Part 51

Upwards of 1,500 lives are annually lost, principally through these causes, and not less than 10,000 accidents in the same period testify to the dangerous nature of the miner's occupation, notwithstanding the strict Government inspection.[50] It is humiliating to know that England is yet far behind continental nations in her methods of preventing these dreadful catastrophes. Mr. Mackworth, in his lecture at the Society of Arts, stated that the mortality from accidents was, in the coal mines of

Killed Persons. Prussia 1·89 per 1000 per annum. Belgium 2·8 " England 4·5 " Staffordshire 7·3 "

This comparison, so humiliating to England, cannot be explained by the superior adventure of our countrymen, inasmuch as the production of coal in Belgium is half as much again per acre of the coal-field as in England. It is not, however, to the dramatic accidents of coal mines which every now and then startle the community, to which we wish to draw attention; but rather to the silent progress of disease, which makes his death so premature, and his life so miserable. In addition to his cramped condition, whilst at work, his supply of oxygen is small; for in all probability the air supplied to him has to circulate many miles through the mine, and to pass over the excrementitious deposits of man and horse, and the decaying woodwork of the mine, ere it finally reaches him, in enfeebled streams, in his solitary working cell. Long deprivation of solar light, again, tends to impoverish his blood, to blanch him, in short, like vegetable products similarly deprived of the light of day. It is through the lungs, however, that the health of the miner is principally attacked. The air of a coal mine (such as it is) holds a vast amount of coal-dust in mechanical suspension, and this, as a matter of course, is constantly passing into the lungs of the miner. The proof of this is the so-called "black spit" of the collier, which, on being subjected to the microscope, is found to consist of mucus, filled with finely divided particles of coal. The permanent inhalation of such an atmosphere results in what is termed the "black lung." The breathing apparatus of the collier becomes clogged, in short, with coal-dust, and after death it has the appearance of being dipped in ink. A writer,[51] who has lately investigated this singular pathological condition, thus gives his experience of two _post-mortem_ examinations:--

"In each case, the black treacly fluid obtained by thus cutting the various portions of the lung (more especially the posterior and inferior portions of the lower lobes), and by slitting up the bronchial tubes, was evaporated to dryness, and the residuum being broken up and subjected to a red heat in a porcelain tube retort, behaved precisely as coal under similar circumstances, _i.e._ it evolved a smoke-like gaseous product, which, on being slightly condensed, deposited hydro-sulphide of ammonium and coal tar, and being thus purified, burnt in all respects like the well-known compounds of the two carbides of hydrogen (common gas)."

Dr. Gregory, of Edinburgh, many years since, by destructive analysis, came to the same conclusion respecting the carbonaceous nature of this deposit. The presence of this foreign body in the lungs leads to the whole train of pulmonary diseases. Asthma, bronchitis, and pneumonia are but too frequent, and we are consequently not surprised to hear that the aggregate amount of sickness experienced by this class, for the period of life from twenty to sixty, is 95 weeks, or 67 per cent, more than the general average.

Rheumatism, leading to heart disease, is another very common complaint of the miner. Indeed, all the conditions of ill-managed mines seem ready prepared for the propagation of this disease. When mines are driven to any considerable depth, the temperature proportionably increases, and 80 degrees of Fahrenheit is a common temperature at the end of workings, all the year round. After exposure to this oppressive atmosphere during the whole day, the collier perhaps suddenly emerges into the open air at the pit's mouth, vitally depressed by his prolonged exertion, when the bitter wind is shaving the surface of the earth at a temperature much below freezing point. In the coal-field stretching from Valenciennes to Aix-la-Chapelle, the mines are made conspicuous a long way off by the presence of huge buildings, which enclose the machinery and the top of the pit. In these buildings apartments are prepared in which the colliers change their clothes before and after labour, and wash themselves in baths filled with hot water from the steam waste-pipe. The importance of this sanitary precaution is very great, inasmuch as colliers, like chimney-sweeps, are subject to a skin disease, in consequence of the begrimed condition of their skins. Lady Bassett has established these baths, we understand, at her mines at Camborne, in Cornwall; but we think that the enforcement of a sanitary act of such importance should not be left to the philanthropic tendencies of individuals, but should be required by the Government. If a provision of this kind were made compulsory, and stricter legislation with respect to ventilating mines were established, no doubt a vast amount of disease could be eliminated. It is estimated that the worst coal mines can be ventilated thoroughly at a cost of one penny per man per day, and that in well-constructed furnaces the consumption of one ton of coals per day at the bottom of an up-cast shaft will enable each collier to cut one ton of coals more per day with the same amount of exertion. Such being the case, there can be no excuse for asphyxiating the miners wholesale. Those proprietors of mines, who are only open to these breeches-pocket appeals, should know that it is their interest, in a pecuniary sense, to ventilate well, inasmuch as the preservative effect of pure air upon the wood brattrices, which form so expensive an item in mining, effects a saving of 80 per cent.

