Each trade and occupation needs to be considered as to its special demands, exposures and liabilities. Circular XL. of this Board, as contained in this report, outlines these. The effect of each department of any given trade needs to be considered. Then comes the general question as to by what methods or devices the evils are to be overcome or reduced to a minimum. There is but little realization in very many trades how much human life is shortened or its powers abridged by the occupation or by the place and circumstances under which it is followed. There are many industries in which the power to make full time and do good work does not extend over twenty years of the artisan's life.

From the elaborate and proximately correct tables of Hirt we have, as averaging, for those under treatment, of under fifty years of age at death, for agate-polishers, britannia-workers, cabinet-makers, cementmakers, chimney-sweeps, coppersmiths, cotton operatives, diamond cutters, glass-cutters, goldsmiths, locksmiths, laborers on artificial flowers, arsenical mines, color-works, lead mines, lead smelting, quicksilver, silver smelting, sugar of lead, machinists and stokers on railroads, millers, millstone-makers, mirror-makers, needle-polishers, painters, plasterers, porcelain-makers, sandstone workers, stone-cutters, tinkers, varnishers, while various other occupations follow in close degree of briefness of life. It is noticeable especially how large a portion of these are trades in which there is inhalation of irritating dust. It is also to be borne in mind that often these deaths at middle life stand for long years of sickness or of enfeebled and diminished work. Our climate, our methods of work and the use of machinery, make some modification as to trades, in some cases increasing and in others diminishing the evils.

We need to take the facts in evidence as furnished by careful statisties and deductions from foreign sources, and then, by our own close examinations, see how far these are to be accepted. This Board has, from time to time, directed its attention to various industries, in order to acquaint itself with the character of each and the peculiar liabilities which they involve. We now have under systematic observation the effects of pottery, printing, glass making, oil cloth, and flax and jute industry.

The object of this paper is to furnish some facts as to some of these, preliminary to those special observations which are now being made and which will be reported in due time. The interests of the working classes in all these regards must not be overlooked.

PRINTERS AND PRINTING.

Dr. R. S. Tracy, of New York, in his Treatise on Occupations, says: "Printers, including compositors and pressmen, are generally pale and unhealthy in appearance. The characteristic anemia is largely due to the bad ventilation of the rooms in which they work, to the lack of exercise, and, in the case of pressmen, to the heat of the press-rooms. Compositors frequently suffer from dyspepsia and diarrhoea, and also from bronchial catarrh and phthisis. According to Tardieu, twenty-five in one hundred die of the latter disease. Pneumonia is common among them, and is likely to be severe. The habit of putting type in the mouth, leads to the formation of cracks and fissures of the lips, and small tumors on the inner surface, caused by the obliteration of the mouths of the follicles, which sometimes ulcerate and form painful sores. Lead-poisoning is very rare among them, but there are occasional cases of 'professional cramp.' Pressmen are said to suffer frequently from varices and heart disease.”

Printers, from the sedentary character of their work, incline to keep the rooms hot, and being susceptible to draught, breathe much foul air if they are compelled to depend upon open windows for ventilation. Where this is the case, the windows should always be provided with a board piece to put under the lower sash, and so raise it as to let in air between the upper and lower sash, or should have an opening at the top and a hood or device for directing the cold air first upward to the ceiling and thus prevent draught.

Dr. Edward Smith has written a valuable report on the sanitary circumstances of printers in London. (6th Report Medical Officer Privy Council, 1863.)

He divides them into the following classes: Readers; compositors, who are remarkable for quickness and nervous exeitability; pressmen, machinemen, and then warehousemen, who are essentially porters. Reading boys and boy machine-tenders are also spoken of.

In newspaper offices, the extra demands made by night work and by irregular hours, need to be given full consideration as increasing the tax and risk to vitality.

The Reader is necessarily more educated than the usual workmen and has often both literary and constrained labor to perform. In large establishments he must often be ready at hand with his correction, work rapidly, and at late hours. He is very apt to be put in some

corner closet or confined room, ill-ventilated, subject to draught from the opening and shutting of the door to his den. Many of them have a pale and overworked aspect, which comes from confinement and want of exercise out of door and all over the body. They often have headache, dizziness and eye affections, caused by their close reading and correcting of proof. They should have every advantage of light, warmth, pure air and a comfortable position, and should often change posture while at work. Many are forced into other occupations by the failure of their eye-sight. Careful periodical examination of the eyes by a skilled oculist, would save many of them form permanent disability or embarrassment. In a close observation had of one hundred for ten years, in London, in various leading offices, the average age at death was forty-five, and chest and nervous diseases predominated.

