HEALTH AND LONGEVITY.

[The Effects of Arts, Trades, and Professions, and of Civil States and Habits of Living, on Health and Longevity; By C. Turner Thackrah, Esq. Second Edition. Longman, 1832.]

The author of this book is a medical practitioner at Leeds; and the object of his work, than which there can be none more important, is to exhibit, in most cases from personal observation, the influence of particular occupations on the health of the individuals pursuing them and on the duration of their lives. His general impression is, that the employments of large manufacturing towns, such as Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, and Sheffield, are decidedly unfavourable to health and consequently to happiness; and, he says, with regard to the town in which he lives, “every day we see sacrificed to the artificial state of society one, and sometimes two victims, whom the destinies of nature would have spared.” Doubtless, continued and laborious occupation in crowded rooms is not favourable to health; but, on the other hand, it should be considered that these very employments, by increasing the comforts of the great mass of consumers, have a direct tendency to secure the general health of the community; and that if the term “destinies of nature” is to be taken to apply to man in an uncivilized state, it is perfectly certain that the artisan who pursues his calling under the most unfavourable circumstances is far better off in his physical condition, and therefore in his capacity for long life, than the poor dweller in the forests of America or the wilds of Africa, whose supply of food and clothing is wholly dependent upon chance, and who is entirely without medical aid in sickness. It is a well-known fact, that in this country, a century ago, the average mortality in a year was one in thirty; it is now about one in sixty; that is, where one person in a year dies now, two died a century ago, as compared with the gross amount of the population. When it is considered therefore, how large a number of our countrymen are employed in manufactures, it would seem that, upon the whole, manufacturing employments are not so unfavourable to health as might at first be imagined. An attentive examination of Mr. Thackrah’s book will show, that even in the most apparently unwholesome employments there is a wonderful compensation in the power of habit; and it is beyond all doubt that cleanliness, temperance, and that habitual cheerfulness which leads the spirit to triumph over the most adverse circumstances, will enable those who would appear necessarily the most unfortunate, to pass through life with comparative happiness and comfort. Still, it is very important to examine what occupations have the most unfavourable influence on health,—not with the view of making those who follow them dissatisfied with their condition, but for the purpose of suggesting every preventive and remedial measure, within the range of human knowledge, to the attention of the capitalist, whose first duty is to provide for the happiness of those around him; and above all to show the working-man himself how much he has it in his own power to mitigate the evils which he cannot altogether avoid. In this point of view Mr. Thackrah’s book deserves the most serious consideration of all classes. It is most satisfactory to know, upon Mr. Thackrah’s authority, that “in many of our occupations the injurious agents might be immediately removed or diminished.”

For the convenience of his inquiry the writer before us divides society into five great classes, viz.—I. Operatives. II. Dealers. III. Master Manufacturers, and Merchants. IV. Men independent of business and labour. V. Professional Men.—The first section of 171operatives he sub-divides into—1, those whose employments are chiefly in the open air; 2, those whose employments are carried on in an atmosphere confined and impure; 3, those whose employments produce dust, odour, or gaseous exhalations; 4, those whose employments injure or annoy by acting on the skin; 5, those whose employments expose them to wet and steam; 6, those who are exposed to a high temperature, or great variations of temperature. When we state that in these six sub-divisions of the great class of operatives, Mr. Thackrah describes the peculiar effects of about two hundred different employments, it must be evident that we cannot attempt even to enumerate the occupations whose influence upon health is here noticed. To show, however, the interesting mode in which this inquiry is for the most part conducted, we subjoin an abridged extract, descriptive of the condition of the grinders and machine-makers of Sheffield:—

“Dr. Knight, in the North-of-England Medical Journal, states that the fork-grinders, who use a dry grindstone, die at the ages of 28 or 32, while the table-knife grinders, who work on wet stones, survive to between 40 and 50. Dr. K.’s paper very properly alludes to the combination of injurious agents and circumstances. It is not, merely the pernicious employment, but the want of sieve and ventilation in the apartments where the men now work,—the want, moreover, of that exercise in the open air which they formerly took in going to work and returning from it; and finally, the intemperance which results from their congregation, and still more from their desperation of life. It appears, that in 1822, ‘out of 2,500 grinders, there were not 35 who had arrived at the age of 50, and perhaps not double that number who had reached the age of 45; and out of more than 80 fork-grinders, exclusive of boys, it was reported that there was not a single individual 36 years old.’ The symptoms of the grinders’ disease are those of slow but certainly fatal consumption. The remedies judiciously recommended by Dr. Knight, are, 1st. Dusting the machinery, before the work commences: 2nd. Great reduction in the time of labour: 3rd. Use of wet stones as much as possible; 4th. Large flues to be laid on the floor for ventilation, and currents of air to be forced through them by the machines: 5th. Fork-grinding to be confined to criminals.

