potteries,” the, 346.
+
+ Potters, phthisis of, 15, 389;
+ death rate, 135.
+
+ Pottery manufacture, 4, 21, 25;
+ use of lead in, 346–65.
+
+ Pottery Arbitration at Stoke-on-Trent, 21.
+
+ Pouce, flax dust, 697.
+
+ Power presses, 229, 230.
+
+ Precipitation process in white lead works, 291.
+
+ Pregnancy, and lead poisoning, 301;
+ and tobacco, 794.
+
+ Prendergast, Dr Hanley, 384, 388.
+
+ Preservation of Health and Morals of Apprentices Act (1802), 827.
+
+ Prevost, Dr, Geneva University, 258.
+
+ Priest and Ashmore, opticians, Sheffield, 782.
+
+ Priestley, Dr, 280.
+
+ Prime movers, 205.
+
+ Printers, death rate, 150;
+ and lead dust, 275;
+ colic, 324;
+ their cats suffer from plumbism, 327;
+ subject to phthisis, 328–30;
+ and to plumbism, 324–32.
+
+ Pröbsting, Dr, oculist, Cologne, 806.
+
+ Prospector, mining, 509, 510.
+
+ Protection necessary in factories, 64;
+ Protection of Infant Life, Select Committee (1871) on, 79.
+
+ Protective legislation and Factory Acts, 32.
+
+ Proust, Dr, 322.
+
+ Pruritus (itchiness), 270.
+
+ Prussian Official Miners’ Relief Fund, 533.
+
+ Public Health Acts, 22, 29, 565.
+
+ _Public Health Journal_, 497.
+
+ _Public Health Engineer_, 504.
+
+ Publicans, death rate, 800.
+
+ Puddling furnacemen subject to heart disease, 756.
+
+ Pulleys, for mill-gearing, 209, 210;
+ loose, 217.
+
+ Pulling room, for transformation of rabbit skins, 724.
+
+ Pulmonary anthracosis, in stokers, 797.
+
+ Pulmonary anthrax, “wool-sorter’s disease,” 637.
+
+ Pulmonary diseases, in china and earthenware makers, 382–89;
+ blast furnacemen, 756;
+ blacksmiths, 757;
+ dressmakers, 805;
+ chimney sweeps, 808.
+
+ Purdon, Dr C. P., 270, 695, 697.
+
+ Putty powder, frequent cause of plumbism, 339.
+
+ Pyroxiline, 792.
+
+
+ Quarriers, diseases of, 135, 143, 561–64;
+ accidents, 560, 561;
+ eye accidents, 784.
+
+ Quarries, 557–67.
+
+ Quarries Act (1894), 42, 557, 564.
+
+ Quarry Fencing Act, 565.
+
+ Quicksilver, mining of, 25, 434;
+ extraction from cinnabar, 438.
+
+
+ Rabbit down and skins, 724–27.
+
+ “Racing the stone,” in wet-grinding, 412.
+
+ Rag-grinding, 645.
+
+ Rag-cleaning, dust from, 276.
+
+ Rag-sorters, liable to anthrax, 244;
+ health of, 645.
+
+ Rags and their products in relation to health, 644–47.
+
+ _Railway Times_, 198.
+
+ Railways, 190–202;
+ accidents on, 190 _et seq._, 530;
+ Royal Commission (1865) on, 192;
+ block system and automatic couplings, 193;
+ overwork on, _ibid._;
+ gases in underground, 744–45;
+ employés’ risks, 796.
+
+ Railways Regulation Act (1871), 193;
+ (1873), 192.
+
+ Rainhill, file-cutting at, 340.
+
+ Ramazini, Dr, _Diseases of Artificers_ (_De morbis artificium
+ diatriba_), 24, 267, 434, 789.
+
+ Ransome, Dr, 80, 707.
+
+ Rasch, Professor, 368.
+
+ Rats and sequoia sawdust, 792.
+
+ Ravenal, Dr, Pennsylvania, 624.
+
+ Rawson, C., _Manual of Dyeing_, 447.
+
+ Raymondaud, Professor, Limoges, 385.
+
+ Reachers (cotton-spinning), 703.
+
+ Read, Holliday, & Sons, 612.
+
+ Read-Holliday Acetylene Company, 497, 501.
+
+ Red lead, 287;
+ Special Rules for manufacture of, 846.
+
+ Red, or amorphous phosphorus, 417–19.
+
+ Red oxide, 443.
+
+ Redgrave, Alexander, Factory Inspector, 29, 36.
+
+ Redheugh Bridge, Newcastle, 729, 734.
+
+ Redwick Well, Gloucestershire, 545.
+
+ Reeling, measuring flax yarn into hanks, 695.
+
+ Regent’s Park, gunpowder explosion in, 607, 608.
+
+ Reitz, Dr J., _Ueber die giftigen Hutmacherbeizen und deren
+ nachtheiligen Einfluss auf die Gesundheit_, 435.
+
+ Renk, Professor von, 436.
+
+ Resin, 619.
+
+ Respiratory diseases, _see_ phthisis.
+
+ Retting, or steeping pond, for jute, 651.
+
+ Return road (mines), 540.
+
+ _Revue d’Hygiène et de Police Sanitaire_, 431, 739.
+
+ Rex, Wilton, 363.
+
+ Reynolds, Dr, 482.
+
+ Rheumatic fever, in cotton operatives, 147, 720;
+ wool-sorters, 148;
+ drapers, 154;
+ brewers, cutlers, carpenters, chemical workers, earthenware and
+ glass makers, 595;
+ occupied and unoccupied men, 595, 720;
+ agriculturists, 720.
+
+ Rheumatism, in seamen, 183, 186;
+ field-workers, 232;
+ quarriers, 564;
+ jute-workers, 660;
+ jam-makers, 680;
+ tinplate workers, 683;
+ aerated water workers, 689;
+ blast furnacemen, 756;
+ sawyers, 791;
+ drivers of public vehicles, 798.
+
+ Riders’ bone, bursæ, sprain, 245.
+
+ Ridley, Sir Matthew White, 69, 353.
+
+ Ring frame, in cotton-spinning, 703.
+
+ Ringworm, in cows, 247.
+
+ Ritchie, C. T., 72, 193, 197;
+ his Railway Bills, 198, 202.
+
+ Rivers, Dr, 773.
+
+ Riveters, deafness in, 752.
+
+ _Rivista de Servizio Minerario_, 521.
+
+ Roads, “intake” and “return” (mines), 540.
+
+ Roberts, Sir William, 707.
+
+ Robertshaw, Dr, Stockbridge, 400.
+
+ Robertson, Dr John, Medical Health Officer, Sheffield, 340.
+
+ Robinson, Dr William, Sunderland, 284, 819.
+
+ Roburite, 555, 559, 619.
+
+ Roburite Company, 615.
+
+ Rochester Bridge, 731.
+
+ Rodgers, Mr, Factory Inspector, 591.
+
+ Rome, Jews as glass makers in, 804.
+
+ Romiée, Dr, 764.
+
+ Root’s blower, 570.
+
+ Rope-makers, death rate, 135.
+
+ Roques, _Mouvement Médical_, 303.
+
+ Roscoe, Sir H., 707.
+
+ Rose, Dr Frederick, Consul at Stuttgart, _Rise, Progress, and
+ Present Condition of the Carbide and Acetylene Industries
+ in Germany_, 504.
+
+ Rosewood, 792.
+
+ Roslin, Edinburgh, gunpowder explosions at, 609.
+
+ Ross, Dr, 479.
+
+ Roughers, in flax works, 693;
+ addicted to alcoholism, 697.
+
+ Roussel, Professor, 422.
+
+ Rove, twisted jute yarn, 653.
+
+ Roving frames, cotton spinning, 703.
+
+ Roving machines, flax works, 694.
+
+ Royal College of Surgeons, 809.
+
+ Royal Commission on:--Labour, 74, 83, 186;
+ Mines (1841), 31;
+ Railways (1865 and 1899), 192, 198.
+
+ Royal Institution, 737, 740.
+
+ Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, 457.
+
+ Royal Society, 118.
+
+ _Royal Society of England, Transactions of_, 26, 27.
+
+ _Royaume de Belgique--Statistique de Mines, Minières, Carrières,
+ etc._, 519.
+
+ Russell, Dr, 625.
+
+ Russell, Risien, 822.
+
+ Russell, Sir James, Edinburgh, 791.
+
+ Russia, factory inspectorate in, 49;
+ ergotism in, 234.
+
+ Rye, spurred, 234.
+
+
+ S. S. Powder, 619.
+
+ Saccardo system, for ventilating St Gothard Tunnel, 738.
+
+ Sack-sewers (jute works), 652.
+
+ Safe-guarding of machinery, 203–31.
+
+ Safety lamps, in coal mines, 528.
+
+ Saggers, vessels in which earthenware is fired, 347, 383.
+
+ Sailing vessels, mortality incident in, 184.
