3t)0 REPORT— 1903. 



at poor law inBrmaries in typical laundry districts which Ijrought out the 

 greater liability of laundresses, as compared with women of other occupa- 

 tions treated in those infirmaries, to ulcerated legs and to phthisis. 

 Further, she stated that the ' figures supplied by the records of the cases 

 attended by the Kensington District Nursing Association show a large 

 proportion of ulcerated legs and of forms of internal disease aggravated 

 by standing for long hours. ... I was struck by the absence of any 

 particular liability to skin disease, for on all hands I had been informed 

 that washerwomen were not uncommonly afflicted by a local inflammation 

 on the hands and arms, due, it was thought, to the action of soda, soap, 

 and other chemicals. . . . The effect of the occupation was noticed in the 

 out-patients' department of St. Mary's Skin Hospital some years ago, 

 but had since almost disappeared. The immensely increased use of 

 machinery in the process of washing (even in the very small hand laundries 

 the hand-turned washing machine is often found) may account for this 

 difFei'ence.' In her report for 1 902 Miss Deane quotes interesting later 

 figures from the Medical Officer of Health of Battersea to show the 

 sjsecial liability of girls from fifteen to twenty-five years (mainly packers, 

 sorters, calender workers, and machine ironers) to phthisis. ' They work 

 either in sorting the soiled linen or in the steam and heat and gas-laden 

 atmosphere of the machine room. . . . The constant exposure to steam, 

 standing on wet floors, the great heat in which the work is carried on, 

 and the long hours at exhausting work, amply explains the tendency to 

 pulmonary disease. The badly arranged floors in even large wash-houses 

 are a constant source of discomfort, and probably of ill-health, to 

 workers.' 



For the latter classes of complaint the special regulation for laundries, 

 relating to steam, temperature, drainage of floors, are admirably calculated 

 to establish an amendment, even though the liours are still so long as to 

 aggravate ajiy constitutional liability to ulcers or internal disease asso- 

 ciated with long standing. 



It must be carefully borne in mind that these special provisions for 

 the hygiene of steam laundries were enforceable earlier in hand or work- 

 shop laundries under the more general provisions of the law relating to 

 public health by the local authority. Thus, it cannot )je maintained that 

 larger laundry-proprietors were given any advantage over their poorer 

 and smaller rivals through the cost of conforming to the sanitary provisions 

 of the Factory Act. Under the Kensington Vestry, for example, work- 

 shop laundries were registered, inspected, and brought gradually into 

 conformity with general sanitary requirements years before steam laun- 

 dries were affected by the Factory Act. 



No authentic case has been established of disappearance or failure 

 of workshop laundries through application of the standards either of the 

 Public Health Act or of the Factory Act."^ On the contrary, the evidence 

 of the factory inspectors goes to show increased and increasing prosperity 

 among smaller occupiers. The readiness with which costly machinery is 

 installed in small dwelling-houses and the steady transformation of small 

 rtand-laundries into small factory-laundries, negatives the idea that the 

 safety and hygienic clauses of the law hamper the small proprietor. It 



' At the same tune occasional references of Factory Inspectors to the tendency 

 of occupiers to dismiss a third outside worker when tliey learn that a third brings 

 them under the Act, must not be overlooked. Cf. Annual Ueport, 1901*, p, 18G. 



