Maech 31, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



511 



Dr. Stiles presented a paper entitled ' ' The 

 Influence of Hookworm Disease upon the Appar- 

 ent Age of Children in the Cotton Mills. ' ' There 

 is a wide-spread popular belief that many very 

 young children are working in the mills, and that 

 this life results in retarding their physical devel- 

 opment and in producing what is called a typical 

 "cotton-mUl child." Begarding this point, it ap- 

 pears from numerous observations that among the 

 rural tenant whites, children very commonly ap- 

 pear to be younger than they are. This is fre- 

 quently due to hookworm disease retarding devel- 

 opment. A study of the real and apparent age 

 of 42 people, part of whom were employed in the 

 mills and part not so employed, showed that these 

 persons appeared on an average 3 to 3.8 years 

 younger than they actually were. These cases 

 show that the stunted growth of the ' ' cotton- 

 mill child" is found in persons who never worked 

 in cotton mills and in those who had never even 

 lived in a cotton-mill village. All these cases 

 were marked hookworm cases and their stunted 

 growth was apparently due to this disease. Con- 

 sidering these facts with other data, the conclusion 

 to be drawn is that the "cotton-mill child" like 

 "cotton-mill anemia" is a product, not of the 

 cotton mills, but of soil pollution and of the 

 resulting infection taking place before puberty. 

 Owing to the presence of hookworm suspects, 

 great care is necessary in judging the ages of 

 mill children. 



Even after making allowance for hookworm 

 cases in judging ages, there are still a number of 

 young children at work in the mills. These are in 

 some cases actually below the legal mill-age limit. 

 Of 464 hookworm cases and suspects where the 

 exact or approximate age was obtained, 19, over 

 4 per cent., were below the legal mill-age limit 

 (twelve years) of South Carolina, the ages run- 

 ning from nine to eleven years. Probably the 

 ratio of children Tmder twelve years of age to the 

 total number of employees is between 2 and 5 

 per cent. 



A number of the small children seen in the 

 mills are not employed by the mills, but are 

 "helping" their elders. The parent or elder 

 sister is paid for the amount of work turned out. 

 With the assistance of a younger brother or sister, 

 who would otherwise be helping with the house- 

 work at home, more work can be turned out, thus 

 increasing the earnings. The employees are chiefly 

 responsible for this form of evading the law. 

 Most mills would prefer not to have these ' ' help- 

 ers," but if they are turned out, the famUy 



involved moves to another mill. The practise can 

 only be stopped by legal prohibition or mill-asso- 

 ciation agreement, the former being perhaps the 

 better, as the employees resent restrictions made 

 by the mills but accept in more or less good faith 

 the restrictive laws. 



Mothers often bring chUdren four or five years 

 old to the mUls and the children play while the 

 mothers work. Often the mother can not leave 

 the child at home, and the kindergarten, provided 

 by some of the mills, is not always open. To 

 refuse to allow these chUdren in the mills would 

 increase the difiieulty of a widowed or deserted 

 mother in supporting herself. 



The average child in the cotton-mill family is 

 anxious to go into the mills. To this end many 

 of them practise deception in regard to their ages. 



Cases probably occur where parents compel 

 children to lie about their ages; the large number 

 of children claiming to be just above the legal 

 age for mill work points to this. 



Many of the children have no idea of their 

 exact age and the fathers are often almost as 

 ignorant. 



It seems probable that a physical examination 

 by local or state medical officials would be better 

 than the present age limit laws. In this way 

 many cases of disease would be detected, excluded 

 from the mills and treated. It would exclude 

 from the mills all persons who are now justly 

 excluded. 



Dr. Stiles presented a second paper entitled 

 "Is the So-called 'Cotton -mill Anemia' of the 

 Gulf-Atlantic States due to Lint or to Hook- 

 worms?" A common explanation of the wide- 

 spread anemia among cotton mill hands in certain 

 portions of the United States is that it is due to 

 ' ' breathing in the lint. ' ' If this be true, then 

 since the cotton, and hence the lint also, are prac- 

 tically identical in all parts of the country, we 

 would expect to find: (1) that the hands in the 

 New England cotton mills show the same type 

 and extent of anemia as those in mills south of 

 the Potomac and Ohio Rivers; (2) that mUls of a 

 similar character in eastern, central or western 

 parts of North or South Carolina, or in southern, 

 central or northern parts of Georgia or Alabama, 

 show approximately the same proportion of 

 anemia; (3) that there is the same amount and 

 severity of anemia in a given district among 

 hands who are of the first, second or third genera- 

 tion of mill workers and removed by one, two or 

 three generations from the farm, or if there were 