+
+ Sailors, health of, 182–89;
+ food and habits of, 183;
+ diseases due to employment, habits, and climate, 184, 185;
+ to insanitary conditions and environment, 186;
+ accident death rate, 530.
+
+ St Bartholomew’s Hospital, 237, 245, 809.
+
+ St Gothard Tunnel, 738.
+
+ St Helens, copper-smelting at, 466;
+ chemical works at, 571, 579, 582, 584, 596;
+ plate-glass works at, 804.
+
+ St Yriex, near Limoges, kaolin found at, 385.
+
+ Salt, electrolysis of, 583.
+
+ Salt cake, or sulphate of soda, 570, 573;
+ hours of work, etc., of makers of, 586.
+
+ Salt mines (Cheshire), 508;
+ accidents in German, 513–15.
+
+ Saltash, use of caissons at, 731.
+
+ Saltpetre, 600, 611.
+
+ Sand quarries, 558.
+
+ Sandstone, dust, 274;
+ quarries, 558.
+
+ Sanitary Act, 29, 36.
+
+ Sanitary Commissions, 29.
+
+ Sanitary Condition of Labouring Population, Report (1838) on, 45.
+
+ Sanitary Congress, Newcastle, 808.
+
+ Sanitary measures in Factory Act of 1864, 35.
+
+ Sanitary State of the People of England (1858), 76.
+
+ Saturnine poisoning, _see_ encephalopathy.
+
+ Saws, circular, 227.
+
+ Sawyers, subject to rheumatism, bronchitis, and asthma, 791.
+
+ Saxony, mines, 518;
+ cancer of lung in smaltite miners, 538;
+ secret of tinplate making brought from, 681.
+
+ Scale tang cutlery, 412, 413.
+
+ Scapula’s _Lexicon_, 232.
+
+ Scarlet fever caused by cows’ milk, 247.
+
+ Schaefer, Dr H., _Die Spiegelberger_, 441.
+
+ Scheele, Dr, Berlin, 805.
+
+ Scheele’s green, 379.
+
+ Schmeisser, _The Goldfields of Australia_, 509.
+
+ Schmidt, Dr, 340.
+
+ Schölberg, H. A., his chemical analysis of a ganister miner’s lung,
+ 404.
+
+ Schonbein, Professor, 419.
+
+ Schröter of Vienna, discovers red or amorphous phosphorus, 418.
+
+ Schultze powder, 619.
+
+ Schutte, Landsberg, & Co., 492.
+
+ Schweinfurt or Vienna green, 379.
+
+ Schweinitz, Professor de, _Toxic Amblyopias_, 769, 770.
+
+ Sciatica in field-workers, 232.
+
+ Scissors-makers, death rate, 137.
+
+ Scotch Fishery Board, 674.
+
+ Scotland, match works in, 419;
+ bichrome factories in, 449;
+ fish-curing a staple industry in, 674.
+
+ Scott, Dr Alexander, Glasgow, 796.
+
+ Scottish Amicable Life Assurance Society, 801.
+
+ Scottish Council for Women’s Trades, 98.
+
+ Scouring china, 384.
+
+ Screws, set (mill-gearing), 209, 214.
+
+ Scriveners’ palsy, or spasm, 815–17.
+
+ Scroll- or draw-bands, 225.
+
+ Scurvy, in sailors, 183, 187.
+
+ Scutch mills, flax, 692, 694, 698.
+
+ Seamstresses’ cramp, 821.
+
+ Self-acting mules, 223–25.
+
+ Septum, ulceration of the nasal, 450–52.
+
+ Sequoia wood, effect of its sawdust, 791.
+
+ Serpentine quarries, 558.
+
+ Servants, domestic, liable to stomach ulceration, 798.
+
+ Sesquisulphide of phosphorus, 421, 430–32.
+
+ Set-screws (mill-gearing), 209, 214.
+
+ Setters, in ganister works, 398.
+
+ Severn Tunnel, nitro-glycerine fumes in, 613.
+
+ Sewing-machine workers, their ailments, 802.
+
+ Seymour, Lord, his Railway Act, 191.
+
+ Shaft ends, 217.
+
+ Shaftesbury, Lord, 38.
+
+ Shafting, for mill-gearing, 209, 210.
+
+ Shafts, downcast and upcast (mines), 540.
+
+ Shale quarries, 558.
+
+ Shanghai hides, 629.
+
+ Shears, Professor, 769.
+
+ Sheep, and anthrax, 624.
+
+ “Sheep dip,” arsenic in, 378.
+
+ Sheep’s wool, 634.
+
+ Sheet-glass factories, 804.
+
+ Sheffield, mother-of-pearl grinding in, 276;
+ file-cutters, 340;
+ high mortality in, 344, 345;
+ snuff, 769.
+
+ Sheffield Royal Infirmary, 777, 779, 781.
+
+ Shennan, Dr, Edinburgh, 778.
+
+ Shepherds and sheep diseases, 244, 247, 248.
+
+ Sherwin, J., 363.
+
+ Ship painters, 494.
+
+ Shipwrights, death rate, 596, 754.
+
+ Shoddy, 646.
+
+ “Shoddy fever,” in rag-grinders, 645.
+
+ Shoe-finishing and staining by lead compounds, plumbism and, 370.
+
+ Shoemakers, death rate, 155, 824;
+ spasm (idiopathic tetany), 822;
+ instance of chest deformity in, 823.
+
+ Shoreditch, cases of anthrax in, 627.
+
+ Shunters, railway, a perilous trade, 195–97.
+
+ Sicily, effects of fatigue in, 112.
+
+ Sick Insurance Fund, Germany, 55, 58.
+
+ Sidemoor, nail-making at, 760.
+
+ Siderosis, lung disease due to metallic dust, 273.
+
+ Siemens-Martin furnace, 756.
+
+ Siemens metal, heat of, 772.
+
+ Sierra de Gador, lead mines of, 284.
+
+ Sieve mills, ganister works, 398.
+
+ Sighters of aerated water, 787;
+ eye accidents to, 786.
+
+ Silicate of cotton, 788.
+
+ Silicosis, or chalicosis, lung disease due to stone-dust, etc.,
+ 273.
+
+ Silk-dust, its effect on workers, 26.
+
+ Silver and gold extraction, 440.
+
+ Silver finishers or burnishers, eye affection, of, 771.
+
+ Silvering of mirrors, 440.
+
+ Simon, Sir John, Medical Officer to the Privy Council, 24, 26, 29,
+ 76, 77, 81, 84.
+
+ Simon, Dr R., 144.
+
+ Simplon Tunnel, 739.
+
+ Size in cotton, its effects on health, 705, 706;
+ constituents of, 715.
+
+ Skin and hides, Special Rules for dry-salting, 856.
+
+ Skin disease due to dust (pneumoconiosis), 268;
+ in flax workers, 260.
+
+ Slag, basic, 276, 390–95.
+
+ Slate quarries, 558.
+
+ Slaughterers liable to anthrax, 244;
+ and erysipelas, 245.
+
+ Sledge hammer, or Oliver, 759.
+
+ Sledging, in ganister crushing, 397.
+
+ Slip-makers (pottery), 383.
+
+ Slips, in mill-gearing, 225.
+
+ Slubbing frames (cotton spinning), 703.
+
+ Smallpox, allied to cowpox and horsepox, 247;
+ caused by rags in papermaking, 644;
+ upholsterers liable to, 789.
+
+ Smaltite, causes lung cancer, 538.
+
+ Smelting works (Germany), accidents in, 513–15.
+
+ Smith, Dr Andrew, New York, 731, 735.
+
+ Smith, Angus, _Air and Rain_, 543.
+
+ Smith, Sir Frederick, Inspector General, Board of Trade, 191.
+
+ Smith, Commander Hamilton, 277, 767.
+
+ Smith, Lorrain, 544, 550.
+
+ Smith, Sidney, Factory Inspector, 591.
+
+ Smoke in mines, carbonic acid, its poisonous constituent, 553, 554.
+
+ Smyrna, emery rock imported from, 813.
+
+ Snaefell colliery accident, 554.
+
+ Snell, Dr Simeon, 482, 488, 730.
+
+ Snuff, manufacture of, 767.
+
+ Social Science Congress (1865), 411.
+
+ Society of Arts, 501.
+
+ Society of File-Cutters by Hand in Sheffield, 345.
+
+ Soda, 581, 583.
+
+ Sodium, manufacture of, 447–54;
+ Special Rules for, 844.
+
+ Sodium nitrate, 581.
+
+ Soft rags, 644.
+
+ Soldering, and plumbism, 323.
+
+ Soldiers, diseases of, 166–81;
+ their barracks, 168;
+ tight-fitting uniforms abolished, 169;
+ “irritable heart” and tobacco, _ibid._;
+ night-guard, 170;
+ life in hot dry climates, 171;
+ in hot moist climates, 173;
+ specific diseases of campaigns, 177.