“Draw-filing cast iron is a very injurious occupation. The dust is much more abundant, and the metallic particles much more minute, than in the filing of wrought iron. The particles rise so copiously as to blacken the mouth and nose. The men first feel the annoyance in the nostrils. The lining membrane discharges copiously for some time, and then becomes preternaturally dry. Besides the dust there are some very bright scales, called kisk, very visible though scarcely tangible, which rise from the castings, as these are taken out of the moulders’ boxes, and considerably irritate the air-tube. But these scales produce much less frequent annoyance than the particles detached by the file, notwithstanding the dust of the employ. Respiration is not promptly impeded. Of ten men whom I examined with reference to this point, but one had difficulty of breathing as a primary symptom. The subsequent symptoms are determined chiefly by intemperance, and the constitutional disposition to consumption. The machine-makers earn high wages, and many consequently are addicted to liquor. In all, the breathing becomes, in a few years, more affected by exertion; but in the intemperate it is most affected; the morning cough is attended with retchings, disorder of the liver and of the other organs of digestion becomes established, and at length pulmonary consumption closes the list of symptoms. Scarcely a filer can be found in health. Few bear the employ, even modified as it is by frequent changes of material, for twenty-five years. Only one instance have I been able to find of a working filer exceeding the age of fifty. What can be done to prevent this lamentable waste of life? Magnetic mouth-pieces, which attract the particles of iron inhaled in respiration, and thus greatly diminish the quantity which would enter the air-tube, were many years ago introduced in Sheffield, and ought ere this to have been more extensively tried. But there is a strange apathy both among the men and the masters.”

If the working-classes, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, have abundant evils in their employments, those who would appear to be placed under happier circumstances are not exempt from those corroding cares and unnatural excitements which injure health, and destroy life, as speedily as crowded rooms and extreme heat or cold. Let us take Mr. Thackrah’s description of the class of shopkeepers:—

“They are generally temperate in their diet. They injure health, not by direct attacks, not by the introduction of injurious agents, but by withholding the pabulum of life—a due supply of that pure fluid, which nature designed as food for the constitution. Be it remembered that man subsists upon the air, more than upon his meat and drink. Numerous instances might be adduced of persons existing for months and years on a very scanty supply of aliment, but it is notorious that no one can exist for an hour without a copious supply of air. The atmosphere which shopkeepers breathe is contaminated and adulterated; air, with its vital principles so diminished, that it cannot fully decarbonize the blood, nor fully excite the nervous system. Hence shopkeepers are pale, dyspeptic, and subject to affections of the head. They often drag on a sickly existence, die before the proper end of human life, and leave a progeny like themselves.”

The merchant and manufacturer is probably not more fortunate, though he may appear to have a greater command of worldly comforts:—

“Of the causes of disease, anxiety of mind is one of the most frequent and important. When we walk the streets of large commercial towns, we can scarcely fail to remark the hurried gait, and care-worn features of the well-dressed passengers. Some young men, indeed, we may see, with countenances possessing natural cheerfulness and colour; but these appearances rarely survive the age of manhood. Cuvier closes an eloquent description of animal existence and change, with the conclusion that ‘life is a state of force.’ What he would urge in a physical view, we may more strongly urge in a moral. Civilization has changed our character of mind as well as of body. We live in a state of unnatural excitement:—unnatural, because it is partial, irregular, and excessive. Our muscles waste for want of action; our nervous system is worn out by excess of action. Vital energy is drawn from the operations for which nature designed it, and devoted to operations which nature never contemplated. If we cannot adopt the doctrine of a foreign philosopher, ‘that a thinking man is a depraved animal,’ we may without hesitation affirm, ‘that inordinate application of mind, the cares, anxieties, and disappointments of commercial life, greatly impair the physical powers.’”

Let us see if the idle man of independent fortune is placed under more favourable circumstances for the enjoyment of existence:—

“A man supplied with food and comforts, without labour and care, has constantly full opportunity of attending to health. But man is a social animal. The Creator has ordained that no individual shall live to himself, and live in happiness. A man without an object is like a tree without a leading shoot. He has not the vigour of his fellows; his strength is either dissipated in irregular pursuits, or decays from listlessness. In professions and trades the nervous system is often exhausted by excessive application; here, as frequently it declines from the want of exertion. Need I add, that the vices which result from the want of employment, undermine the constitution and shorten life.”

Mr. Thackrah has stated, in many instances, the modes which he conceives applicable to the mitigation or removal of the evils of particular employments. It is, of course, not within our province to follow him in these details. But throughout his work he notices also those habits which are best calculated to preserve man in health in every situation. These best remedies, which are in a great degree within the reach of us all, may be comprised in the words temperance, cleanliness, exercise in the open air, and cheerful relaxation. It should be the aim of every working-man to employ these remedies for any evils of his occupation, as far as he can himself; it is the duty of every employer, as much as in him lies, so to regulate his periods of labour, that no artisan shall be unable, from want of time, to take his evening walk in the fresh fields, to cultivate his little garden, or to afford an hour to that improvement of his mind which will invigorate and refresh his body, by the cheapest and the purest of all pleasures.

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