30 



INDUSTEIAL PATHOLOGY. 



[1854. 



now in every known nation — tliat tlie corporeal labourers are 

 both shorter lived and endure more physical evils than the men- 

 tal labourers. Statisticians are explicit enough on that point. 

 Now it will be found on enquiry that there are two distinct 

 classes of evils to account for this. In the fii-st class are 

 included poverty, ignorance, political weakness, and other cir- 

 cumstances which prevent handicraftsmen surrounding them- 

 selves with the defences against pain and death placed in the 

 power of their superiors. These causes it is the business of 

 Political Economy, State Hygiene, and the science of Education 

 to investigate and teach us how to remedy. But there is also 

 a class of causes arising out of the nature of various descriptions 

 of bodily exposure and exertion ; pain, sickness and death 

 accrue from some thing" necessarily part of the work, without 

 doing which the man could not be industrious at his trade. — 

 Here lies the field for Industrial Pathology. The first class of 

 evils depend mainly on the work not being sufficiently regular 

 or plentiful, or being under-paid, or some such economical mis- 

 management ; the second is aggravated by abundance ; the 

 more a man has to do the worse he fares, and hence the pro- 

 priety of the term " Industrial." I wiU illustrate this. There 

 are two coal-whippere at the time of a commercial crisis in the 

 coal-trade; fewer hands are wanted; one gets turned out of 

 work, and the other is kept on. In six months time the one 

 out of work is starving, because he was so weakened by teiiiv 

 poj-ary want of food that he was not fit for employment when he 

 could get it. It is the business of the political economist to 

 remedy commercial crises. The other man has worked a*s hard 

 as possible in the way you know these fellows are engaged, 

 jumping up a foot or two and throwing their whole weight 

 on to a rope for ten or twelve hours a day ; it is I believe the 

 mp§t wasteful, unscientific, and pernicious expenditure of human 

 muscle that ever was devised. The consequence is that his 

 heart cannot stand it, the fibres are overstrained with these 

 continued violent jerks, and the organ becomes diseased. After 

 a tedious illness, during which he is an incumbrance and ex- 

 pense to society, the industrious, well-paid man dies at forty. — 

 Here it is that Industrial Pathology comes into play. It is the 

 duty of that science to find out idiy such and such labour is 

 injurious in a special manner, and to suggest a remedy. For 

 example, in the instance quoted above, we may find out that it 

 is the sudden jerk which is the cause of the injury to the cir- 

 culation, and devise some better mechanism than is at present 

 in use. 



Again painters are liable to colic and palsy from the use of 

 white lead ; we may introduce a substance ecjually convenient 

 in the shape of white zinc or other substitutes. 



Tailors sit all day in a confined atmosphere, with the legs 

 crossed and the spine bowed, so that neither the ribs nor the 

 digestive organs have room to act. The consequence of course 

 is that the stomach and bowels become disordered, the spine 

 twisted, the gait shambling, and the power of taking the exer- 

 cise necessary to health obliterated. If an artist wants to repre- 

 sent a starveling, he takes a tailor as his model ; if a plump 

 rosy man were to tell you he was a journeyman tailar, you 

 would not allow such an evidently inexperienced workman to 

 mend your coat. With a life embittered by indigestion, what 

 wonder that a tailor takes to opium, gin, and tobacco, the only 

 things that make existence endurable. Now cannot these evils 

 be corrected ? The cross-legged position is assumed because in 

 the ordinary sitting posture the heavy cloth could not be held 

 near enough to the eye. The problem is to invent some sort 

 of table which would be equally convenient. 



Shoe-makers and boot-makers suffer equally from a con- 

 strained position, and also from the pressure of the last against 

 the stomach. Heartburn and painful digestion are so common, 

 that a certain pill in the Pharmacopeia (the Fibda Sagapeni 

 Comj).) is called the coblers' pill. A jjatient of mine, now in 

 St. Mary's Hospital, has a hollow big enough to put one's fist 

 in, from the pressure inwards of the breast bone by the boot- 

 tree ; of course his lungs and heart are diseased by such distor- 

 tion. Cannot some one devise a new sort of boot-tree, which 

 will not drive its tap roots into peoples lungs ? 



Looking-glass makers and water-gilders are constantly coming 

 into hospitals for mercurial paralysis; and when they go out of 

 the hospital they are not fit for much else than the workhouse. 

 There are two ways of remedying this : «one is to give them 

 some protection against the poisonous fumes; and the other is 

 to improve and cheapen rival modes of gilding and silvering, in 

 which mercury is not used. 



Washerwomen constantly suffer from v.aricose veins and other 

 mechanical disorders arising from the standing p)osture. It is 

 the business of Industrial Pathology to devise a chair in which 

 they could work as at present, or else to discover some mode of 

 doing the same thing by the agency of mechanics, which is now 

 done immediately by the unaided body — to wear out mechanism 

 instead of muscle, iron instead of energy. 



I show you here a rotten jaw-bone, which Mr. Simon was 

 obliged to cut out of a man's head because it was corroded by 

 the noxious fumes evolved in the manufacture of lucifer 

 matches. It is to be hoped that there is some mode of making 

 them without rotting men's jaws, and this mode it is the busi- 

 ness of Industrial Pathology to find out. 



Few persons who walk much in the streets can avoid often 

 meeting a bleeding groaning mass carried by on a stretcher, 

 having just fallen from some ill-made scaifolding. It is the 

 business of Industrial Pathology to enquire, whether it is an 

 essential part of the nature of our countrymen to fall from 

 scaffolding, or whether the construction of it might be so 

 altered as to prevent the accidents. For the encouragement of 

 those who are possessed with the latter idea, it may be 

 cursorily mentioned that in China they have for several 

 thousand years used a light bamboo scaffolding, covering the 

 entire building like a network, and certainly preventing the 

 Kills which so often happen in Europe. Our ideas seem to 

 have travelled wholly in the direction of making it stronger, 

 heavier, and more unmanageable. 



I trast that by these few familiar illustrations, I have made 

 clear what Industrial Pathology is and how it differs from 

 Hygiene. It does not profess to enquire into the health of the 

 industrious classes generally, but only into their health so far as 

 it is affected by their special occupations. It is desirable' that 

 this division of labour among scientific observers and teachers 

 sho'uld be fully understood, in order that the facts collected 

 should be properly arranged, and handed directly to those who 

 will use them aright. Into the respective utility and conse- 

 quent dignity of the two sciences I have not enquired : I only 

 wish to point out which it is that the Council feel themselves 

 called upon to take up. 



I come now to the third question which may be asked con- 

 cerning Industrial Pathology, viz., hoio does the Council pro- 

 2Mse to he of use in this matter? This has been in a great 

 measure answered by a circular which has lately been issued, 

 and which was printed in the Journal a few weeks ago. They 

 propose in the first place to have an Exhibition of contrivance 