+
+ Sommerfeld, _Handbuch der Gewerbekrankheiten_, 439.
+
+ Soot merchants, death rate, 145.
+
+ Soot, its effects on the skin, 808;
+ and cancer, 810.
+
+ Soot warts, 810.
+
+ South London, fur-pullers in, 726.
+
+ South Wales, mines, 158–60;
+ tinplate works, 681.
+
+ Southwark, cases of anthrax in, 627.
+
+ Spain, employment of women after childbirth in, 54;
+ pellagra in, 235.
+
+ Spanish lead ore, 283.
+
+ Spanton, W. D., 354.
+
+ Spear, Mr, Local Government Board, 625, 626, 630–32.
+
+ Special Rules, in Germany and England, 55, 59;
+ France, 57;
+ and Arbitration, 65–71;
+ in potteries, 361, 365;
+ under Factory Acts, 829–64.
+
+ Spiegel iron, 758.
+
+ Spike nails, 759.
+
+ Spindle ends, 217.
+
+ Spinners (flax), phthisis among, 696–98.
+
+ Spirit or inflammable paints, use of, 494–96.
+
+ Splenic fever, _see_ anthrax.
+
+ Sporting explosives, 619.
+
+ Spragging, in coal mines, 527.
+
+ Spur wheels, 216.
+
+ Squire, Miss, 442, 671.
+
+ Stablemen, subject to glanders and farcy, 238.
+
+ Staffordshire, infant mortality in artisan towns of, 73;
+ wages of male and female workers, 88;
+ mines in, 158–61;
+ home of the pottery industry, 346;
+ earthenware and china makers in, 350, 351.
+
+ Stagnant and compressed air, diseases due to working in, 728–48.
+
+ “Stamp-lickers’ tongue,” 803.
+
+ Stannington clay, 397.
+
+ Starch, 619.
+
+ Starting-gear for gas and oil engines, 208.
+
+ _Statistik der Knappschafts-Berufsgenossenschaft für das Deutsche
+ Reich_, 512.
+
+ _Statistique de l’Industrie Minérale en France et en Algerie_, 520.
+
+ _Statisque de Mines, etc., Royaume de Belgique._
+
+ Steam engines, 206.
+
+ Steam laundries, machinery in, 665.
+
+ Steamers, mortality incident in, 184.
+
+ Steel and iron industries, 756–60.
+
+ Steel-melters’ composition, 400.
+
+ Steel-workers, death rate, 135, 140;
+ eye diseases, 771–75;
+ eye accidents, 776–83.
+
+ Steel works, use of converters in, 757.
+
+ Steel grinding, 408–16.
+
+ Steel pens, and writers’ palsy, 815, 818, 819.
+
+ Steeping or retting pond, for jute, 651;
+ for flax, 652.
+
+ Stephenson, George, 191.
+
+ Stephenson, Dr, Medical Health Officer, Blackburn, 706.
+
+ Stereotyping, 331.
+
+ Stevenson, Dr, 460, 461.
+
+ Stive room, in basic slag works, 391.
+
+ Stockman, Professor, Glasgow, 426.
+
+ Stoke-on-Trent, Pottery Arbitration at, 21, 363;
+ potteries at, 554.
+
+ Stokers, railway, pulmonary anthracosis in, 797.
+
+ Stokes, Mr, Report on Whitwick Colliery fire, 554.
+
+ Stomach ulceration, domestic servants liable to, 798.
+
+ Stone, racing the (wet-grinding), 412.
+
+ Stone, workers in (cutters, masons, quarriers, etc.), eye accidents
+ to, 784.
+
+ Stone-quarriers, death rate, 135, 143.
+
+ Stooping gait (kyphosis), in field-workers, 133.
+
+ Stourbridge fireclay, 399, 400.
+
+ Strap forks, 217.
+
+ Strasburg Bridge, Rhine, 731.
+
+ Strassmann and Strecker, 482, 486.
+
+ Strick of flax, 693.
+
+ Strong’s “Standard Guard” for engine fly-wheels, 207.
+
+ Stühler, Dr, Berlin, 325, 333.
+
+ Stumpf, Dr, 325.
+
+ Subchloride of mercury (calomel), 442, 443.
+
+ Suffit, Dr Courtois-, 431.
+
+ Sugar and alcohol, as muscular food, 114.
+
+ Suicide, in file-cutters, 138;
+ chimney sweeps, 146;
+ bookbinders, printers, musicians, 151;
+ hatters, 152;
+ drapers, 154, 155;
+ shoemakers, 155;
+ ironstone miners, 161;
+ occupied and unoccupied men, 164;
+ publicans, 802.
+
+ Sulphate of soda, or salt cake, 570, 573.
+
+ Sulphide of lead (galena), 348, 538.
+
+ Sulphide of mercury (vermilion), 438, 443.
+
+ Sulphur, 581, 582.
+
+ Sulphur dioxide, 580, 581.
+
+ Sulphuretted hydrogen, 555, 582.
+
+ Sulphuric acid, 570;
+ manufacture of, 580.
+
+ Sulser-Ziegler, Mr, Director of Brandt, Brandau et Cie., Zurich,
+ 740.
+
+ Sunderland, 360.
+
+ Sunderland Infirmary, 808.
+
+ Sunstroke, 171, 175, 180.
+
+ Sutton, H., 363.
+
+ Swan, Joseph Wilson, 5.
+
+ Swansea, copper smelting at, 466, 467.
+
+ Sweating System, House of Lords’ Committee on the, 40.
+
+ Sweden, factory inspectorate in, 47;
+ ergotism in, 234;
+ lucifer match industry in, 422.
+
+ Swift, or drum for rag-grinding, 645.
+
+ Swine and anthrax, 624.
+
+ Switzerland, factory inspectorate in, 47;
+ employment of women after childbirth, 53, 88, 685;
+ use of white phosphorus limited, 60;
+ yellow phosphorus prohibited, 422;
+ phosphorus necrosis in, 428;
+ chimney sweeping in, 811.
+
+ Sydney, week’s work of forty-four hours in coal mines and
+ factories, 8;
+ death from electric shock in, 257.
+
+ Syphilis, sailors and, 184.
+
+
+ Tailors, death rate, 153.
+
+ Talamon, Dr, 320.
+
+ Tanners, death rate, 244, 245.
+
+ Tannery refuse, and anthrax, 624.
+
+ Tanquerel, Dr, 327.
+
+ Tar, cancer among workers in, 812.
+
+ Tardien, M., 303.
+
+ Tasmania, eight hours’ day in, 8.
+
+ Tatham, Dr John, _Decennial Supplements to Registrar-General’s
+ Reports_, 118, 345, 389, 593, 596, 717, 719, 801, 809.
+
+ Taylor, Dr Frederick, 746.
+
+ Tea lead rollers, lead insanity among, 308.
+
+ Teagles, 221.
+
+ Telegraphists’ spasm or cramp, 819.
+
+ Telfer, Councillor, Edinburgh, 791.
+
+ Templeman, Dr, Medical Health Officer, Dundee, 82.
+
+ Tennant, H. J., M.P., 14.
+
+ Terra-cotta, 348.
+
+ Terrier, Professor, 775.
+
+ Tetanus, or lockjaw, 240–42;
+ its micro-organism, 241;
+ in quarrymen, 564;
+ jute-workers, 659;
+ idiopathic (shoemakers’ spasm), 822.
+
+ Textile factories, accidents in, 12;
+ limitation of hours in, 35;
+ death rate of workers in, 147;
+ machinery in, 225, 226.
+
+ Thackrah, Dr, _Effects of Arts, Trades, and Professions on Health
+ and Longevity_, 458.
+
+ Thermometer-making, 439.
+
+ Thomas, Dr, Limehouse, 280.
+
+ Thomas Gilchrist process, in steel manufacture, 390.
+
+ Thomson, Captain, Inspector of Explosives, 502.
+
+ Thorpe, Professor T. E., 350–53, 355, 357–61, 363, 364, 368, 417,
+ 419, 803.
+
+ Thread mills, 803.
+
+ Threshing, eye accidents in, 783.
+
+ Throstles (cotton spinning), 703.
+
+ Throwing (potteries), 383.
+
+ Tile making, and manufacture of porcelain stoves, 367.
+
+ Tillmanns, Professor, Leipzig, 812.
+
+ _Times_, 362.
+
+ Tin-houses, in tinplate works, 685.
+
+ Tin-miners, death rate, 162, 535.
+
+ Tinplate works, processes of manufacture in, 681;
+ women’s labour in, 681–86;
+ risks to health, 683.
+
+ Tinker and Holliday, Huddersfield, 501.
+
+ Tinley, Dr, 234.
+
+ Tinning and enamelling of hollow ware, 319;
+ Special Rules for, 848, 863.
+
+ Tizzoni, Professor, the tetanus bacilli, 241, 242;
+ on hydrophobia, 244.
