Minutes of evidence of the departmental committee appointed to inquire and report whether the following diseases can properly by added to those enumerated in the third schedule of the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906 : namely: (1) cowpox, (2) Dupuytren's Contraction, (3) Clonic spasm of the eyelids, apart from nystagmus, (4) writers' cramp.

  • Great Britain. Departmental Committee on Compensation for Industrial Diseases.
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Minutes of evidence of the departmental committee appointed to inquire and report whether the following diseases can properly by added to those enumerated in the third schedule of the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906 : namely: (1) cowpox, (2) Dupuytren's Contraction, (3) Clonic spasm of the eyelids, apart from nystagmus, (4) writers' cramp. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    26 October 1912.] 234. Are you prepared to give us any evidence of the particular prevalence amongst these workers—the percentage ? (Chairman.) We have that in the Report. 235. (Str Clifford Allbutt.) There is a difference between an injury and effects of excessive use, is there not? Any excessive use of your fingers does not amount to a lesion. It may be a fatigue, but it is not a lesion ?—Yes. 236. As I understand, and as I put to a witness last time, this is a multiple of tiny lesions which accumulate und make these scars underneath the hand; no ex- cessive use of the hands would produce this kind of thing ?—No, I understand not. 237, It is the particular stress which injures the part ?—Yes. 238. (Chairman.) Do they get these machines from the locality ?—Yes, Nottingham and Long Eaton. 239. (Judge Ruegg.) They are made here P—Yes. 240. (Chairman.) You were nine years at War- rington and four years here ?—Yes. 241. During your time at Warrington and your time here you examined a great number of factories that had nothing to do with lace-making in any shape or form ?—Yes. 242. It is the use of levers of this kind more com- mon in what I will call lace factories than it is in the other factories that you have examined ?— Yes. 243. During the time you were at Warrington you were really not aware of this disease at all ?—No. Until 1910. T[ had never heard of it. [ Continued. 244. With regard to this process, is the lace-making process distinguished from the other processes in the other factories that you inspect, by reason of this catching of some sort of handle or lever ?—It is the constantly catching hold of the handle and lifting heavy weights. 245. Is there anything else that would differen- tiate the two classes of factories that you know which would have any bearing on our investigation ?—No. 246, (Judge Ruegg.) There must be other industries in which the workers have to pull levers ?—Yes, but not to the same extent as the lace industry. 247, Can you tell us some of those industries 2— An ordinary engineer will have to work handles; for instance, on his lathe or his drilling machine. 248. Have you inspected such factories ?—Yes. 249. Have you found the disease there ?—No, never. 250. Not even individual cases ?—No. 251. Of course your attention has never heen directed to it ?It is a different weight. 252. (Chairman.) That is the difference ; Shere is more weight ?—They do not impinge on the palm of the hand, either. They have less weight, and they catch it by the fingers and thumbs. 253. Wherever you are, although of course pr sraeuanily you only want to see that the factory laws are observed, if there are any diseases amongst the men they are always brought to your notice, are they not ?—Yes. (Chairma; n.) We are much obliged to you. 254. What are you?—I am Bachelor of Medicine of Edinburgh University. 255, And you are a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, England P—Yes. 256. You are Senior Surgeon to the Nottingham and Midland Eye Infirmary P—Yes. 257. And formerly you were assistant editor of the “ Ophthalmic Review ” ?—Yes. 258. Of course you have made a study of eye diseases for a number of years ?—Yés. 259, Will you tell us in as popular terms as you can command the relationship of nystagmus to this clonic spasm ?—It seems to me that the clonic spasm is a habit which the sufferer from nystagmus gets in his efforts to control nystagmus. If you have a man who is just beginning to get the movements of nystagmus you will see him jerk his head and blink bis eyes, and it steadies him for the moment, or may succeed in steadying him, and it seems to me the blinking becomes a habit with him in his endeavours to get a steady position. It is a very variable symptom. Some do not get it at all. Apparently they have not discovered it as a means of steadying their eyes. In some it is almost more marked than nystagmus itself. 260. Before you can have nystagmus, do you have the spasm ?—I have never seen it independent. 261. You use it as one of the effects of nystagmus. That is the way you use the term clonic spasm? —Yes. 262. Can you get cured of nystagmus, and clonic spasm remain ?—I think one often sees cases where no trace of nystagmus can be elicited. 263. And yet they have the habit ?—Yes. 264. Have you come across many cases of clonic spasm ?—Yes, many of them. 265. Have you ever come across a case where there has not. been, in tne history of the patient, nystagmus first ,—I do not think I could say. 266. You could not recall one —No, I should not think that I have; but I would not speak quite positively. 267. With regard to clonic Fepasm, after the purely nystagmic symptoms have disappeared, what do you say about the condition of the man suffering from clonic spasms?’ Are they involuntary, or can they be controlled ?—I think they can undoubtedly be con- trolled. If you insist on a man keeping his eyelids still, he can do it. If you tell him, ‘I cannot “examine you if you. do not keep your eyelids still,” then he will usually do it. 268. Have you observed that the spasms become less frequent when you are talking to the man in the ordinary way than when examining him as a doctor ? —Yes, that is quite evident if you ‘tr y it, 269. Supposing a man is suffering in this way, what is his condition with regard to being able to do work ? —I do not think that the blinking in itself i is a hindrance tohis work. Ithinkit generally means he has still some remnants of nystagmus ; and that nystagmus, although it may be in abeyance when one is looking at him, is° liable to develop again. 270. Is it painful in any way ?—The blinking ? 271. Is clonic spasm painful to the patient suffering from it ?—I do not think so. 272. Does it last for a long time? I mean in the cases that come before you is it a matter of months or years ?>—There are cases where it has seemed to persist for years after no sign of nystagmus could be elicited. 273. Is it a curable disease ?—I should think it wears itself out, as nystagmus does. 274. I suppose patients have come to you suffering from this clonic spasm ?—Yes. 275. Have they in time been cured without reversion to it, or have they been cured for a time and then it has come back again?--I think it comes hack, as nystagmus comes back when they are subjected to the conditions which produce nystagmus. 276. What are the conditions which will bring clonic spasm back ?—TI think it is when they return to work and begin to get nystagmus again. ‘I have never dissociated the two from one another at all in my er eens Forgive me for putting it in a popular way; but iach of all the man has nystagmusand then he has clonic spasm P—He may or may not get the spasm. 278. Supposing clonic spasm comes, it is owing to previous nystagmus ?—Yes. ; 279. Then the nystagmus may be cur wed and clonic spasm persist for a time ?—Yes.