[Lectures on the sanitation of industries and occupations].

  • Royal Sanitary Institute.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Lectures on the sanitation of industries and occupations]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    decentralisation is desirable. If this work is placed more fully in the hands of Local Authorities, the appointment of inspectors should be made compulsory on these authorities, and districts should be so combined as to ensure the appointment of skilled inspectors, with reasonable fixity of tenure of an office, which like other sanitary work implies interference in the interest of workers with wealthy proprietors. What is rather meant, when I state that industrial hygiene has been neglected in the past, is that the opportunities afforded for investigating and elucidating the influence of various indus- tries on the health of the workers in them, have not been fully utilised; and as sound progress in the prevention of industrial diseases must rest on medical and hygienic study of these diseases, valuable time has been to that extent lost. Much of this neglect of investigation into industrial diseases is owing to the difficulties inherent to such an enquiry. The pathological material connected with our large hospitals has been utilised to a certain extent. The medical enquirer has, however, in investigating the relative prevalence of any disease in a given occupation, been beset by overwhelming difficulties. Statistics of Occupations.—Correct statistics of any occupa- tion can only be obtained when the deaths in that occupation are stated in proportion to the total number of persons engaged in it. An initial requirement is therefore an accurate statement of the number engaged in each occupation. Difficulties in Classifying Occupations.—Classification is by no means an easy task. The number of distinct industries in this country is enormous. Most of these industries are sub-divided with great minuteness, thus further complicating the task. Twenty-four orders of occupation are described by the Registrar- General, which comprise eighty sub-orders or genera. The orders arc grouped into six classes; viz., professional, domestic, com- mercial, agricultural, industrial, and non-productive. The lines of demarcation between these classes must not be supposed to be very definite, though the classification is convenient. The number engaged in each of these'six classes at the census of 1891 was as follows:— Persons. • Males. Females. Total aged 10 yrs. & upwards.. Professional Class Commercial Class Agricultural & Fishing Class . . Industrial Class Unoccupied Class 22,053,857 926,132 1,900,328 1,399,735 1,336,945 7,336,344 9,154,373 10,591,967 5117,739 140,773 1,364,377 1,284,919 5,495,446 1,708,713 11,461,890 328,393 1,759,555 35,358 52,026 1,840,898 7,445,660