+
+ Tobacco, soldiers use of, 169;
+ manufacture of, 768, 793;
+ toxic amblyopia in workers, 768;
+ pregnancy and, 794.
+
+ Todmorden, cotton sizing at, 705.
+
+ Tolindene, 591.
+
+ Toluene, 475.
+
+ Tonite (cotton powder), 555, 559, 611, 620.
+
+ Tools, machine, 212.
+
+ Toothed wheels, 216, 217.
+
+ Torticollis, or wry-neck, 762.
+
+ Tow, flax, 673;
+ sliver-yarn, 694.
+
+ Towing (pottery), 383.
+
+ Toxic hysteria, caused by bisulphide of carbon, 473.
+
+ Trade, Grand Committee (1902) on, 43.
+
+ Trade Accident Associations (Germany), 55.
+
+ Trade Unions, 2.
+
+ Trades Union Congress (1882), 705.
+
+ Tramways, electric, 323.
+
+ _Transactions of the Institution of Mining Engineers_, 508, 516,
+ 517, 541, 543.
+
+ _Transactions of Ophth. Society of the United Kingdom_, 770.
+
+ _Transactions of the Royal Society of England_, 26, 27.
+
+ Transfer making and chromo-lithographic works, 365;
+ Special Rules for, 840.
+
+ Transformer stations, electric, 250.
+
+ Tremenheere, Mr, Inspector of Mines, 28.
+
+ Triamidobenzine, 483.
+
+ Trichinosis, 249.
+
+ Triger, M., French engineer, 730.
+
+ Trinitrobenzine, 476, 483.
+
+ Trinitrophenol, or picric acid, 619.
+
+ Trinitrotoluene, 476.
+
+ Tropical diseases, in sailors, 185.
+
+ Tuberculosis, common disease in cows, 247;
+ in typographers, 275, 329, 330.
+
+ Tunnels, dangers of making and working in, 737–43.
+
+ Tunstall potteries, 346.
+
+ Turbines, 208.
+
+ Turin, Congress of Hygiene at, 288.
+
+ Tuyere holes (steel works), 758.
+
+ _Twentieth Century Practice of Medicine_, 442, 819.
+
+ Tyler, Captain, Board of Trade Inspecting Officer, 193.
+
+ Tyneside, decay of chemical industry on, 6;
+ lead insanity in, 283;
+ plumbism, 312.
+
+ Typhoid fever, 174, 177, 179;
+ among field-workers, 234;
+ in Dundee, 662;
+ among boilermakers and shipbuilders, 754.
+
+ Type-setters’ spasm, 821.
+
+ Typographers (type founders and setters) and lead dust, 275;
+ and plumbism, 324–32.
+
+ Typographical Associations, 328;
+ Mortality Tables, 329, 330.
+
+ Tyrol, milkers’ spasm in cowherds of the, 821.
+
+
+ Ulceration of the nasal septum, due to bichromes, 451;
+ of the stomach in domestic servants, 798.
+
+ Underground railways, gases in, 744–45.
+
+ Unhealthy trades, Dr Guy’s classification of, 130.
+
+ United Alkali Co., 570, 579.
+
+ United Society of Boilermakers and Iron Shipbuilders, 754.
+
+ Unoccupied and occupied men, mortality of, 162, 594, 595, 719, 720.
+
+ Upcast shaft (mines), 540.
+
+ Upholsterers, and flocks, 466;
+ subject to respiratory troubles, smallpox, erysipelas, etc., 789.
+
+ Urinary diseases, in potters, 136;
+ cutlers, 137, 595;
+ file-cutters, 138, 595;
+ glass-makers, 139, 595;
+ copper-workers, 140, 595;
+ iron-workers, 141;
+ lead-workers, 143, 595;
+ brass-workers, 145;
+ chimney sweeps, 146;
+ wool-workers, 148;
+ bookbinders, 150;
+ printers, musicians, 151;
+ miners, 158, 161, 162;
+ occupied and unoccupied men, 164, 595;
+ caused by dinitrobenzine, 482–85;
+ among brewers, carpenters, chemical workers, earthenware makers,
+ 595;
+ publicans, etc., 802.
+
+ Urobilin, 483.
+
+ Uttley, Stuart, 345.
+
+
+ Vaccinia, or cowpox, cowmen and dairymaids subject to, 246.
+
+ Van der Borght, Dr, his definition of industrial disease, 15.
+
+ Van Giesson, 401.
+
+ Van Leyden, 747.
+
+ Varicocele, in carpenters, 791;
+ engine drivers, 796.
+
+ Varicose veins, 19.
+
+ Vegetable dyes, 317.
+
+ Velten in Brandenburg, plumbism among glazed tile makers, 368.
+
+ Venereal diseases, in soldiers, 177;
+ sailors, 183, 185.
+
+ Ventilation of factories, 51.
+
+ Vermilion (sulphide of mercury), 443.
+
+ Verhægen, Arthur, 14, 16–18.
+
+ Vernati, Sir Philberto, 26.
+
+ Veterinary surgeons, 238, 244, 247, 248.
+
+ Victor guard, 228.
+
+ Victoria, eight hours’ day in, 8.
+
+ Vienna, epidemic of idiopathic tetany in, 822.
+
+ Violinists’ cramp, 821.
+
+ Viper bites, in field-workers, 236.
+
+ Vitriol makers, hours of work, etc., 586.
+
+ Vitriol, oil of, 570.
+
+ Volante, Dr, Medical Officer at Iselle (Simplon Tunnel), 741, 743.
+
+ Volts, 252, 253.
+
+ Vulcanisation of indiarubber, 768;
+ Special Rules for, 855.
+
+
+ Wadsworth’s “Self-landing and Delivering Hoist,” 222.
+
+ Wages, effect of home work on, 103.
+
+ Wall papers, arsenic in, 379.
+
+ Walmsley, J. H., Factory Inspector, Stoke-on-Trent, 352, 354.
+
+ Walsrode (sporting powder), 619.
+
+ Ward, Thomas, _The Subsidences in and around the Town of Northwich
+ in Cheshire_, 508.
+
+ Warpers, flax, 695;
+ cotton spinning, 703.
+
+ Washers, in tinplate works, 682;
+ of aerated water bottles, 688.
+
+ Washing of lead-workers’ and painters’ clothes, plumbism caused by,
+ 369.
+
+ Water, importance of its source and purity, 177, 185, 188.
+
+ Water-born diseases, enteric and cholera, 178, 179, 185, 188.
+
+ Water-gauges on boilers, eye accidents due to bursting of, 787.
+
+ Water-gilding, 440.
+
+ Water-wheels, 208.
+
+ Watson, Mr, Secretary, Miners’ Permanent Benefit Fund, 776.
+
+ Weavers, flax, phthisis and bronchial troubles in, 696–98;
+ eye accidents to, 785.
+
+ Weavers’ Association, 707.
+
+ Weaving sheds (cotton spinning), 704.
+
+ Weber, Professor H. F., his electric experiments, 252.
+
+ Wedgewood, 347.
+
+ Wegner, Professor, experiments with phosphorus, 425.
+
+ Weldon process, in bleach powder making, 575, 576, 580.
+
+ Well-sinkers, eye accidents to, 542.
+
+ West coast of Africa, 173.
+
+ West Riding, Yorkshire, mines, 160;
+ wool industry in, 634.
+
+ Westphalia, mining laws in, 537;
+ anchylostomiasis in, 537.
+
+ Westphalite, for blasting, 619.
+
+ Wet-grinders, 411–16;
+ phthisis in, 412.
+
+ Weyl’s _Handbuch der Hygiene_, 441.
+
+ Wheat-cleaning, dust from, 276;
+ dirt in imported, 506.
+
+ Wheels (in mill-gearing), bevel, 212, 217;
+ toothed, 216, 217;
+ spur, 216, 226;
+ plate, 218;
+ carriages, 225;
+ balance, 226.
+
+ Whinstone, or basalt, quarries, 558.
+
+ White, Dr Sinclair, 343.
+
+ White, Walter, _Month in Yorkshire_, 644.
+
+ White lead, 288;
+ is there a substitute for? 293–295.
+
+ White Lead Commission (1893), 259, 286, 289, 293, 298, 313, 318,
+ 369.
+
+ White lead poisoning, _see_ plumbism.
+
+ White lead works, 36, 39, 42;
+ blue and white beds in, 289;
+ different methods of manufacture in, 291, 292;
+ plumbism in, 295 _et seq._;
+ displacement of female by male labour, 297;
+ Special Rules for, 829.
+
+ White or yellow phosphorus, 417–19, 421;
+ a substitute for, 429, 432.
+
+ White-damp, 554.
+
+ Whitelegge, Dr A., Chief Inspector of Factories, 12, 419, 464, 626.
+
+ Whittaker, J. L., 363.
+
+ Whittingham Asylum, Preston, Lancashire, 800.
+
+ Whitwick Colliery fire, 554.
+
+ Whymper, Mr, on tinplate works, 682.
