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.