May 18, 1899] 
NATURE 
55 
the medical standpoint, and the portion of the report for 
which he is responsible is clear, concise, and intensely 
practical. Dr. Cunningham’s report contains a full 
account of phosphorus necrosis, and is illustrated by 
diagrams showing various stages of the disease in the 
teeth and jaws. This condition is the most frequent 
and most obvious of the poisonous effects of phosphorus ; 
it is not by any means the only one. He also gives in 
full the precautions which should be adopted in all 
factories for combating the injurious effects of the 
poisonous fumes. There are various appendices which 
give in detail the facts upon which the main body of 
the report is founded. 
The whole report is a clear evidence of the painstaking 
way in which the Commission has carried out of its work, 
and is specially valuable, seeing that the investigators 
have visited various foreign countries in order to compare 
what is being done there with what occurs in our own 
country. An admirable summary of conclusions is fur- 
nished by Dr. Arthur Whitelegge, the chief inspector of 
factories. The main conclusions are as follows :— 
In the match industry two forms of phosphorus are 
used: yellow phosphorus, which is highly poisonous, 
and gives off poisonous fumes which consist mainly 
of low oxides of phosphorus; and ved phosphorus, 
which does not fume, and is hardly poisonous even if 
swallowed. 
Then, as is well known, there are two principal varieties 
of matches used : the “ safety matches,” which are tipped 
with a composition free from phosphorus ; the surface on 
which they strike is covered with a composition of which 
red phosphorus forms a part. The “strike anywhere” 
matches are tipped with a paste containing yellow phos- 
phorus in a proportion which varies from 3 to 30 per 
‘cent. ; but in this country not more than 6 or 7 and often 
less than 5 percent. is used. It is in the making of such 
matches only that danger arises. Attempts are being 
made to make “strike anywhere ” matches which contain 
no yellow phosphorus, and rewards have been offered for 
an effective match of this kind, but up to the present 
these efforts have not been successful ; 
matches do not strike anywhere, or else they are violently 
explosive. 
The specially dangerous processes in the manufacture 
of matches containing yellow phosphorus are mzxzmg the 
paste, dppzng the wood or wax stems, dryzmg the bundles 
after dipping, and doxzmg the dried matches; it is the 
last process which involves the most handling of the 
matches. 
The rules that already exist require (1) natural and 
mechanical ventilation to be efficient in the rooms where 
these processes are being carried out ; (2) effectual means 
to prevent the fumes entering other parts of the factory ; 
(3) that no person shall be employed who has suffered 
from necrosis, or had a tooth extracted ; (4) that persons 
suffering from toothache shall be at once medically 
examined; (5) notification of cases of necrosis is 
obligatory ; and (6) proper conveniences for washing 
shall be provided. 
Both here and abroad many firms have done a good 
deal more than this: the dental supervision has been 
efficient, and the introduction of elaborate machinery 
instead of hand labour in the four dangerous processes 
‘has done more than anything else to lessen the danger. In 
some foreign countries the precautions taken are in ad- 
vance of our own, but in this country special praise is 
given to the Diamond Company’s factory at Liverpool, 
where cases of phosphorus necrosis have never occurred. 
In Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, there is, how- 
-ever, the surreptitious manufacture of matches as a 
home industry to be contended with ; this disastrous 
jpractice has, happily, not been attempted in Great 
Britain. i 
NO. 1542, VOL. 60] 
either such | 
The main point which the Commission had to decide 
was undoubtedly whether they should recommend the 
use of yellow phosphorus to be prohibited. We may give 
their decision in their own words :— 
“So far as the home consumption is concerned, it does 
not seem that the prohibition of the use of yellow 
phosphorus would involve any serious hardship, and this 
course has already been adopted by Denmark, and 
decided upon by Switzerland, care being taken at the 
same time to prohibit the use or importation of yellow 
phosphorus matches. But neither of these countries has 
or had any export trade to lose. The United Kingdom, 
Belgium, Sweden, and Japan, manufacture largely for 
export,! and it is feared that immediate prohibition of 
yellow phosphorus would at once divert that portion 
of our trade to other countries, unless international 
agreement upon the subject was arrived at. If grave 
injury to the health of the workpeople were inevitable, the 
loss of the trade might well be regarded as the smaller 
sacrifice of the two, but the result of the inquiry points to 
a different conclusion. With due selection of work- 
people, strict medical and dental supervision, proper 
structural and administrative conditions, and substitu- 
tion of machinery for hand labour, it seems that the 
dangers hitherto attending the use of yellow phosphorus 
can be overcome.” 
We need not go into the details of all the precautions 
set forth ; they will involve revision of the present rules, 
and put briefly they consist of absolute cleanliness, per- 
fect ventilation, medical selection of workpeople (chil- 
dren, debilitated persons, and those with unsound teeth 
being excluded), compulsory dentistry, substitution of 
machinery for direct handling, and limitation of the 
percentage of phosphorus in the paste. 
We learn that in Russia a tax is imposed upon the 
manufacture of yellow phosphorus matches, with the 
result that safety matches are displacing the “strike 
anywhere” kind. The Commissioners make no recom- 
mendation that a similar tax should be imposed here ; 
they are also silent in regard to recommendations con- 
cerning international agreement in view of the total 
prohibition of the use of yellow phosphorus. No doubt 
this would have been the most stringent and the most 
effective course to adopt. But legislation is a slowly 
moving machine, and international legislation a more 
cumbrous one still. Recognising this, the report sug- 
gests what is a more practical remedy, and certainly a 
more immediate one. What has been accomplished by 
the Diamond Factory at Liverpool should be made com- 
pulsory elsewhere, and for the sake of the workers it is 
to be hoped that there will be no delay in carrying the 
suggested rules into operation. 
MIMICRY AND WARNING COLOURS. 
ig is just twenty years ago since the late Charles 
Darwin called the writer’s attention to a little paper, 
by Fritz Miiller, published in Kosmos for May 1879, and 
containing a new suggestion concerning the theory of 
mimicry. It was the writer’s misfortune to have foreseen 
that the principle discovered by Miiller was likely to 
exert a profound influence on certain biological problems 
of which the solution had up to that time been un- 
attempted, and he accordingly introduced the new idea to 
the entomologists of this country by inserting a translation 
of the paper in the Proceedings of the Entomological 
1 For foreign and colonial use, especially in hot and humid climates, the 
yellow phosphorus matches keep better and resist damp. 
2 “* Natural Selection the Cause of Mimetic Resemblance and Common 
Warning Colours.” By Edward B. Poulton, M.A., F.R.S. (Journ. Linn. 
Soc. Zoology, vol. XXvi. pp. 558-612.) 
