Health maintenance in industry / by J.D. Hackett.

  • Hackett, J. Dominick (James Dominick), 1877-1936.
Date:
1925
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Health maintenance in industry / by J.D. Hackett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    trade. If he fails to produce materials as good and as cheap as the foreign manufacturer he is inundated with competition; if he makes goods better and cheaper than the outsider he can export his surplus and keep his plant in continuous operation in spite of fluctuations in the home market. This happy state depends somewhat on two factors: improved machines and increased output of the workers. Machine improvement. Each year shows a substantial increase in machine productivity in which the brains of the scientist and the technician and the money of the capitalist are used liberally. Thus, America competes successfully wath the other countries of the world. But while machinery goes on improving to an extraordinary degree, the human machine appears to be undergoing positive deterioration in spite of a general decline in the death-rate. The very effort made to produce better machinery has brought about the neglect of those who build and use it. Work today and yesterday. One has but to consider industrial history to see why a departure from traditional practice in health maintenance is the need. In former days work was performed without the stress and pressure of today. Man generally did his work in the open air; he had more personal volition and mingled with his friends who were his fellow-workers, if at all, in small groups. Occupational risks, chemicals, fast running machines, belts and wheels were hardly known and the worker was, per¬ haps, generally healthier and happier in production than now. The death-rate was high, it is true, but not from occupational causes. Modern industry has changed all that. We live in a period of mass production, which means a mass of human beings as well as a mass of production, and with the human cooping up involved there comes a problem of ill health and unhappiness which demands rectification. Industrial workers have a higher sickness and death-