Note 80 — Chapter III · FIRE AND FOOD Part I.

For an illuminating but exceedingly depressing account of the ill-health brought about by modern employments alone, not to mention modern conditions, reference should be made to Dr. Thomas Oliver’s Diseases of Occupation (Methuen and Co., 1908). Thus we read (p. 37) that in the latter part of the nineteenth century there were 105 cases of phosphorus necrosis of the jaw caused in match factories by the handling of industrial phosphorus, 20 per cent. of which ended fatally. And this industry is by no means an important one. In 1907 the match industry employed only 4,000 people. I imagine that even these figures for phosphorus necrosis in England must be slightly underestimated, or else the period which they cover must be very small, as we find (p. 39) that between the years 1866 and 1875, 126 cases of phosphorus necrosis occurred in Vienna. Again, in the French match works near Paris, in 1894, 32 cases of phosphorus poisoning were reported; in 1895, 125; in 1896, 223, or one-third of the effective force of the factory. In 1896 the French State paid out 400,000 francs in compensation for this evil. In the bridge-building branch of engineering the death-rate is heavy from “compressed air illness.” At the St. Louis Bridge, on the Mississippi, 600 men were employed in sinking the foundations; 119 suffered from caisson disease, 14 of whom died. At the Brooklyn Bridge 110 cases were reported, 3 of which died (p. 94). Chemical workers appear to withstand the bad conditions of their work until thirty-five years of age, but after this the death-rate rises so much that by the time they have reached the age of forty-five to fifty-five the death-rate is double that of men who follow an outdoor occupation (pp. 123–124). During the ten years ending 1899, 263 workpeople were killed in explosive factories alone, and 1,064 injured (p. 132). During the year 1906, 632 cases of lead-poisoning occurred in various works connected with the working of lead (p. 149). In 1902 the figure was 629. The death-rate among diamond-cutters through lead-poisoning is also very heavy. Still-births and abortion are very high among women who work in lead. The statistics on p. 232 about the steel-workers are appalling. See also figures given for deaths due to occupations involving the breathing of dust (p. 247). The deaths from phthisis among pottery-workers and cutlers are three times those occurring from the same cause among agriculturalists. The file-makers’ death-rate from phthisis is almost four times that of the agriculturalist from the same cause. The death-rate among miners from all causes, including phthisis, is, of course, exceedingly high—from accident alone in 1907 it was 1,216. The deaths among workers with rock drills are much higher, particularly among the gold-miners in Africa. They scarcely last five years (see pp. 284, 285). It is impossible to enter into all the particulars of death and disease due to modern occupations; I can but recommend the reader to study Dr. Oliver’s able treatise on the subject.