Note 598 — Chapter VI

In the third place, the long duration and intensity of the work forced upon the proletariat also contribute to degeneracy. For each individual there is a fixed measure of labor that he cannot pass without experiencing harmful consequences in body and mind. Dr. Lewy describes them as follows: “The consequences of immoderately long hours of labor are, a certain overexcitement of the nervous system, which later gives place to a permanent debility, with which may be associated a dull headache as well as an inability to think clearly. If the overwork continues for a longer time, soon all the systems of the body are affected, the heart and larger arteries as well are injured in structure and function, disturbances of the regular circulation appear, manifested partly in swellings in various parts of the body, especially in the feet, and partly through hemorrhages. The brain ceases to function regularly, and so-called brain-symptoms appear, such as vertigo, ringing in the ears, deafness, defective vision, paralysis, and apoplexy. In the same way the liver, kidneys, and the digestive tract may be drawn into the general weakening process. The muscles become weak and slack, the body disposed to epidemic diseases, but especially prepared to vocational diseases, to which persons in a run-down condition most easily fall victim. If, then, the end of the worker is not brought about prematurely by some intercurrent disease like typhus, under the immoderate strain he uses up his existing forces faster than he is in a position to replace them, and wastes away with tuberculosis of the lungs, so much the quicker, of course, the weaker he is constitutionally, and the younger he was when he had to submit to excessive labor.”598