An inquiry into the prevalence and aetiology of tuberculosis among industrial workers : with special reference to female munition workers / [by J. Greenwood and A.E. Tebb].

  • Major Greenwood
Date:
1919
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inquiry into the prevalence and aetiology of tuberculosis among industrial workers : with special reference to female munition workers / [by J. Greenwood and A.E. Tebb]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    General Summary of Conclusions. 1. The incidence of pulmonary tuberculosis upon particular occupations is greater than can be accounted for by the hypothesis that persons employed in such trades are ab initio of inferior physique and with a low general resistance to disease-producing causes. 2. The general statistics of employed women are insufficient to furnish a ground for exact reasoning as to variations of liability to contract tuberculosis. 3. The incidence of tuberculosis upon the inhabitants of towns is greater than can be accounted for by the general lowering of health associated with the home environment of the urban poor, and is consistent with the view that industrial employment intro¬ duces a special factor which makes for the development of tuber¬ culosis. 4. The ratio of phthisis deaths to deaths from other causes in age groups is substantially correlated with the age death-rate from phthisis, and a tolerably exact impression of the level of phthisis mortality in a group of districts can be derived from the propor¬ tionate mortality index. In individual districts, however, the divergence may be considerable between the observed death-rate and that predicted from a knowledge of the proportionate mortality. 5. In the majority of English registration districts the pro¬ portionate phthisis mortality at ages 15-45 has increased since the outbreak of war. 6. The position of the maximum in the curve of proportionate mortality (women) is different, and has varied in a different way since the war, in towns of different kinds. This is manifested in the nearly uniform increase of the proportionate mortality (phthisis) at ages 15-20 in the great industrial towns, another result tending to suggest that the war-time increase of phthisis mortality is due to industrialization. 7. A field investigation in the Birmingham area discloses evidence (a) of a relatively greater incidence of phthisis upon the employees in hygienically unsuitable factories, (b) of a serious con¬ dition of overcrowding in industrial dwellings, but (c) no evidence of any specific trade habit amongst munition workers specially apt to favour the conveyance of phthisis from person to person.
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