Our remarks hitherto have been directed entirely to coal mines and colliers, as these are by far the most extensive industrial occupations of the kind. The metalliferous mines, such as the tin and copper mines of Cornwall, and lead mines of Derbyshire, are in pretty much the same pestiferous condition, but in one particular they are still more destructive of life than coal mines. In the latter the tired workman is lifted from the depths of the mines to the surface by a rope. The Cornwall miner, on the other hand, has to carry his exhausted body in some cases thousands of feet up a series of steep ladders to the mouth of the mine. It has been estimated that many miners have thus to make an exertion every night equal to climbing to the summit of Cader Idris, and this in an up-cast shaft used for the extraction of the foul air! The disastrous effect upon the already weary miner has long been known, yet in only a few of the great mines of Cornwall has the tireless arm of the steam-engine been called in to save him from this unnecessary labour. The machinery used is called a man-machine, and differs entirely from that employed in coal-pits. In place of a rope, a beam of wood or iron descends through the whole length of the shaft; this beam, at regular intervals of ten feet, has little platforms attached to it, sufficient to afford standing-room to a miner; at the sides of the shaft are similar platforms, at the same intervals. At every stroke of the engine the beam ascends or descends through the space of ten feet, consequently the miner has only to step from the fixed platform to the moving one to be lifted ten feet every time it ascends. In this manner as many as a hundred men are lifted at the same time several thousand feet in a few minutes, without any more exertion than is necessary to make a few score steps. This curious invention has materially benefited the miner, and where it is used there is a manifest absence of the heart disease, induced by the climbing of interminable ladders placed in an almost vertical position.

Dr. Greenhow, in his report on the prevalence of certain diseases in different districts of England and Wales, very clearly proves the deleterious nature of the lead-miner's employment by the comparisons he makes between the death-rates of the men and women of Reeth and Alston, which are purely lead-mining districts. In the former, the lead-miners die at the rate of 2,037 per 100,000 of all ages, whilst their wives, sisters, and daughters, who are variously employed, die at the reduced rate of 1,711 per 100,000; in other words, lead-mining in this one typical district caused an excess of no less than 3·26 deaths in every 100,000 inhabitants; and if we make a comparison relative to the prevalence of pulmonary disease between the two sexes, above the age of twenty, we find the death-rate of the men is double that of the women. The evil influence of copper-mining on the male population is not quite so marked, but still it is apparent enough. Thus, in Redruth, in which this kind of labour is exclusively carried on, we find that in every 100,000 of population, 220 males die from pulmonary disease more than females; and in Penzance, which is exclusively a tin-mining district, the superior waste of male over female life, in the same population, of all ages, is 104.