Compositors-These usually work standing, or varying occasionally to a high sitting posture for rest. The distribution of light for them, which should be mostly from above and on the left side, is often defective. We have generally found the rooms in which compositors work, illy-ventilated and dirty, because there is no thorough system of room-cleaning. It is of great service if, during meal hours, for a longer or shorter time, the windows are thrown open and the air changed. Tubes similar to the Tobin ventilator, communicating with the outer air and permitting of opening and closing, are often of service. During the time when the gaslights are used, there is less ventilation through the side and other apertures. In such rooms the air is often too moist, as shown by the rills on the inside of the windowpanes, and thus the air is more oppressive. Often, by means of staircases, the upper rooms receive both hot and foul air from the lower ones, and so are more unhealthy. When the heating is by hot water or steam-tubes passing around the sides of the room, it is to be remembered that it is the air of the room, and not fresh air introduced from without, that is being heated, and that there is much more heat around the sides than in the center of the room. This is said often to give rise to rheumatism, and, to those who have one leg near the tubes, to the "printers' sore-leg disease."

Dr. Smith, after making many special facts as to health and disease, says: As to compositors, as a rule, I can arrive at no other general conclusion than that they are a "sensitive and not robust race, enjoying life in only a moderate degree, and not peculiarly liable to varie and acute diseases, but with a tendency to defective alimentation and

assimilation, and thence towards exhaustion of body and consumption." Short sight is common, and it is also commonly believed that "the conditions of the employment lead to habits of drinking." New type and case dust are also claimed as injurious-the former because the metal gets into the skin or mouth, and the latter as an irritant to the lungs. It is noticed that many printers keep at work with an amount of disease which would effectually disable a person exposed to the weather or engaged in more laborious occupation.

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Consumption is known universally to be the chief cause of death among printers." "It is about twice as prevalent among them as among the members of the whole community. What may be called stagnant heat, as well as foul air, greatly depresses the vital powers. The whole excess of death-rate over that of the general community is due to the unhealthy conditions in which they are placed, and to causes quite preventable." Both on account of the heat and of the consumption of oxygen caused by the gaslights, it would be a great improvement if electric light, properly shaded, could be introduced for all night work. Each room should have a thermometer.

Pressmen-The occupation of pressmen is more laborious and a more general exercise of the body. It develops most the right side of the body, and inclines to roundness of shoulder and constriction of the chest. The room is generally in one of the lower floors, and often lacks in light and ventilation. As the heat in the press-room is greatest at night, from the perspiration and the handling of the damp paper, there is liability to rheumatism or myalgia in some form.

Machine- Minders and Engineers work mostly in the basement or on the lowest floors, where bad air, dampness and the absence of light are unfavorable to health. We know of no special evils incident to their actual work. The boys who assist and remain long at the work are usually pale and lightly built, and do not grow rapidly. The place, the monotony of the work, long hours of labor and little change of posture are probably accountable for this. These and irregular or restricted sleep tell upon these more than adults. As a rule, a printer's office is a poor place for the growth and physical development of young persons.

The improper location of closets and urinals is found to be a great source of foul air in printing houses, as in many other close industries. Lime washing of all the rooms and painting of the rooms each year,

and a more special housekeeping care is greatly desirable, because the walls, as well as wood-work, become blackened and soiled, and light and color, as well as cleanliness, are important.

POTTERS AND POTTERY.

The diseases of operatives in clay and in pottery have been studied at various times and in different countries from the days of the learned Ramazzini, of Modena, to the present. But occupations and the modes of their pursuit have so changed that we have to confine our studies to those modern times which have to do with the introduction of machinery.

In the supplement of the Registrar-General of 1871, reviewing the statistics of ten previous years, Dr. Farr says: "The earthenware manufacture is one of the unhealthiest trades in the country. At the age of joining it is low; but the mortality after the age of thirty-five approaches double the average; it is excessively high; it exceeds the mortality of publicans (inn-keepers). What can be done to save the men dying so fast in the potteries and engaged in one of our most useful manufactures? Among the glass manufacturers the mortality is highest at twenty-five to thirty-five than among the earthenware manufacturers, but it is lower afterward."

Dr. Parkes, in his "Manual on the Personal Care of Health," laments that, "in the pottery factories where, as in metal trades, there is much dust, very simple plans, such as wearing, in certain operations, canvas masks or respirators, are never thought of," and that men "go carelessly on in the old way, letting ill-health come as if it were inevitable."

The most valuable report on the diseases of potters is that of Dr. Greenhow, made to the Medical Officer of the Privy Council (1860), Great Britain. Although the inquiry had special reference to lung disease, it fairly presents the various exposures which this industry involves. The observations were chiefly made in the well-known pottery district of Staffordshire, England.

A very careful census of population and comparison with other industries showed that "this class of operatives suffered a much larger mortality from pulmonary disease in proportion to its number than did others."

In pottery districts where the industry has long existed, the potters are short in stature and sickly in appearance. In Stoke and Wolstan