X. THE INFLUENCE OF OCCUPATION ON HEALTH. IN previous chapters we have explained the structure and function of various organs in health and in disease e; it is now our intention to show that many of the diseases to which our bodies are subject, arise from simple and often easily remediable accidents of our daily life. A very close relation exists between health and occupation; and the more widely a knowledge of the principles of sanitary science is diffused, the more certainly will the health and happiness of our working population be secured. England cannot, indeed, hope to maintain her pre-eminence as a manufacturing country, unless the health and vigour of her artisans is preserved; and the prospects of the "working man "would be more surely advanced by improvements in his sanitary and social condition, than by an increase of his political power. It is always the feeble and unhealthy who are the most dissatisfied with their lot, and clamorous for the reform millennium; the healthy body and satisfied mind exist together, and a man who has health to enable him to overcome obstacles and make his way in the world, is not likely to be very particular about the roughness of the road. The influence of occupation on the health is not a subject for the consideration of a single class; for what overwork of body does for those who earn their daily bread in "the sweat of their brow," overstrain of mind effects for those who live by their brains. There have been many instances from the ranks of literature, science, and art, of men whose lives have been sacrificed by too intense devotion to their pursuits. Mendelssohn, who concentrated more brain-work within his short life than has sufficed for many whose years have extended to ten decades, died of paralysis at thirty-eight; his premature end most surely hastened by the perpetual unrest in which he spent his every day. Our subject readily divides itself into two sections, viz., (a) influences general and indirect; (b) influences special and direct. Amongst the former we refer to conditions of defective ventilation, overcrowding, long hours, etc.; and under the latter head we shall classify the injurious. influences of particular trades. The packing together of numbers of human beings in a confined room, tends at once to impair the purity of the air; for its vivifying principle, oxygen, is replaced by that most injurious gas, carbonic acid. It is a primary natural law, that man needs an abundance of pure air to support his healthy existence. "A breath of unadult'rate air, The glimpse of a green pasture, how they cheer How imperfectly this requirement is supplied in large manufactories, and what a powerful source of mischief is at work in such places, may be indicated by the following facts. In 100,000 parts of pure air, there are rarely found more than 30 parts of carbonic acid: in rooms in towns, freely ventilated, the proportion rises to 80 parts in the same volume, while in ill-ventilated rooms and workshops there have been found from 100 to 700 parts, or twenty times nature's allowance. The working classes are exposed to no more fruitful cause of disease than this excess of carbonic acid in the air which surrounds them. When a high percentage of carbonic acid prevails, the circulation of the breathers is generally observed to become enfeebled, the frequency of respiration to increase, and nervous power to fail. Much of the consumption and scrofula of town populations is due to an atmosphere overcharged with this gas. Nothing affects its power for ill so much as an elevated temperature. "Thus even 1 per cent. of carbonic acid may be endured at a temperature under 50° Fahrenheit, which at 70° or 80° would be absolutely intolerable." On entering a close room in which a number of persons have been employed for many hours, the atmosphere seems quite unbearable, and we gasp for an open window; while the workpeople, accustomed to the vitiated atmosphere, seem to breathe with ease, and say they do not feel any inconvenience. Is the closeness innocuous because it is not felt? By no means. Acclimatisation is dearly bought. By the gradual depression of all the functions, less oxygen is absorbed, and the vitiated air then suffices for an enfeebled organism, just as it would for the respiration of a cold-blooded animal. This kind of vital depression, when frequently experienced, is destructive to the elasticity and vigour of those exposed to it. In such an atmosphere, rapid and efficient work, to say nothing of comfort and happiness, is out of the question. It is gratifying to find from the last published reports of the Factory Inspectors, that very decided physical improvement has been effected by the factory regulation laws, and as a natural consequence "a wide-spread and almost universal improvement in tone both of the employer and employed has been noticed." Attention to the laws of health is thus seen to secure an immediate and permanent reward. Long hours are not now, happily, so crying an evil as formerly, for the legislation of 1867 has placed reasonable limits on the time during which employers can keep their hands at work. There is even now, however, ample evidence of the prevalence of this evil, especially as it affects the young. In the east end of London, where it appears to be practically impossible to enforce the wholesome regulations of the Workshop Act, in consequence of the pauperism of the population, many hundreds of young children are employed from eight to ten hours a day in light handicrafts, such as the making of lucifer-match and other small boxes. Lord Shaftesbury's "Children's Employment Commission of 1861" brought to light many glaring instances of overworked children in the hosiery trades of Leicester and Derby, the straw-plaiting trade of Luton and Dunstable, the iron trades of South Staffordshire, and many others. It was invariably found that the most exacting taskmasters were the children's own parents, and recent experience in London confirms this fact. What wonder that the mortality should be excessive in districts where children have been kept hard at work in a temperature varying from 106° to 120° for six-and-thirty hours without going to bed, as in the glass works of Yorkshire, or where infants of but six years are pent up for fifteen hours |