86 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIX. No. 1256 



maintenance of our position, and to ultimate 

 victory, was for the moment in the hands of our 

 enemies." 



During the war the energy and enterprise of 

 manufacturers have enabled them to build 

 up the industry and to supply all the require- 

 ments of the country, but having always be- 

 fore them the immediate needs of the country 

 rather than the future of the industry, the posi- 

 tion in which they now find themselves is 

 highly unfavorable compared with that of 

 manufacturers in enemy and neutral coun- 

 tries. Since the outbreak of the war the cost 

 of -materials has risen threefold and wages 

 have doubled. The cost of experimental work, 

 the payment of .excess profits duty and the 

 heavy charges on capital account have made it 

 impossible to accimiulate the funds necessary 

 for the proper financing of the industry; and 

 even so far as money has been available, there 

 has been great difficulty in procuring material 

 for the construction of buildings and furnaces 

 suitable in quantity and quality. The labor 

 difficulty and the calling up of all lads of 

 eighteen years of age have seriously hampered 

 the industry. 



In view of the importianoe of the industry, 

 the associations petition the government to 

 prohibit the importation of scientific glassware 

 into the country, suJbject not only to licenses 

 bedng granted in the case of articles not manu- 

 facttured in the country, but also to the control 

 of prices, and later to impose a duty upon im- 

 ported goods. They also direct attention to 

 the need for financial assistance, and for aid 

 in carrying out those scientific and technical 

 investigations which are essential if the indus- 

 try is to be established permanently in the 

 country. 



THE STUDY OF INDUSTRIAL FATIGUE 



We learn from the British Medical Journal 

 that the Industrial Fatigue Research Board 

 has now been completed. The work was begun 

 by the Health of Munition Workers Committee 

 of the Ministry of Munitions, upon which 

 Dr. Leonard Hill and Sir Walter Fletcher 

 served from the time of its appointment in 

 1915. That committee was dissolved at the 



beginning of 1918, and issued its final report 

 last May. But the excellence of its work led 

 to the expression of a wish that arrangements 

 should be made for maintaining on a per- 

 manent footing an organization for the sys- 

 tematic investigation of the natural laws of 

 industrial fatigue. Their study, though pri- 

 marily physiological, offers a field of inquiry 

 in which a knowledge both of medicine and 

 the industrial sciences are necessary for full 

 success. The department of Scientific and 

 Industrial Research, and the Medical Re- 

 search Committee accordingly determined to 

 establish a permanent organization, and to 

 contribute the necessary financial aid in due 

 proportion. The proposal was warmly ap- 

 proved by the home office, which expressed a 

 desire for the immediate establislmient of a 

 research organization of the kind indicated. 

 An Industrial Fatigue Research Board was 

 therefore established a short time ago and 

 has now been completed. It will continue the 

 organizing functions of the two bodies and 

 the investigations already in progress. The 

 Board is instructed " to consider and investi- 

 gate the relations of hours of labor and of 

 other conditions of employment, including 

 methds of work, to the production of fatigue, 

 having regard both to industrial efficiency and 

 to the preservation of health among the 

 workers." The duty of the board will be to 

 initiate, organize and promote by research, 

 grants, or otherwise, investigations in different 

 industries, with a view to finding the most 

 favorable hours of labor, spells of work, rest 

 pauses, and other conditions applicable to the 

 various processes according to the nature of 

 the work and its demands on the worker.' For 

 these investigations the board looks forward 

 to receiving the help of employers and work- 

 men in the industries which are studied, and 

 in appropriate cases representatives of both 

 will be invited to serve as temporary members 

 of the board. The chairman of the board is 

 Dr. C. S. Sherring-ton, F.R.S., professor of 

 physiology in the University of Oxford, and 

 the members are Dr. E. L. Collis (Director of 

 Welfare and Health, Ministry of Mmiitions), 



