INDUSTRIAL HYGIENE

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 45, 21 August 1925, Page 3

INDUSTRIAL HYGIENE

WELFARE OF WORKERS

PREVENTION OF tiMEA'SB.

Dr. Mercer (Medical Officer of Health)' gave a lecture to the W.E.A. dau on "Hygiene and Sanitary Science," the subject being "Industrial Hygiene and Diseases of Occupation." ' Industrial hygiene, he said, was now recognised in preventive medicine elnce it dealt with the health, welfare, and, the human rights of the vast majority of the population. , The general principles of industrial hygiene were that the workman should receive from the State and his employer all adequate, necessary, and reasonable pfotectios from accident and disease in the particular trade or occupation in which he was engaged. There were many influence! to be reckoned with, which were not specifically inherent to any particular trade, such as bad ventilation, light, lack of cleanliness, overcrowding, excessive ' hours, fatigue, iand a hundred and one conditions which affected the health of ths individual. Some industries, while not in ■ themselves particularly jiatard* ous, were rendered so through intemperance or disposition. There was a certain relationship between low wages and high sickness rate in a given industry, because low wages meant poor housing, insufficient clothing, poor food, uhhealthful recreation, increased temptation to alcoholism, and the employment of men and w.omen handicapped by poor physique and bad habits. . The lecturer then dealt with certain fundamental factors with regard to.pr'evontion and improvements of hygienic conditions. He said there'were fiveies,--Bential factors: Investigation, practical laws, systematic factory inspection, penalties, and education. Suitable laws w'erd necessary. It was found in practice that conditions could be corrected by an appeal to voluntary reform. Laws had little value unless they provided a penalty against both the 'employer. pr|d employees. - ■ '..■.'..:."■■... Dr. Mercer spoke of the advisability of fixing a 'standard working day of oight hours, because it was held that no employer had the right to utilise, the greater part of a man's day and thus deprive him of the leisure to which he, as a human being, was entitled, fie next demonstrated the effects of fatigu* on the efficiency and output of work and how undue fatigue was the predisposing cause of all forms of disease. Dealing with the employment of minors and women, he showed how important it was that the hours and conditions of employment should, be regulated, not only m the interests of the individual, but of the race. . . The lecturer classified the condition! of occupation as those due to (1) Dust, noxious fumes, gases, etc. ; (2) minera; poisons, improper light and ventilation, and insanitary conditions, etc.; (3) c* treme temperatures; (4) compressed at mospheres (caissoned diseases); (5) diseases caused by harmful bacteria and micro-organisms. The principal occupa tion diseases caused undei section (1), h< said, were diseases of the lungs to which miners in coal and (tone, etc., wen liable. He explained how the sharp gritty inorganic particles ■of dust wer« more destructive to lung tissue than tht smooth 'or soft ones. The preventivf measures were twofold: proper meet •anical protection and good ventilation o) the machines creating the dust and th« wearing of some form of respirator in tht worst Kinds of dusty trades. He described how insidious was the onset o, lead poisoning and ths great number en trades in which lead was used, and ho* some of these trades in which lead wai wsed were more dangerous than others^ such as pottery, enamelling and glazing, the manufacture of lead storage .batteries, and, lastly, the use -of white" lead bj painters. ■ ; ■•.;•, '.';'.".'/.' After the lecture there was an inter eating . talk oh many of " the ' subjects mentioned in the lecture, and especiallj on the dangers of lead. Some member/ present considered that the dangers o lead were inclined to be exaggerated, an< explained how free plumbers were fron lead poisoning. The lecturer said thai no doubt great Improvements had take place in the manufactories using lead but that it might still be a dangerou , industrial occupation.