+
+ Wiesbaden, plumbism in electric accumulators works at, 320.
+
+ Wigan, railway accident at, 192.
+
+ Wildmark, Professor, 775.
+
+ Wilkin, Dr, Dresden, 363.
+
+ Wilks, Sir Samuel, 421.
+
+ Williams, G. J., Mines Inspector, 554.
+
+ Williams, W., Factory Inspector, 713, 714, 716.
+
+ Wilson, H. J., Factory Inspector, 277, 299, 659, 756.
+
+ Winches, cranes, etc., 221.
+
+ Winders, flax, 695;
+ cotton, 703.
+
+ Windmills, 208.
+
+ _Windsor Magazine_, 497, 498.
+
+ Winlaton, manufacture of nails, locks, and angle iron at, 759.
+
+ Wire-drawing, eye accidents in, 785.
+
+ Wirers, aerated water, 687.
+
+ Wollner, Dr, 441.
+
+ Wolverhampton, iron-plate enamelling industry at, 317;
+ hollow ware, 319.
+
+ Women, Factory Acts first extended to, 32;
+ appointed Factory Inspectors (1893), 41;
+ limitation of employment after childbirth, 53, 54;
+ as dust sorters, 278–81;
+ more susceptible to plumbism than men, 296, 318;
+ effects of mercurial poisoning on, 438;
+ in tinplate works, 681–86;
+ in aerated water works, 687–90;
+ in tobacco and cigar factories, 794, 795.
+
+ Women’s Industrial Council of London, 98, 795.
+
+ Wood turners, death rate, 135.
+
+ Woodhouse and Mitchell’s guard, 229.
+
+ Wool and worsted workers, death rate, 135, 148;
+ and anthrax, 244, 634–43;
+ Special Rules for, 851–54, 857.
+
+ “Wool-sorters’ disease,” pulmonary anthrax, 637.
+
+ Woollen rags, 644.
+
+ Woolwich Arsenal adopts eight hours’ day, 8.
+
+ Woolwich Testing Station, 616.
+
+ Worcester Porcelain Company, 360.
+
+ Work and fatigue, physiology and pathology of, 104–117.
+
+ Working classes, and factory legislation, 3;
+ physique of, 7;
+ physical, moral, and economical evils of, 25;
+ indifference to the health of, 27;
+ divided into artisans and labourers, 111;
+ and the use of alcohol, 113.
+
+ Workmen’s Compensation Act (1897), 9–13, 19, 20, 565.
+
+ Workshop Regulation Act of 1867, amended 1870, 36.
+
+ Workshops, survey of legislation for, 44–62.
+
+ Wrecks, 184.
+
+ Wright, G. F., Factory Inspector, 370.
+
+ “Wrist drop,” 306;
+ in file-cutters, 343.
+
+ Writers’ palsy, or cramp, 815–19.
+
+ Wry-neck, or torticollis, 762.
+
+ Wutzdorff, Dr, _Die in Chromatfabriken, etc._, 320, 448, 449, 453.
+
+
+ Yarn, jute, 652;
+ flax, 694.
+
+ Yellow fever in sailors, 183, 186.
+
+ Yellow lead works, Special Rules for, 847.
+
+ Yellow or white phosphorus, 417–19, 421;
+ a substitute for, 429, 432, 433.
+
+ Ygonin, Professor, 794.
+
+ Yolk, or grease, in wool of animals, 636.
+
+ Yorkshire, efforts of labour employers in, 82;
+ child-labour in, 92;
+ mines, 161.
+
+ Youatt, Mr, on influenza in horses, 244.
+
+ Young, Ralph, 9, 11.
+
+
+ _Zeitschrift Deutsche Milit._, 751.
+
+ _Zeitschrift für Chirurgie, Deutsche_, 812.
+
+ _Zeitschrift für das Berg-, Hütten- und Salinen-wesen im
+ Preussischen Staate_, 518, 537.
+
+ Ziegler, Sulser-, Mr, 740.
+
+ Zinc chloride, in sizing, 715.
+
+ Zinc poisoning in brass-works, 460.
+
+ Zinc white, a substitute for white lead? 293–295.
+
+ Zinc-workers, death rate, 135, 141.
+
+ Printed by
+ Oliver & Boyd
+ Edinburgh
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] See also Prof. Louis’ paper, “Coal Mining,” where this subject is
+dealt with at greater length.
+
+[2] As an outcome of suggestions made at the Pottery Arbitration at
+Stoke-on-Trent (November 1901), a scheme is being formulated by a
+committee of employers, representatives of the operatives, and the
+Ocean Accident Insurance Company, under which all workers in dangerous
+processes in potteries will be able to insure against lead poisoning,
+the premiums to be supplemented by contributions from the manufacturers.
+
+[3] For example: “The accidents which happen to the workmen are:
+Immediate pain in the stomach, with exceeding contortions in the guts,
+and costiveness that yields not to cathartics; ... next a vertigo
+or dizziness in the head with continual great pain in the brows,
+blindness, stupidity, and paralytic affections; loss of appetite,
+sickness and frequent vomiting to the extremest weakness of the
+body.”--_Transactions of the Royal Society_, Abridged Edition,
+vol. ii., p. 576; paper by Sir Philberto Vernati).
+
+[4] The same volume, papers by Dr Walter Pope and Dr Ed. Brown.
+
+[5] Ramazzini: see passages I have quoted, with comparisons, in the
+Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories for 1898, pp. 171–2.
+
+[6] _Transactions of the Royal Society_, vol. ii.
+
+[7] See especially, Report on an Inquiry into the Sanitary Condition of
+the Labouring Population of Great Britain. Printed by W. Clowes & Sons
+for Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1842, pp. 256–261, 409–444, etc.
+
+[8] See more particularly, Special Reports on Mines Legislation in
+Germany, France, Belgium, by Her late Majesty’s Mines Inspector, Mr
+Tremenheere, in 1848 and 1849.
+
+[9] “Defects of ventilation are in theory dealt with under the Nuisance
+Removal Act.... In practice these powers are hitherto almost unapplied;
+partly because the magnitude of the evil is but most imperfectly
+appreciated either by local authorities and justices, or by the slowly
+suffering artisans themselves; and perhaps still more ... for another
+reason. In any proceedings ... an official complainant should be ready
+to state in precise terms what remedy he asks the justices to apply.
+Now, to describe suitable ventilation for a workplace there must be a
+fair amount of intelligence and discrimination.... An average inspector
+of nuisances cannot dictate ventilation off-hand, as he would direct
+the clearance of a dust-bin. Justices acting without skilled advice
+cannot themselves order in detail particular means of ventilation....
+Thus it seems, the evil is left unabated.... Against the other sources
+of disease to which the report has referred, no law yet pretends to
+make provision.”--_Fourth Report of the Medical Officer of the Privy
+Council_, 1861, p. 29.
+
+[10] Except for prohibition of underground employment of women and
+girls, and limitation of employment of boys (1842), metalliferous mines
+were unregulated until 1872.
+
+[11] Fourth Report of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council, 1862,
+p. 31.
+
+[12] When legislation followed the terrible revelations of the Royal
+Commission of 1841.
+
+[13] Intervening Acts had extended the general principle of protection
+to young workers in cotton mills other than apprentices.
+
+[14] The principles of organised inspection and reporting of fatal
+accidents had been already secured by a short Act of 1850. Both this
+and the Act of 1855 were to continue for five years only in force;
+later Acts were permanent in form.
+
+[15] It should be noted that in 1862–3 skilled observations were being
+made and valuable reports presented by Dr Bristowe and others, under
+the Medical Officer to the Privy Council, on industries in which
+lead, phosphorus, arsenic and mercury were used, and the precautions
+necessary for health.
+
+[16] In the Report of the Commissioners of 1875, this industry was
+especially named as needing closer regulation.
+
+[17] Report by Alexander Redgrave, Esq., C.B., on white lead poisoning,
+November 1882, p. 12.
+
+[18] I set aside entirely consideration of the otherwise important
+educational, wages, and employment sections of this code, as beyond the
+scope of this article.
+
+[19] Hitherto touched only by the employment limitations of Lord
+Shaftesbury’s Act of thirty years before, and the first five sections
+of the Act of 1860 relating to age and certificates of boys, and
+prohibition of employment of youths under eighteen in charge of
+machinery for raising and lowering persons at the pit.
+
+[20] “Such special rules for the guidance of the persons employed
+... as may appear best calculated to enforce the use by them of the
+requirements provided under this Act, and generally to prevent injury
+to health in the course of their employment,” 46 and 47 Vict., ch. 53,
+sect. 7.
+
+[21] Mention may be made of manufacture of lucifer matches, extraction
+of arsenic, manufacture of earthenware, enamelling of iron plates,
+quarries, chemical works, lead smelting, flax mills, and linen
+factories.
