26 MINERAL DUST AND MORTALITY. 



enamels, and glazes. The glazing, which is, as you are aware, 

 an important branch of industry carried on in potteries, is often 

 attended with serious consequences. And in the enamelling arts, 

 in which lead is used, there is always considerable risk to the 

 operatives. 



By comparing the table which shows the effect of lead dust as 

 a cause of consumption, you will observe, that it is less productive 

 of that disease than are the effects of copper dust. 



It is, nevertheless, the cause of an excessive mortality. Thirty- 

 four type-founders, and twenty-five each of the dyers and 

 enamellers die of it in every hundred of each class. The painters 

 and printers follow with a mortality of twenty-four and of twenty- 

 one per hundred respectively. 



The average life of this class is probably not over forty-eight 

 years. 



We now turn to the second head of our subject : 



THE EFFECTS OF MINERAL DUST. 



The table under this heading furnishes a list of the chief 

 industries, in the carrying on of which the workmen are injured 

 by the dust in this case mineral emitted during the manufac- 

 turing processes. 



Notoriously over-topping all the other dusty occupations in 

 their effects upon life and health, are those of the grind-stone 

 makers, flint cutters, and glass polishers. 



The conditions, under which their work is carried on, are, in the 

 highest degree, favourable to the production of pulmonary disease. 



They work in an atmosphere loaded with sharp spiculse, which 

 lacerate the lungs, and quickly induce consumptive disease. 



Every grind-stone maker is cut down with it at, or soon after, 

 the age of twenty-four. Hardly one escapes. 



The flint-cutter and glass-polisher have each eighty deaths, per 

 hundred sick, of consumption, and their average life is under 

 thirty years. Again the stone-cutters a term equivalent to that 

 of our stone-masons (not builders), terminate their average life 

 at the age of thirty-six years thirty-six, in every hundred sick, 

 being consumptive. A glance at the rest of the column will 



