Introductory address delivered at the opening of the thirty-ninth session of the Medical Department of Georgetown University, on the recent advances in abdominal surgery / by Joseph Taber Johnson.

  • Johnson, Joseph Taber, 1846-1921.
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Introductory address delivered at the opening of the thirty-ninth session of the Medical Department of Georgetown University, on the recent advances in abdominal surgery / by Joseph Taber Johnson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    33/61 (page 9)
    mouthfuls during the progress of uninterrupted labor. It appears, moreover, that the temperature in many mills was from 75c to 80°, in others from 80° to 85° or even 90°. Such was the state of things when in 1819, the twelve hours bill was carried. In 1825, Sir John Hobhouse obtained an act which limited the labor of persons under sixteen, to sixty-nine hours in the week, twelve on five days and nine on Saturdays. In 1831, it was somewhat improved by the prohibi- tion of night work for all under twenty-one, and by the advance of the ages entitled to protection from six- teen to eighteen years. By the modern factory laws of England, no child under nine years of age is permitted to work at all: and before thirteen it can only be employed for nine hours a day. But here again, the necessities or the cupidity of parents, it would appear, are continually inducing them to misrepresent the ages of their chil- dren ; so that it has therefore become desirable to dis- cover some test by which the capability of the child may be determined without a knowledge of its age. A standard of height has been adopted by the legisla- ture for the purpose, but upon grounds which physio- logically considered, are very erroneous, as the tallest children are often the most weakly. It is, not to be concealed that a vast deal of angry discussion has taken place as to the reality of the mischief inflicted by the long hours and unremit- ting exertion required by the English factories and spinning mills, rendering the ascertainment of the