+
+[22] For example, by control of structural conditions, ventilation
+and cleanliness of workrooms, and of modes of handling dangerous
+substances, and condition of appliances and machinery used; of
+provision for cleanliness of workers, and maintenance of their general
+health by periodical examination and suspension; and, not least
+important, by exclusion of young workers.
+
+[23] For example, such publications as the _Bulletin de l’Inspection
+du Travail_ of France, and the _Annuaire de la Législation du
+Travail_ of Belgium.
+
+[24] A matter first dealt with by section 12 of the Government Factory
+Bill, which passed its second reading June 1901.
+
+[25] See Report prefacing the Royal Decree of 27th December 1886, for
+the beginning of this tendency.
+
+[26] Similar, though much fewer in number, are the special regulations
+in Austria and in Hungary.
+
+[27] The result of another year’s inquiry is given on p. 87 by Dr Reid.
+
+[28] See Annual Report of the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths, and
+Marriages for 1899.
+
+[29] See _infra_, p. 77.
+
+[30] See Report of Lady Assistant Commissioners, 1893.
+
+[31] See Report in the _British Medical Journal_ of 17th November
+1894 of the Deputation organised by the Parliamentary Bills Committee
+of the British Medical Council, which waited upon Mr Asquith to urge
+greater legislative restriction of the employment of mothers in
+factories.
+
+[32] _English Sanitary Institutions_, p. 298.
+
+[33] Papers relating to the Sanitary State of the People of England,
+1858.
+
+[34] This is the period of abstention from work prescribed since 1891
+under the Factory Act.
+
+[35] Fourth Report of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council.
+
+[36] For the first two influences see quotation on p. 76, from the
+Report made to the General Board of Health.
+
+[37] The prohibition of employment within a month of childbirth,
+enacted in 1891.
+
+[38] Royal Commission on Labour. Reports of Lady Assistant
+Commissioners, p. 102.
+
+[39] Fourth Report of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council, 1861.
+
+[40] The deafness of a stupid boy or girl is not usually the result of
+a defect in the organ--but rather of brain-organisation. It requires
+intelligence and often training to hear well--that is to say, to
+receive impressions and interpret them rapidly.
+
+[41] The question as to whether alcohol is a food is too large to
+discuss here. There is nothing to show that alcohol itself contributes
+to the building up of the body. Breaking down in the system into
+carbonic acid and water, it supplies warmth, thereby aiding the vital
+force; and by sparing the fat which should perform this function, and
+allowing it to be deposited in the tissues, it adds to the body weight,
+and is therefore indirectly a food.
+
+[42] _Decennial Supplement to the 55th Report of the
+Registrar-General_, Part II. By John Tatham, M.A., M.D. Eyre and
+Spottiswoode.
+
+[43] _Hygiene and Diseases of Occupations_, by Dr Arlidge, p. 306.
+Percival & Co.
+
+[44] These figures relate exclusively to Lancashire, which is the seat
+of the cotton industry.
+
+[45] Dr Ogle’s Decennial Supplement to the 45th Report of the
+Registrar-General.
+
+[46] There is also the opinion that beriberi is nothing else than
+arsenical poisoning, but this awaits confirmation. T. O.
+
+[47] Note that in all cases I have given the nearest round figures in
+order to avoid encumbering the figures with fractions.
+
+[48] By the addition of the words “or other appliance” to the
+definition of “mill-gearing,” the Act of 1901, Sec. 156, would now
+appear to include all belts by which the first moving power is
+communicated to any machine in the expression “mill-gearing.”
+
+[49] To show the importance of following this injunction, it is
+only necessary to mention an accident recorded in the _Electrical
+Review_. While a man was cleaning an electric street lamp at Boston
+he received a shock and was killed, his body being suspended from
+the wires. A man who endeavoured to remove the body came in contact
+with it, and was dashed to the ground with such violence that he died
+shortly afterwards.
+
+[50] _Metals_, Huntington and M’Millan, p. 124.
+
+[51] This process is more fully described on p. 313.
+
+[52] _Bulletin de l’Inspection du Travail_, 1901, No. 1., p. 77.
+
+[53] According to the Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories
+for 1897, there were 370 cases of plumbism reported as having occurred
+during 1897 in white lead works. The average number of persons employed
+in such works was, in 1896, 2499, and of these some were engaged in the
+manufacture of red and yellow lead. One person out of seven of those
+employed in white lead works suffered from plumbism during that year.
+For 1898 the statistics as indicated below did not show any abatement,
+a circumstance which led to a communication being sent from the Home
+Secretary to the manufacturers as to the desirability of replacing the
+old stoves by others of newer design, and the introduction of other
+mechanical and structural arrangements with effective precautions.
+
+ Month. Males. Females. Total.
+ January 14 31 45
+ February 22 14 36
+ March 13 24 37
+ April 14 19 33
+ May 18 28 46
+ June 21 9 30
+ July 28 9 37
+ August 31 5 36
+ September 67 1 68
+ October 38 2 40
+ November 34 1 35
+ December 46 1 47
+
+This table shows the transference of the incidence of plumbism from
+female to male operatives. Since the introduction of new stoves
+for drying, also other methods of mixing white lead, plumbism has
+considerably decreased.
+
+[54]
+
+ NUMBER OF PERSONS, male and female, employed in white lead
+ manufacture in the Newcastle-upon-Tyne district during two years
+ previous to the abolition of female labour, 1898, and two years
+ since. Supplied by Mr H. J. Wilson, H.M. Inspector of Factories.
+
+ +-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
+ | 1896. | 1897. | 1898. | 1899. | 1900. |
+ +-------+---------+-------+---------+-------+---------+-------+---------+-------+---------+
+ |Males. | Females.|Males. | Females.|Males. | Females.|Males. | Females.|Males. | Females.|
+ | 328 | 565 | 329 | 571 | 648 | 350 | 741 | 227 | 769 | 231 |
+ | \ | / | \ | / | \ | / | \ | / | \ | / |
+ | 893 | 900 | 998 | 968 | 1000 |
+ +-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
+
+Instead, therefore, of the number of hands employed in the white lead
+industry in this district having diminished since the abolition of
+female labour in the dangerous processes, the total number employed is
+greater now than five years ago.
+
+[55] Annual Report of Chief Inspector of Factories, 1897, p. 53.
+
+[56] _Journal of Hygiene_, vol. i., p. 104, quoted by Dr Morison
+Legge.
+
+[57] “Lead Poisoning.” Gulstonian Lectures, delivered at Royal College
+of Physicians, by Thomas Oliver, M.D. Published by Young J. Pentland,
+Edinburgh.
+
+[58] _British Medical Journal_, 22nd September 1900.
+
+[59] Oliver, in Allbutt’s _System of Medicine_, vol. ii., “Lead
+Poisoning.”
+
+[60] Combe’s method in use in Paris, see p. 290.
+
+[61] Messrs Locke, Blackett & Co.
+
+[62] Annual Report of Chief Inspector of Factories, 1900, p. 313.
+
+[63] “Die in electrisch. akkumulator fabriken”; Dr
+Wutzdorff--_Arbeiten aus dem Kaiserlichen Gesundheitsamte_, 1898.
+
+[64] _Encycloped. d’Hygiène_, p. 546.
+
+[65] Quoted by Arlidge in _Diseases of Occupations_.
+
+[66] “Dust from rafters contained 2.64 per cent. metallic lead; top
+of stock, 14.82, and 22.28 per cent.; from floor under the stock,
+2.63, and 4.37 per cent.”--Dangerous Trades Committee’s Fourth Interim
+Report, p. 29.
+
+[67] Lead Compounds in Pottery: Report to Secretary of State for Home
+Department, by Professor T. E. Thorpe, F.R.S., and Professor T. Oliver,
+M.D., 1899.
+
+[68] By the term fritted lead is meant a compound of raw lead, silica,
+and boric acid, etc., fused together at a very high temperature. The
+product resembles glass in appearance, and is sparingly soluble in
+acids. It is this substance which, when pulverised and mixed with water
+and fine clay, can be used as a glaze for coating earthenware. (See p.
+349.)
+
+[69] This was written before the Arbitration Meeting at Stoke-on-Trent
+in November 1901.
+
+[70] In a Parliamentary paper published in February 1902, the number
+of cases of lead poisoning occurring in earthenware and china works is
+stated to be 106, _i.e._, 94 less than in the previous year.
+
+[71] Dr MacAldowie, Senior Physician to the North Staffordshire
+Infirmary, does not regard lead poisoning in the Potteries as the
+serious malady it is generally believed to be. From 1891 to 1900 the
+in-patients of the Infirmary numbered 19,505: of these, 213 were lead
+poisoned patients, of whom 6 died. During the same period there were
+91,748 out-patients, of whom 353 were lead poisoned; all recovered.
+Dr MacAldowie is of opinion that lead poisoning is a curable malady
+and seldom fatal. Also, that there is greater danger to health by the
+operatives being exposed to minute than large quantities of lead.