The mason, like the miner, is particularly liable to suffer from the presence of irritating substances in the lungs. It has been asserted that in Edinburgh members of the craft rarely live more than fifty years. This is doubtless owing to the nature of the material they work upon. There is great reason to suppose that the degree of damage done to the delicate air-cells of the lung is to be measured by the nature of the particles inhaled. Thus, the ragged portions of granite detached by the chisel are much more likely to do harm than the less irregular dust of the bricklayer. In this manner we can account for the high rate of mortality said to exist among the masons of our northern metropolis. The scourers in the potteries exercise their fearful trade in an atmosphere loaded with pulverised flints, a mineral dust of the most distressing character: we are not surprised, therefore, to hear that in this process pulmonary disease is still more rampant than among the Edinburgh masons, and is little inferior to that of the dry grinders of Sheffield, who receive into their lungs jagged particles of steel as well as grindstone dust.[52] It will be unnecessary to consider all the trades which are affected by dust, inasmuch as the artisans employed in them are similarly subjected to pulmonary affections, if not in a like degree. Thus millers are rendered consumptive and asthmatic by the floating meal of their mills; snuff-makers by the snuff which pervades the air of their places of work; pearl-button-makers suffer still more from the same cause; and the men of Sheffield who haft knives with cocoa-wood or ebony are affected with a disease exactly like the hay-asthma. The shoddy-grinders of the West Riding, who grind and break up rags in a machine called "a devil," are subjected to what they term the shoddy fever, in consequence of the devil's dust given off in the tearing process. The dressers and preparers of hair, especially of foreign hair, are speedily broken in health by the dust and stench produced by their operations.

The evil effects arising from the prosecution of these trades sink into insignificance, however, when compared with the destruction caused by the floating fluff of flax-mills. These mills employ children of tender years, who have to work in an atmosphere loaded with vegetable particles to such a degree, that in a measure it clouds the vision. The hecklers are the chief sufferers in this department of industry, especially the children, who are, many of them, forced to work the same time as adults--that is, as long as human nature can possibly hold out. We shall have more to say, however, when we come to consider the effects of bleaching and dyeing works, respecting those trades which exhaust the youthful powers of large portions of the working population, and thus do infinitely more damage to the race than the more curious diseases of smaller trades, which may be severe enough, but do not affect more than infinitesimal portions of the population.

It would be supposed that workers on decomposing vegetable and animal matter would suffer a sickness and mortality only inferior to the artisans subjected to the emanations of poisonous metals. _A priori_, we should say, for instance, that dustmen, night men, and the workers in sewers, would be amongst the most unhealthy of the working classes, and, indeed, routine sanitarians would summarily tell us that such must be the case. The begrimed and dusty scavenger, whose very name is a reproach, spends the best part of his life in clearing away the disgusting refuse of civilization; he has yet another duty to perform which brings him into still closer contact with unsavoury emanations. The lay-stall, or scavengers' yard, is of course a huge collection of the sweepings of the streets, the refuse of the markets, and the night-soil and dust of the houses, but it is not allowed to remain in a fermenting and indiscriminate mass. Almost as soon as it is deposited, men, women, and boys are employed to sift and sort the heap; bones, glass, woollen and linen rags, old iron and other metals, have to be eliminated from the mass and set aside, and the coals and great cinders are extracted from the useless ashes by the "hill-men." It would scarcely be possible to bring human life into closer contact with filth of every kind than we find it to be in the workers in these lay-stalls. Yet, strange to say, Dr. Guy, who has investigated their sanitary condition, finds them to be among the healthiest of our working population. "They are, with a very few exceptions," he tells us, "a healthy-looking, ruddy-complexioned race;" that is, they wear their natural rouge under their artificial tint, reversing the more fashionable method of May Fair.

"One or two boys," he tells us, "whom I saw at work, would have been excellent models for the artist." Our London readers will perhaps remember to have seen troops of robust and rosy-looking young women, not perhaps in afternoon toilet, making their way, about five o'clock, from the Marble Arch across Hyde Park; these are the "hill-women," chiefly Irish, trooping home to the rookeries of Westminster; their appearance quite confirms Dr. Guy's views as to the healthful appearance of these workers. The master scavengers, who live with all their families amid these heaps of dusty desolation, excite the admiration of this searcher after truth still more; and at last, breaking out of the calm unimpassioned manner which the philosophical statist, who deals only with general truths, is wont to impose upon himself, he thus fairly gives vent to his admiration for the genus dustman:--

"To conclude this account of the health of this very useful class of men, I will merely add that the score or so of master scavengers who were brought together on more than one occasion by the trial already alluded to (an indictment for nuisance against a lay-stall keeper), as the origin of these inquiries, _are the healthiest set of men I have ever seen_. I do not think, whether in town or country, such a body of men could be brought together, except by selection; and it is not going too far to assert of them, that if the comparison were limited to the inhabitants of London, or our large towns, no score of selected tradesmen could be found to match the same number of scavengers brought casually together."

