PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS, 627 
demands a rapid flow of blood, and his heart has to do the circulatory work, as 
he sits still or stands at his desk, against the influence of gravity. Hence a 
high blood pressure is maintained for long periods at a time by vaso-constriction 
of the arteries in the lower parts of the body and increased action of the heart; 
hence, perhaps, arise those degenerative changes in the circulatory system which 
affect some men tireless in their mental activity. We know that the bench- 
worker, who stands on one leg for long hours a day, may suffer from degenera- 
tion and varicosity of the veins in that leg. Long continued high arterial 
pressure, with systolic and diastolic pressures approximately the same, entails 
a stretched arterial wall, and this must impede the circulation in the vaso 
vasorum, the flow of tissue lymph in, and nutrition of, the wall. Since his 
sedentary occupation reduces the metabolism and heat production of his body 
very greatly, the business man requires a warmer atmosphere to work in. Tf 
the atmosphere is too warm it reduces his metabolism and pulmonary ventilation 
still further: thus he works in a vicious circle. Exhausting work causes the 
consumption of certain active principles, for example, adrenin, and the 
reparation of those must be from the food. To acquire certain of the rarer 
principles expended in the manifestation of nervous energy more food may have 
to be eaten by the sedentary worker than can be digested and metabolised. His 
digestive organs lack the kneading and massage, the rapid circulation and oxida- 
tion of foodstuffs which is given by muscular exercise. Hence arise the digestive 
and metabolic ailments so common to brain workers. 
Mr. Robert Milne informs me that of the thousands of children which have 
passed through Barnardo’s Homes—there are 9,000 in the homes at any one time— 
not one after entering the institution and passing under its regimen and the care of 
his-father, Dr. Milne, has developed appendicitis. Daily exercise and play, ade- 
quate rest, a regular simple diet have ensured their immunity from this infection. 
It pays to keep a horse healthy and efficient; it no less pays to keep men healthy. 
I recently investigated the case of clerks employed in a great place of business, 
whose working hours are from 9 to 6 on three days, and 7 to 9 on the other three 
days of each week, and, working such overtime, they make 1J. to 2l. a week ; 
these clerks worked in a confined space—forty to fifty of them in 8,200 cubic feet, 
lit with thirty electric lamps, cramped for room, and overheated in warm 
summer days. It is not with the chemical purity of the air of such an office that 
fault is to be found, for fans and large openings ensured this sufficiently. These 
clerks suffered from their long hours of monotonous and sedentary occupation, 
and from the artificial light, and the windless, overwarm and moist atmosphere. 
Many a girl cashier has worked from 8 to 8.30, and on Saturdays from 8 to 10, 
and then has had to balance her books and leave perhaps after midnight on 
Sunday morning. Her office is away in the background—confined, windless, 
artificially lit. The Shops Act has given a little relief from these hours. What, 
I ask, is the use of the State spending a million a year on sanatoria and tuber- 
culin dispensaries, when those very conditions of work continue which lessen the 
immunity and increase the infection of the workers ? 
The jute industry in this town of Dundee is carried out almost wholly by 
female and boy labour. ‘The average wages for women are below 12s, in eight 
processes, and above 12s., but under 18s., for the remaining five processes.’ 
The infant mortality has been over 170 per 1,000. The Social Union of Dundee 
reported in 1905 that of 885 children born to 240 working mothers no fewer 
than 520, or 59 per cent., died—and almost all of them were under five years of 
age. The life of these mothers was divided between the jute factory and the 
one-roomed tenement. Looking such conditions squarely in the face, I say it 
would be more humane for the State to legalise the exposure of eyery other new- 
born infant on the hillside rather than allow children to be slowly done to death. 
The conditions, as given in the Report, contravene those rights of motherhood 
which the meanest wild animal can claim. 
Tsolation hospitals, sputum-pots, and anti-spitting regulations will not stamp 
out tuberculosis. Such means are like shutting the door of the stable when 
the horse has escaped. Fliigge has shown that tubercle bacilli are spread by 
the droplets of saliva which are carried out as an invisible spray when we speak, 
sing, cough, sneeze. Sputum-pots cannot control this. The saliva of cases: of 
phthisis may teem with the bacilli. The tuberculin reaction tests carried out 
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