+Dealing with the low standard solubility of the fritt recommended in
+our Report, he says: “The proposed extreme reduction in solubility
+may be fraught with grave danger in the operatives. Where there is
+prolonged and continuous exposure to the action of lead its toxic
+effects are aggravated rather than minimized by minute doses.”
+
+[72] “Ueber Bleivergiftungen der Arbeiten in Kachelofen-Fabriquen,” by
+Rasch. (_Arbeiten aus dem Kaiserlichen Gesund_, 1898, xiv., p. 81.)
+
+[73] Factories and Workshops: Annual Reports for 1899 and 1900.
+
+[74] Included in other Industries.
+
+[75] _Hygiene and Public Health_, London, 1901.
+
+[76] _Our Domestic Poisons_, London, 1879.
+
+[77] _Hygiene Diseases and Mortality of Occupations_, London, 1872.
+
+[78] See also Dr Tatham’s Remarks and Tables, p. 136, etc.
+
+[79] Published by Messrs Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1899.
+
+[80] _Use of Phosphorus in the Manufacture of Lucifer Matches_,
+1899, published by Eyre & Spottiswoode.
+
+[81] Holland passed a law, dated 28th May 1901, prohibiting the
+manufacture of phosphorus matches. This law, which came into force
+on 1st July 1901, not only prohibits the manufacture of phosphorus
+matches, but makes it illegal to convey or import them in larger
+quantity than 100 grammes, or to hold more than this quantity for sale.
+After January 1902 no such matches are to be kept in stock.
+
+[82] _Hygiène des Professions et des Industries_ (Layet), p. 111.
+
+[83] _British Medical Journal_, 1899, vol. ii., p. 270.
+
+[84] As showing the extreme sensitiveness of the human mouth to
+phosphorus, I recite the following: Into the rather wide canal of the
+pipe of a friend who is a smoker there by chance entered a wax vesta,
+with its head pointing to the mouthpiece. Shortly after smoking the
+pipe my friend experienced a most unpleasant taste and disagreeable
+odour. He continued smoking. Next day he had violent toothache. On
+the second day so severe was the toothache that, on account of the
+suppurating gums, tender teeth, and painful jawbone, the dentist was
+obliged to extract five teeth. Although the teeth on their removal were
+slightly carious, there had been no toothache until the smoking of
+the pipe on the particular day. The acutely developed pain and rapid
+destruction of the gums must in this case have been principally caused
+by phosphorus fume.
+
+[85] Extract from Dr T. Oliver’s Report to the Home Secretary, 20th
+January 1899.
+
+[86] _Revue d’Hygiène et de Police Sanitaire._ Oct. 1899.
+
+[87] In May 1901 I visited the match works at Pantin, near Paris,
+and found that as lucifer matchmaking was now regarded as a healthy
+employment, the regulations previously insisted upon had been very
+materially relaxed. Since the substitution of sesquisulphide for yellow
+phosphorus, there has been no illness among the workpeople traceable to
+their employment.
+
+[88] _Histoire de l’Académie royale des Sciences pour l’Année_
+1719, Paris, 1721, p. 359.
+
+[89] _Edinburgh Med. and Surg. Journ._, vol. viii., 1812, p. 376.
+
+[90] _Untersuchungen über dem constitutionellen Mercurialismus_,
+by Adolf Kussmaul, Würzburg, 1861.
+
+[91] “Ueber die giftigen Hutmacherbeizen und deren nachtheiligen
+Einfluss auf die Gesundheit,” by Dr J. Reitz.--_Zeitschrift für die
+Staatsarzneikunde_, 1829, p. 381.
+
+[92] For description of the machine, see Third Interim Report of the
+Dangerous Trades Committee, p. 15: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1898.
+
+[93] _Arbeiten aus dem Kaiserlichen Gesundheitsamte_, vol. v., p.
+113.
+
+[94] A. J. Kunkel, _Handbuch der Toxikologie_, p. 123.
+
+[95] Sommerfeld, _Handbuch der Gewerbekrankheiten_, p. 502.
+
+[96] See Annual Report of Chief Inspector of Factories for 1899, p. 138.
+
+[97] Sommerfeld, _Handbuch der Gewerbekrankheiten_, p. 312.
+
+[98] Quoted from _Die Spiegelbeleger_, by Dr H. Schaefer, p. 991,
+of vol. viii. of Weyl’s _Handbuch der Hygiene_.
+
+[99] For a full description of the processes, see a report by Miss
+Deane and Miss Squire in the Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of
+Factories for the year 1898, p. 167.
+
+[100] “Dangers du sécretage des poils par le mercure,” _Annales
+d’Hygiène_, December 1892.
+
+[101] Reference will be found to this source of mercurial poisoning in
+America in the article on “Occupation Diseases,” by J. H. Lloyd, M.D.,
+in _Twentieth Century Practice of Medicine_, vol. iii., p. 350.
+
+[102] _Gefahren und Krankheiten in der chemischen Industrie_, by
+Ch. Heinzerling, vol. i., p. 212.
+
+[103] _Manual of Dyeing_, by E. Knecht, C. Rawson, and R.
+Lœwenthal: C. Griffin, 1893.
+
+[104] _Annales d’Hygiène publique_, vol. xx., p. 83.
+
+[105] _Lancet_, 1854, i., p. 152.
+
+[106] “Mémoire sur les accidents auxquels sont soumis les ouvriers
+employés à la fabrication des chromates,” _Annales d’Hygiène
+publique_, 1869, p. 5; and 1876, pp. 5 and 193.
+
+[107] Report on the Condition of Labour in Chemical Works, the Dangers
+to Life and Health of the Workpeople Employed therein, and the Proposed
+Remedies: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1893.
+
+[108] “Die in Chromatfabriken beobachtet an Gesundheitsschädigungen und
+die zur Verhütung derselben erforderlichen Massnahmen,” _Arbeiten aus
+dem Kaiserlichem Gesundheitsamte_, vol. xiii.
+
+[109] “The Subsidences in and around the Town of Northwich in
+Cheshire,” by Thomas Ward, _Trans. Inst. Min. Eng._, vol. xix., p.
+241.
+
+[110] Karl Schmeisser, _The Goldfields of Australia_, translated
+by Henry Louis.
+
+[111] _Statistik der Knappschafts-Berufsgenossenschaft für das
+Deutsche Reich_, Berlin, 1897.
+
+[112] _Trans. Inst. Min. Eng._, vol. xix., p. 21.
+
+[113] _Trans. Inst. Min. Eng._, vol. xix., p. 27.
+
+[114] _Berichte über die Verwaltung der
+Knappschafts-Berufsgenossenschaft_, Berlin.
+
+[115] _Zeitschrift für das Berg-, Hütten- und Salinen-wesen im
+Preussischen Staate._
+
+[116] _Jahrbuch für das Berg- und Hütten-wesen im Königreiche
+Sachsen._
+
+[117] _Royaume de Belgique--Statistique de Mines, Minières,
+Carrières, etc._
+
+[118] _Statistique de l’Industrie Minérale en France et en
+Algérie._
+
+[119] _Rivista del Servizio Minerario._
+
+[120] _The Mineral Industry_, 1898, p. 719.
+
+[121] See also the Annual General Reports upon the Mineral Industry of
+the United Kingdom and Ireland for the years 1894, 1895, and 1896.
+
+[122] Figures calculated from those given in the “Supplement to the
+Fifty-fifth Annual Report of the Registrar-General,” 1897. These
+figures refer to the years 1891–93.
+
+[123] “Supplement to the Fifty-fifth Annual Report of the
+Registrar-General.”
+
+[124] From statistics kindly supplied by the Secretary of the
+Association.
+
+[125] Actuarial Report on the Northumberland and Durham Miners’
+Permanent Relief Fund, 1897.
+
+[126] _Loc. cit._
+
+[127] In the Mines and Quarries Reports it is given as only 1.63, the
+difference being mainly due to the fact that in the Registrar-General’s
+returns, accidents not caused by the miners’ occupation are also
+included.
+
+[128] _Annales des Mines de Belgique_, vol. v., p. 318.
+Bergassessor Hundt, “Die Bekämpfung der Wurmkrankheit (Ankylostomiasis)
+im Oberbergamtsbezirke Dortmund,” _Zeitschrift f. Berg. Hütt. u.
+Salinen-Wesen im Preussischen Staate_, 1898, p. 184.
+
+[129] J. W. Hiene, “On the Effects of Copper on the Human Body,”
+_Brit. Ass. Rept._, 1900, p. 697.
+
+[130] Dr Harting and Dr Hesse (quoted by C. Le Neve Foster, _Ore and
+Stone Mining_, p. 686).
+
+[131] Report of Board of Inquiry at Broken Hill, Sydney, 1893.
+
+[132] _Eleventh Census of the United States_, p. 238.
+
+[133] _Trans. Inst. of Mining Engineers_, vol. xvi., 1899.
+
+[134] _Air and Rain_, p. 167.
