Flax mills : their machinery, accidents occurring therein, with suggestions for their prevention / by Thomas H. Babington.

  • Babington, Thomas H.
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Flax mills : their machinery, accidents occurring therein, with suggestions for their prevention / by Thomas H. Babington. 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.

    4/8 (page 4)
    tlic fibrous texture to be afterwards spun and woven it is first sub- mitted to a process of bruising, or trituration, by passing it through grooved metal rollers, similar to the rollers of a threshing machine. When sufficiently crushed and softened, it is submitted to the action of the “ fliers” or “ wipers,” which are sharp knife-like boards, set upon a spindle, and driven, as are the rollers, with great rapidity, either by water power or steam. This last process separates the “ shows,” as they are called, and leaves the flax clean. In each of these parts of the manufacture of the staple com- modity of Ulster accidents frequently occur; and in each succeeding flax season we can scarcely take up any ncAvspaper published in Ulster, from September to March, without finding a record of a case or cases of accidents at flax mills, some attended with loss of life, others with the loss of an arm, fore-arm, or hand, many with the loss of fingers; all the sufferers more or less injured, maimed, or mutilated, and left comparatively useless for the rest of their lives, too often to be supported, with their young families, by the poor rates, or frequently having their own laudable exertions for self support aided and supplemented by their kind neighbours. The most serious form of accident we meet with is occasioned bv the rolling machinery. These are grooved cylinders, and frequently a portion of flax sticks in them, or goes in crooked. The machinery is working Avith great rapidity, and the attendant, Avho is “ feeding” the rollers, eager and anxious, makes a snap at the flax to pluck it out. Either a finger, the cuff of a coat, the slecA^e of a shirt, or a portion of a female’s dress (for Avoraen are constantly employed at these mills), is caught, the Avhole hand and arm is dragged or sucked in, and the Avhole limb smashed and mutilated before the machinery can be stopped. It has happened that the arm has been torn off from the shoulder!!! The other form of accident is from the “ fliers,” “ Avipers,” or scutching apparatus. Although these “ Avipers,” or knife-like boards, are sheathed, and Avork in sheaths, still if the Avorkman, or scutcher, is not particularly attentive, he may place his hand, holcfing the “ strides” of flax, too close to, or rather in front of, the Avipei, and Avill receiv'e a most severe bloAV, sometimes severing a finger or trvo from his hand, ahvays inflicting a severe compound fracture, extending through one, two, or three fingers or metacarpal bones. From the very large nuruber of cases Avhlclr have come under my own personal observation I have selected tAventy, the heads of