Possibilities of reducing mortality at the higher age groups ...

  • Dublin, Louis I. (Louis Israel), 1882-1969.
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Possibilities of reducing mortality at the higher age groups ... Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    are well known for their effects upon the respiratory system. We should remember in this connection that many who become incapacitated for continued work at the dusty trades often enter other and lighter work, dropping thus in the scale of economic efficiency, and later succumb to other conditions of middle life. The fumes and poisons, especially those which arise in the refining and handling of lead, copper and arsenic, in like manner, cripple thousands early in life, throwing them on other industries for indifferent employment and support. Middle age mortality returns, as they come into our statistical laboratory for study, are loaded with indications of occupational poisonings of one sort or another in early life. In no other way can we explain the large incidence of the degenerative diseases in those cases of apparently negative occupations at death, which on further inquiry reveal the previous employment in trades like that of the painter, com- positor, or laborer in paint, rubber and color works. Measures of Control This high mortality of middle life is thus largely a resultant of our occupational conditions. What measures may we then employ in our attempts at relief? Essentially our future endeavors will, we believe, take the following directions: 1. The further development of that type of efficiency engineer- ing which will result not alone in economies of production, but in such economies of human effort as will conserve the health and life of the individual workman. The first viewpoint is that of the industry, while the second is essentially that of society as a whole. This programme will take into account the radical improve- ment of the conditions of work such as the hours of labor, the sufficiency of light, the purity of air, and the maintenance of a favorable temperature and humidity in the shop. This will involve the enactment and enforcement of far-sighted labor legislation. vSuch efforts will amply repay employers and the state for the additional expense involved in increased product, on the one hand, and in the extension of the span of life, on the other. 2. The medical examination of workmen, both at the time of their entrance into the industry and periodically thereafter. A medical examination will often discover the presence of the organic diseases which we have been discussing, and will encourage the early application of remedial measures. Many instances of this kind of enlightened management are already in evidence. The