+
+[135] See Haldane and Lorrain Smith, _Journal of Pathology_, vol.
+i., p. 168.
+
+[136] See Clowes, _Detection of Inflammable Gas_, 1896.
+
+[137] Report to the Home Secretary on the Causes of Death in Colliery
+Explosions and Fires: Parliamentary Paper, 1896.
+
+[138] On the action of carbonic oxide, see papers by the writer in the
+_Journal of Physiology_, vol. xviii., pp. 200, 430; vol. xx., p.
+497; vol. xxii., p. 231; vol. xxv., p. 225; also the above-mentioned
+Report to the Home Secretary, and Lorrain Smith, _British Medical
+Journal_, 1889, vol. i., p. 780.
+
+[139] See the very interesting Report on the Snaefell Fire by Professor
+Le Neve Foster: Parliamentary Paper, 1897.
+
+[140] See Mr Stokes’ Official Report: Parliamentary Paper, 1898.
+
+[141] According to the last Annual Report of H.M. Twelve Inspectors
+of Mines and Quarries, over 61,000 individuals are engaged as quarry
+employés inside the quarry, _i.e._, inside the actual pit, hole,
+or excavation, and over 32,000 outside the quarry, _i.e._, outside
+the actual pit, hole, or excavation. In some districts a few females
+are engaged in quarry work.
+
+[142] See Act to provide for the better regulation of quarries:
+Quarries Act, 1894.
+
+[143] In giving the output of the various explosives, I have been most
+careful so to classify them as to avoid disclosures which might by any
+possibility be objected to by those members of the Explosives Trade to
+whose courtesy I owe the information. For instance, I have not even
+differentiated between gunpowder and high explosives, owing to the fact
+that the gunpowder trade is now concentrated in the hands of three or
+four firms.
+
+[144] In the year 1899 alone 146 accidents with gunpowder in mines
+killed 15 persons and injured 148 others. Few, if any, of these were
+reported, and if multiplied by 10 and added to the casualties due to
+this explosive, the figures under heading No. 1 would be enormously
+increased.
+
+[145] This is exclusive of accidents in factories which did not cause
+death or personal injury.
+
+[146] The question as to whether electric firing should be rendered
+compulsory in dangerous mines is at present _sub judice_, and any
+expression of opinion on the matter would therefore be out of place,
+but it goes without saying that the means of firing should be as free
+from risk as practicable.
+
+[147] Prior to the year 1893, horses, asses, and mules were not
+included in the definition of the word “animals” in the Orders relating
+to Anthrax.
+
+[148] Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories for 1900.
+
+[149] Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories for 1900.
+
+[150] In giving the figures showing the proportion of cases to the
+total number of patients, any fractions have been omitted for the sake
+of clearness.
+
+[151] Annual Report of Chief Inspector of Factories for 1896.
+
+[152] The age is raised to twelve by the Factory Act, 1901.
+
+[153] _Vide_ Dr Gilbert’s Photographs of Dermatoconioses, page 269.
+
+[154] Mr Williams, in his annual report to the Chief Inspector of
+Factories for the year 1900, gives the results of his examination of
+air from thirty-five weaving-sheds before and after the ventilation
+had been improved so as to comply with this regulation. The average
+of the amounts of carbonic acid found in the air of the sheds before
+the improvement of the ventilation was 13 per 10,000, and after the
+improvement 7.9 per 10,000. If the usual amount of carbonic acid in the
+outside air of towns (4 per 10,000) be deducted, the amount of impurity
+due to respiration is seen to be in the one case 9 parts, and in the
+other only 3.9 parts per 10,000.
+
+[155] To the above a note might be added, bearing upon the dangers
+to health in the manufacture of felt hats from the prepared fur.
+In the process of manufacture known in the trade as “carotting,”
+_i.e._, where the rabbits’ skins are brushed with a solution
+of nitrate of mercury, the workmen are exposed to the inhalation of
+mercurial and nitrous vapours (a point alluded to by Dr T. M. Legge,
+p. 442), and as a consequence the teeth become blackened and fall out
+early. The men who are employed in the post-carotting processes, and
+who are designated cutters, blockers, and pelt-shakers, often suffer
+from muscular tremors (hatters’ shakers). In the _British Medical
+Journal_, February 15, 1902, Dr Charles Porter, formerly Medical
+Officer of Health for Stockport, and at present County Medical Officer
+of Health for Shropshire, describes the processes of manufacture and
+hygiene of felt hat making, and gives illustrations of the rugged,
+loosened, and discoloured finger nails of plaukers and blockers, as
+well as of the callosities which form upon the thenar and hypo-thenar
+eminences of the hands.
+
+ T. O.
+
+
+[156] Now Mr H. B. Fawcus, M.B., Royal Army Medical Corps.
+
+[157] 1 kilometre = ⅝ English mile.
+
+[158] A metre = 1 yard 3 inches.
+
+[159] “The Great Alpine Tunnels,” Francis Fox, _Proceedings, Royal
+Institution, Great Britain_ (November 1901), p. 422.
+
+[160] Since this was written there has occurred a large inrush of water
+from the superincumbent calcareous strata into the tunnel, at the
+Iselle end, which has seriously delayed operations.
+
+[161] See p. 537, Anchylostomiasis in coal miners.
+
+[162] See also Dr Haldane’s remarks _re_ carbonic acid and carbon
+monoxide gases, “The Air of Mines,” p. 544.
+
+[163] Extracted from the Returns of the Registrar-General.
+
+[164] Mr H. J. Wilson, H.M. Inspector of Factories, informs me that
+a short while ago a healthy workman while charging a Siemens-Martin
+furnace was struck on the ear by a spark of molten steel. The particle
+rebounded off the external meatus and penetrated the drum of the ear,
+setting up a purulent otitis, which was followed by meningitis, fatal
+on the ninth day. The particle of steel was found after death in the
+middle ear.
+
+[165] Report of Dangerous Trades Committee of Home Office, published by
+Messrs Eyre & Spottiswoode.
+
+[166] _Miners’ Nystagmus_, Snell, 1892.
+
+[167] _British Medical Journal_, vol. i., 1892.
+
+[168] _Des Amblyopias et Amauroses Toxiques_, 1897, page 47.
+
+[169] _British Medical Journal_, 1884, vol. i., page 202.
+
+[170] “Influence of Tobacco on Vision; some Investigations made in
+Tobacco Manufactories of Cincinnati,” _Cinn. Lancet Clinic_, 29th
+October 1892.
+
+[171] _Toxic Amblyopias_, De Schweinitz, 1896.
+
+[172] _Trans. of Ophth. Soc. of the United Kingdom_, 1886, vi., p.
+144.
+
+[173] Brose, _Knapp’s Archives of Ophthalmology_, March 1894.
+
+[174] Rivers, _Knapp’s Archives of Ophthalmology_, March 1894.
+
+[175] By Priest & Ashmore, opticians, Sheffield.
+
+[176] The interference with sight is not greater than that occasioned
+by many ladies’ veils.
+
+[177] Report by Dangerous Trades Committee.
+
+[178] _Vide_ also Report, by myself, for the Home Office,
+and published in the _Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of
+Factories_, 1901.
+
+[179] Prof. Alexander Ogston, of Aberdeen, _Lancet_, Feb. 22,
+1902, gives details of burns caused by the ignition of celluloid
+combs and collars. He suggests that celluloid should be rendered
+incombustible by the addition of some chemical.
+
+[180] See “Eye Diseases and Eye Accidents in Relation to Industrial
+Occupations,” p. 769.
+
+[181] See Final Report of the Dangerous Trades Committee, Appendix.
+
+[182] _Bulletin médical_, 16th December 1899, p. 1126.
+
+[183] _Annales d’Hygiène_, April 1900, p. 358.
+
+[184] See Mr Simeon Snell’s paper, “Eye Accidents,” etc., p. 773.
+
+[185] “On Cancer of the Scrotum in Chimney Sweeps and Others”: Butlin.
+Reprinted from _Brit. Med. Journal_, 1892.
+
+[186] _Deutsche Zeitschr. für Chirurgie_, xiii., 519, 1880.
+
+[187] Final Report of the Dangerous Trades Committee, 1899.
+
+[188] At the quarries in the Island of Naxos 300 men are employed.
+Emery stone is too hard to be dug out or even blasted. It is one of the
+hardest substances known. Large fires are kept blazing round the huge
+blocks until the natural cracks expand with the heat, when levers are
+inserted to prise them apart. The process is repeated until the blocks
+are reduced in size to masses of a cubic foot or less, in which form it
+is exported. It is estimated that there are still 20,000,000 tons of
+emery available in Naxos.
+
+
+Transcriber’s Notes:
+
+1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been
+corrected silently.
+
+2. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have
+been retained as in the original.
+
+3. Italics are shown as _xxx_.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78617 ***
generated by cgit v1.2.3 (git 2.25.1) at 2026-05-31 03:56:52 +0000