434 
suddenly induced, and as rapidly runs to a fatal termina- 
tion, there is not as a rule the same exactitude in the 
incidence of disease as is the case in accident. There 
might be little difficulty in including anthrax under the 
Act of 1897. The inclusion of some of the other 
dangerous trades would give rise to frequent litigation, 
but it would make employers more careful in the selection 
of their work-people, and in the means adopted to 
prevent industrial poisoning.” 
Among the most thoughtful and suggestive of the 
essays contained in the work are those contributed by the 
lady inspectors of factories. Miss Anderson’s “ His- 
torical Sketch of the Development of Legislation for 
Injurious and Dangerous Industries in England,” and 
her chapter on the “‘ Regulation of Injurious or Dangerous 
Occupations in Factories and Workshops in Some of the 
Chief European Countries,” are especially noteworthy 
for their breadth of view, thoroughness and impartiality. 
The one chapter, in fact, may be regarded as comple- 
mentary to the other. Comparing what has been done 
abroad with the position at home, H.M. Principal Lady 
Inspector comes to the conclusion that England is 
lagging behind. 
“England stands in a special position, with its own 
qualities and defects. Having entered long before most 
other European countries on the path of control of 
employment in factories owing to the earlier need of 
such regulation, and having admittedly also led the way 
in the task of building up a complete and _ precise 
sanitary code for regulation of public health, England 
has shown in the later stages of the part of the work 
which touches industry too little interest in the later 
efforts, on different lines, of other countries. This slow- 
ness is traceable in part to the same causes as those 
which have retarded in England the general study of 
comparative legislation and administration, of which 
foremost, no doubt, stands the necessity of developing on 
national lines our own safeguards, yet it seems probable 
that the country which in a singular degree stimulated 
European progress in public health by the justly famous 
“Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring 
Population,” 1838, has latterly retarded its own progress 
in industrial hygiene by too close an adherence to its 
own methods.” 
Again :— 
“In several of these [foreign] countries, all of which 
had originally to some extent looked to the far earlier 
example and experience of England in enforcement of the 
law, the important step was taken, considerably in 
advance of England, of bringing into the factory service 
medical, engineering, and chemical expert knowledge. 
No doubt in England, the delay in this matter is directly 
traceable to the character stamped on the institution by 
the educational, moral and social origin of our Factory 
Acts, and to the very recent beginnings of development 
(1883-1891) of a special basis of factory hygiene.” 
In one respect, however, England compares favour- 
ably with continental nations in the completeness of its 
statistics in regard to industrial poisoning. As Miss 
Anderson points out, 
“In no other country has the step been taken of laying 
both on the occupier of a factory or workshop and every 
medical practitioner the duty of reporting to a chief 
inspector of factories, or the central authority, individual 
cases of industrial poisoning. 
On the other hand, in no other country is there “a 
power reserved to employers,” similar to that which was 
in force in England until last year, “of compelling such 
NO. 1714, VOL. 66] 
NATE 
[SEPTEMBER 4, 1902 
objections as they can sustain to proposed rules to 
be settled by arbitration.” What Parliament and the 
country thought of the manner in which arbitration had 
worked in the past was seen in the practical unanimity 
with which this form of procedure was swept away in 
190l. 
Ina short chapter on the “Principles of Prospective 
Legislation for Dangerous Trades,” Mr. Tennant, the 
chairman of the Dangerous Trades Committee, which 
presented its final report in 1899, deals more especially 
with the question of the amendment and consolidation of 
the law relating to factories and workshops, the history 
of which has this in common with that of the British 
constitution, that “the structure of each is compounded 
of small accretions, contributed by what seemed the 
necessity of the moment.” In the present condition of 
the law there are unquestionably many incongruities 
and anomalies—exemptions difficult to justify and excep- 
tions incapable of rational explanation. But whilst much 
of the practical force of Mr. Tennant’s contention has 
been minimised by the transference, above alluded to, 
of the responsibility for the special rules from an arbitrator 
or umpire to the Secretary of State, the doubt still 
remains whether the main defects of the present system 
are altogether remedied. 
Chapter v. deals with the influence of factory labour 
upon infant mortality, and is made up of two essays, one 
contributed by Mrs. Tennant, formerly H.M. Principal 
Lady Inspector of Factories, and the other by Dr. Reid, 
the Medical Officer of Health of the Staffordshire County 
Council. Each of these essays tells the same tale, and a 
sad enough story it is. We heard a good deal some 
little time since about “the holocaust of babes” in the 
concentration camps in South Africa, but the waste of 
infant life there was out of all comparison with that 
which goes on unchecked as tke result of our own 
factory system. A former Lord Londonderry once 
railed against the “hypocritical humanity” of Parlia- 
ment when it sought to protect the lives and limbs of 
coal-miners. We may hope that Parliament will not 
continue to turn a blind eye to the.large amount of 
infant suffering and the terrible waste of child-life in our 
manufacturing towns, but will learn to recognise before 
it is too late that, as Sir John Simon once said, “a high 
local mortality of children must almost necessarily denote 
a high local prevalence of those causes which determine 
the degeneration of the race.” 
The exigencies of space only allow of a passing refer- 
ence to Miss McMillan’s essay on “Child Labour” and 
to that by Mr. Ballantyne on “ Home Work.” Happily 
the half-time system is dying out and the age of the full- 
timer is being steadily raised. The question of home or 
out-work is one of great difficulty, and there is much in 
it which calls for State regulation. But it would require 
a strong Minister with a strong public opinion behind 
him to deal with it at all adequately. 
The editor contributes a short paper on the “ Physi- 
ology and Pathology of Work and Fatigue,” in which he 
treats of the means of measuring muscular work, the 
changes which occur in tired muscle and in the blood of 
fatigued persons, the effect of work on nerve structure, 
the use of alcohol as a muscle food, &c. Although 
appealing more particularly to the physiologist, the 
