FACTORY SANITATION AND EFFICIENCY.: 
By C.-E. A. Wrixstow.? 
Te may fairly be maintained that in most industries the largest 
element invested is what may be called life capital. For example, 
in the cotton industry in 1905 there was invested a capital of $613,- 
000,000, while the pay roll amounted to $96,000,000 a year. Capi- 
talized at 5 per cent, this pay roll would correspond to an investment 
of $1,920,000,000 in the form of the hands and brains of the workers. 
The calculation is perhaps a fanciful one, but it illustrates the fun- 
damental fact that the human element in industry is of large practi- 
cal importance. Particularly in regions like New England, where 
there is no wealth of natural resources, prosperity depends on a skilled 
and intelligent operative class. Such a class Massachusetts has had 
in the past and the present interest in industrial education testifies 
to the conviction that the efficiency of the operative must be im- 
proved to the highest possible degree. 
- Once the operative is trained and at work it is generally assumed 
that the results obtained will depend only on his intrinsic qualities 
of intelligence and skill. The effect of the environment upon him is 
commonly ignored; but its practical importance is very great. In 
industries where it has been shown that the machine which makes a 
given fabric requires certain conditions of temperature and moisture 
for its successful operation these conditions are maintained with 
exemplary care. In every factory, however, there is another type 
of machine, the living machine, which is extraordinarily responsive 
to slight changes in the conditions which surround it. These con- 
ditions, in this relation, we habitually neglect. 
T am not dealing now with the sociological and humanitarian aspects 
of the case. I am quite frankly and coldly, for the moment, treating 
the operative as a factor in production whose efficiency should be 
raised to the highest pitch, for his own sake, for that of his employer 
and for the welfare of the community at large. 
The intimate relation between the conditions which surround the 
living machine and its efficiency is matter of common experience with 
1 Reprinted by permission from Technology and Efficiency. Proceedings of the Congress of Technology 
at Boston Apr. 10, 1911. pp. 442-448. Copyright 1911, by McGraw-Hill Book Co. 
2 Associate professor of biology, College of the City of New York, and curator of publie health, American 
Museum of Natural History, New York City. 
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