This is high praise, and doubtless deserved; but few people, however, would have suspected that Hygeia clasped so closely to her bosom the grimy scavenger in his filthy frock. Dr. Guy, however, gives us hard figures for his pleasant flourishes. If we compare the scavenger with other workmen placed under somewhat similar circumstances, he rises triumphant over them. Thus whilst the bricklayer's labourer, generally a very poor Irishman, it is true, suffers from fever, a ratio of 35-1/2 per cent., and the brickmaker 21 per cent., the scavenger experiences only 8 per cent. of illness from the same cause. This result does seem astonishing when we remember that sanitarians sometimes attribute so much illness to the presence of a neglected dust-heap; but as Dr. Guy very justly remarks, those emanations which may prove injurious when confined within a small space--and our houses, like bell glasses, cover and keep in numberless impurities--become innoxious when fully exposed to the air. We suspect, however, that the power of ashes to absorb noxious emanations of all kinds, is at the bottom of the striking immunity which the scavenger exhibits from all febrile complaints. Nightmen and sewer-men, again, are brought into direct communication with the most disgusting, and as the public are led to suppose, the most poisonous animal effluvia; they stir in the very nidus of fever, yet it has been remarked by many observers that they are singularly exempt from this disease. Sir Anthony Carlisle tells us that out of fifty men employed in the sewers in his time, only three had had fever. Thakrah declares that out of eighteen examined by his assistant, only two had even slight disorders, and they informed him that appetite was increased by the effluvia; and finally Dr. Guy tells us that out of thirty-four nightmen examined by him, only one had had an attack of fever, and he only through being out of work for three weeks; he suffered, in short, _from change of air_, and perhaps want of food. Dr. Guy, in the little pamphlet we have already quoted from, states a most remarkable fact, illustrative of the changes of opinion, even amongst medical men, relative to the effects of snuffing sewer emanations. He says, that a gentleman who accompanied him in one of his inspections over a scavenger's yard, informed him that, "he perfectly well recollects thirty years ago, when he was a lad, seeing as many as twelve patients directed by the faculty of that day _to walk round the shoots_ for the night-soil on his father's premises; and he appealed for confirmation of this statement to his brother, who said that he had seen scores of patients industriously inhaling this curious dose of physic." Thakrah, who wrote his celebrated "Treatise on the Effects of Trades and Professions on Health," about this period, tells us that the parents of consumptive youth, in his time, brought them up to the business of a butcher, in the hope of averting that formidable malady. In endeavouring to avoid Scylla, they fell into Charybdis, inasmuch as it is a well-ascertained fact that butchers, although exempt from consumption and scrofula, are very prone to inflammatory diseases. They are seldom ill, but when ill, it goes hard with them,--so much so, that, as a class, these jolly, red-faced men, the very pictures of their own beef, are but short-lived. The effects of animal emanations, and the contact of animal substances with the skin in protecting workmen from consumption, is a very remarkable circumstance. Tanners constantly at work among tan-pits, are rarely, we believe, attacked with phthisis; and those artisans in the woollen-manufacture termed cloth-piecers, whose skins are smeared with oil in the course of the day, present a remarkable contrast to the workers in cotton factories,--their flesh being plump and rosy, and their muscles strong. Mr. Thompson of Perth, who has investigated this subject, found the weight of one hundred young persons, so employed, increased in three months 575 lbs., giving an average increase of 5-3/4 lbs., and in eight selected cases the gain during the same brief period averaged no less than 17 lbs. each person. The beneficial effect of this department of the woollen-manufacture is so well known, that in Yorkshire the better classes frequently send the delicate members of their families to the woollen-mills for the benefit of their health. The application of oil, especially of cod-liver oil, to the skin, has indeed been recommended to consumptive patients, as thereby a greater amount of carbonaceous material can be thrown into the system without deranging it than by any other. After having drawn attention to so many occupations which are positively injurious to artisans, it is at least gratifying to be able to point to one large and rapidly-increasing manufacture which is so clearly beneficial in its operations upon human health.