THE INDUSTRIAL CLINIC A Handbook dealing with Health in Work BY SEVERAL WRITERS EDITED BY EDGAR L. COLLIS, M.D.Oxon., M.R.C.P. Talbot Professor of Preventive Medicine in the University of Wales CLINIC MODERN MANUALS LONDON JOHN BALE, SONS & DANIELSSON, Ltd. 83-91, GREAT TITCH FIELD STREET, OXFORD STREET, W. I 1787 The Place of Industrial Medicine-The Need for Industrial Certificates of Fitness for Young Persons-Home Environ- ment-General Hygienic Conditions-Special Hygienic The Hygiene of the Factory Worker-Ventilation-Natural and Artificial Ventilation-Temperature with Reference 49053 Influence of a Canteen-Canteen v. Mess-room-Construc- INDUSTRIAL EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN Introduction-Duties-Routine Physical Examinations- Consultation Work-Records-Delimitations of Activity INTRODUCTION. The Place of Industrial Medicine.-The science of preventive medicine is making rapid strides; two decades ago public health medicine was practically confined to (1) sanitation, including pure water supply, sewage disposal, removal of nuisances and refuse, and the burial of the dead; (2) collection and study of records of births, deaths and marriages; (3) the healthiness of dwellings and regulation of streets and highways; (4) notification and isolation of certain infectious fevers. At that time it was impersonal and made no direct appeal to the individual. To-day, care of health starts with the birth of each babe, organized through maternity and infant welfare clinics. It is continued for the growing child at elementary and secondary schools, through the work of school medical officers and school clinics. The near future must see completion of the work in supervision by the State of the health of the adult, the industrial worker. The Need for Industrial Medicine.-This last development is not merely inevitable to complete the sequence of health supervision, it is urgently needed to increase at once the health, contentment and productivity of the industrial workers of the community. The present generation of workers is the health-or rather in many cases the ill-health-product of neglected infant and child welfare; yet upon its activities, which are the outward and visible signs of mental and physical fitness, the immediate prosperity of the nation rests. This generation requires to-day an amount of supervision and care greater, we hope, than will be needed by the next nurtured under more favourable conditions. The reward for developing an improved science and practice of industrial medicine is immediate to the present community; the return for infant and child welfare must belong to the next generation. |