74 



NATURE 



[September 15, 192 1 



be harboured for as long as sixty-nine days it is 

 easy to understand how quarantines may be 

 passed and apparently inexplicable outbreaks may 

 occur. 



The question arises as to whether in practical 

 administration it is possible to examine the rectal 

 contents of all immigrants before allowing them 

 to proceed to their destination. This has been 

 done partially both in Egyptian and in American 

 administration, and on a small scale this applica- 

 tion of Koch's discovery in 1883 of the comma- 

 bacillus of cholera is practicable. On a large scale 

 it fails, for reasons which need not be amplified 

 here. 



In actual fact the wisdom of the English system 

 of trusting to inedical inspection and detention of 

 actual patients and suspected patients at the port 

 of entry, and of trusting still more to the local 

 sanitary machinery in each division of the country, 

 has been justified by long experience. Quarantine 

 is an elaborate system of leakiness, as has been 

 shown by the experience of all invaded countries. 

 In 1 83 1 every country in Europe was invaded by 

 cholera despite all efforts to keep it out. In 1849, 

 ^'^hZi ^"^d 1865-66 this experience was repeated 

 in England, though on these occasions no attempt 

 hermetically to seal the ports was made. 



It took Simon and his colleagues in the Privy 

 Council, the Board of Health, and the Local 

 Government Board, the successive central health 

 authorities of England, twenty-five years to make 

 any impression on other countries in favour of the 

 abolition of the futile atid oppressive measures of 

 quarantine, and the substitution of medical inspec- 

 tion for detention, followed by local supervision ; 

 but these principles have now become generally 

 adopted in settled countries with adequate sanitary 

 administration, and it has become recognised that 

 trust in quarantine gives a false security, and, 

 furthermore, delays the adoption of the internal 

 measures of general sanitary administration both 

 as to 'personnel and water supplies, on which re- 

 liance must chiefly be placed. 



There need be no fear of a serious outbreak of 

 cholera in this country, even if occasional cases 

 of the disease evade the meshes of medical in- 

 spection and supervision. Such exceptional cases 

 might by personal infection or by infecting articles 

 of food even produce small local outbreaks ; but 

 this is unlikely, and if it should occur public 

 health administration in every part of this country 

 is equal to the task of suppressing an outbreak, 

 whether of cholera, or typhus, or small-pox. 

 NO. 2707, VOL. I08I 



The Human Factor. 



An Introduction to the Psychological Problems of 

 Industry. By F. Watts. Pp. 240. (London : 

 George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1921.) 12s. 6d. 

 net. 



THE fact that our industrial system has a., 

 human, as well as a material, side has been 

 brought prominently into view in recent times, 

 and it is beginning to be recognised clearly that 

 no perfect or satisfactory industrial system can 

 be attained along the road of purely material pro- 

 gress. Hence industrialists all "over the world 

 who have hitherto had their eyes turned wholly 

 on physical science as the main source from which 

 contributions to industrial progress were to be 

 expected are no\V turning their eyes towards the 

 sister science of psychology so long neglected and 

 misunderstood. Fortunately, the latter science 

 has, within the last generation, been developed in 

 a direction and to a point which make it possible 

 for the psychologist to meet — at least partially — 

 the claims thus coming upon him from a new 

 quarter. Psychology, no longer the science which 

 confines its study to mental process in the indi- 

 vidual mind, but the science which studies the 

 behaviour of all living organisms, is now fully 

 conscious of its practical significance and of its 

 duty to the worker in every sphere of activity. 



This changed outlook, both in industry and in 

 psychology, is exemplified by the work of the 

 scientific-management engineers, on the one hand, 

 and the number of recent books on industrial 

 psychology written by professed psychologists on 

 the other. Miinsterberg, Swift, Hollingworth, 

 Myers, Muscio, and others have already produced 

 a fairly extensive literature in this new field. The 

 latest book of this kind, and one of the most 

 interesting and suggestive, is Mr. Frank Watts 's 

 "Introduction to the Psychological Problems of 

 Industry." While generally similar to the other 

 existing books on the same subject, Mr. Watts 's 

 work has also certain important characteristics of 

 its own which are worthy of something more than 

 mere passing notice. 



The chapter headings indicate the line of 

 thought pursued— "The Psychological Point of 

 View in Industry," "Industrial Fatigue and In- 

 efficiency," "Vocational Selection," "Industrial 

 Unrest," and so on. It will be noted that the 

 author by no means confines himself to the vari- 

 ous problems of the factory which can be 

 experimentally studied by the methods of the ex- 

 perimental laboratory. In fact this, the chief part 

 of most other works on the same subject, is a 



