SEPTEMBER 4, 1902] 
NAT ORE 
435 
article is not too technical, and its style is appropriate to 
the work in which it appears. It is, perhaps, not un- 
desirable that those who regard men and women as 
“hands ”—that is, as machines for turning out work— 
should have some knowledge of the pathological con- 
sequences of fatigue. 
Dr. Tatham’s paper on “ Mortality of Occupatféns ” 
deals briefly with matters which have already been more 
fully treated by him and others in official publications, 
notably in the successive decennial supplements to the 
reports of the Registrar-General. In the chapter on 
“Dust-producing Occupations” he considers more par- 
ticularly those industries which give rise to the constant 
inhalation of dust, leading to grave and characteristic 
lesions resulting in premature breakdown and death 
among the workers, and in a subsequent section he 
discusses the effects of the accumulation of respiratory 
and other impurities in the air breathed, partly from the 
neglect of suitable methods of ventilation and partly as 
the result of the cramped position adopted in certain 
cases of sedentary indoor labour. 
Dr. Oliver also contributes a chapter on “Dust as a 
Cause of Occupation Disease,” with special reference to 
the skin diseases of flax-workers and the diseases of the 
nails among furriers, lung diseases, and gastro-intestinal 
lesions attributable to dust. 
The chapter on “Dustwomen” is curious and 
interesting, and serves to show how the dangers due to 
what isa disagreeable and at times even a disgusting 
employment may be mitigated by the conditions under 
which the work is performed if only a little common 
sense and prudence are exercised. 
By far the greater portion of the work is concerned 
with the effect of particular industries upon the health or 
longevity of the worker, and it is this section which will 
appeal most strongly to individual employers, to 
statisticians and to the practical legislator. Mr. Cunyng- 
hame contributes an interesting article on the history of 
the attempts which have been made by the Board of 
Trade and by Parliament to bring the dangerous opera- 
tions on railways under regulations analogous to those 
which can be made by the Home Office in regard to the 
dangerous processes in factories and mines. Although 
time can alone show how far Mr. Ritchie’s attempt to 
bring railway labour within the circle of protected 
industries willactually realise the anticipations held out 
at the time of the passing of his Act, there can be no 
question that the position of railway servants as regards 
immunity from accidents has been thereby greatly 
ameliorated. 
The extraordinary development of the technical 
applications of electricity has brought a special crop 
of dangers to the workers in its train, which are dealt 
with by Commander Hamilton Smith, who also con- 
tributes a chapter on acetylene and its dangers, 
Lead and its compounds are naturally dealt with by 
the editor, who also treats of china and earthenware 
manufacture and of phosphorus and lucifer matches— 
subjects with which he has specially concerned himself 
at the instance of the Home Office. Mr. Malcolm 
Morris furnishes a short chapter on the industrial em- 
ployment of arsenic; Dr. Legge contributes one on the 
dangers in the use of mercury and its salts, and one on the 
NO. 1714, VOL. 66] 
lesions resulting from the manufacture and uses of the 
alkaline bichromates. The effects of the dust of basic 
slag, and that resulting from ganister crushing and from 
buhrstone chiselling, are also treated in special chapters. 
Steel grinding is dealt with by Mr. Sinclair White, 
who, as a lecturer connected with the medical depart- 
ment of University College, Sheffield, has special oppor- 
tunities of acquiring information; and the subject of 
“brass ague,” which is particularly prevalent in Bir- 
mingham, the home of the brass trade, is treated by Dr. 
Simon, of the General Hospital in that city. 
The dangers incidental to the use of bisulphide of 
carbon and naphtha in the manufacture of indiarubber 
and of benzene in dry cleaning are considered by the 
editor, who in this connection might also have had 
regard to the use of carbon bisulphide as a wool cleansing 
or degreasing agent. Dr. Prosser White, who is 
officially connected with the Roburite Explosives Com- 
pany, contributes a chapter on the effects of dinitro- 
benzene and other nitro-substitution products on the 
workmen employed in the manufacture of high explo- 
sives. The effects of such explosives on the air of 
mines, together with the general pathological results of 
breathing the atmosphere of mines, are considered by 
Dr. Haldane, who is specially well qualified by experi- 
ence and observation to deal with the subject. Principal 
Laurie treats of the health of workers in chemical 
trades ; Drs. Hamer and Bell furnish two essays on 
anthrax and its relation to the wool industry ; and Mr. 
Stuart, who is the medical officer of health at Batley, 
contributes chapters on blatiket stoving and on rags and 
their products (shoddy mungo, &c.) in relation to health. 
The woes of the washerwomen—and they are more 
grievous than many of us are aware—are sympathetically 
dealt with by Miss Lucy Deane; whilst Miss Paterson 
tears aside something of the romance which seems to 
environ the life of the braw fishwife “bearing with 
apparent ease the enormous creel of fish and her almost 
equally surprising burden of petticoats.” We do not 
usually associate much that is unhealthy either with the 
occupation or the appearance of the stalwart lassies that 
make such a picturesque congregation on the quays 
of Stornoway, Peterhead or Lerwick. But that the 
“kipperer ” and the ‘‘ gutter” have theirepeculiar troubles, 
and that these may be avoided by definite enactment 
and administration, with regulated hours and _ sanitary 
work places, are equally certain. 
There is much else in the book that we should have 
liked to indicate and many excellent features upon which 
we could have wished to dwell at greater length. If we 
have a fault to find it is that it includes too much. The 
diseases of soldiers at home and abroad and questions of 
marine sanitation hardly come within the province of a 
work entitled ‘‘ Dangerous Trades.”’ Admirable as the 
articles relating to these subjects are, we think the editor 
would have been well advised to keep to subjects which 
are strictly within the purview of the Home Office. No 
doubt it is an all-embracing Department, but if the 
profession of arms is to be regarded as a dangerous 
trade in the sense that the occupation of the potter or 
the wool-sorter is considered dangerous, it is not easy to 
see why that of the medical man, the journalist, or even 
the legislator should not equally have been included. 
