gages caustic vapors, which destroy the mucous membrane of the nose and produce rapid-eating ulcers of the skin.

One of the most terrible of diseases is produced by inhaling the fumes of phosphorus in the process of making matches a necrosis or death of portions of the upper and lower jaw-bones. A surgical operation is required for the removal of such dead bone. It is, fortunately, often successful, at least as to life; but an infinitely better method is the preventive one.

In addition to this, the fumes of phosphorus produce catarrhs of the lungs and stomach in almost all the workmen; they lose appetite and become pale, and weak, and thin. There are several precautions which should be observed, but the chief one is the substitution of a kind of phosphorus- the amorphous - which is not poisonous when swallowed, and does not give off vapors, as common phosphorus does, at the ordinary temperature of the air.

Women suffer more than men from several of the poisons we have named. They not only lose their health more readily, from a greater susceptibility to morbid influences of certain kinds, but their sexual system is very liable to be injured. "They are much. more susceptible than men to the influence of mercurial vapors, and those who are poisoned abort frequently, and even the children that are born to them are apt to be weak, sickly things, and die early."

The infants of female operatives in certain branches. of china-making are almost all scrofulous, with an enormous mortality. Lead affects women more readily and more seriously than men. They suffer from excessive flowing at the monthly period, and have frequent abortions. With regard to workers in tobacco, it is stated by Tracy, of New York, that they have very small families; quite the reverse of what is usually the case with working-people. He found only four hundred and sixty-five children in three hundred and twenty-five families. It is not certain what the cause of this peculiar condition may be; but it is quite probably due in large measure to a premature commencement of work, and to an influence which tobacco has in checking the sexual development of young girls.

Tobacco is such an interesting subject that it is hard to avoid saying more. It will be safest, however, to say but little, for we know that the whole subject of tobacco is to some extent an open one. It is hard to prove that the drug is injurious to health in the case of most adult persons who chew or smoke it, or of most operatives; but there are some who are seriously, if not permanently, injured by it; and it is certainly desirable to keep young persons under sixteen from its use.

The chief practical points, in the prevention of disease arising from dust, whether poisonous or not, are:

etc.

1. Removal of dust by ventilators, mechanical fans, This is enjoined by the English law of 1878. 2. Wet-grinding, grinding in close vessels, etc., is sometimes practicable.

3. The wearing of masks over the face, composed of wire-gauze, wire frames covered with tarletan, respirators of carded cotton, etc.; but these are hot and irksome.

4. If working with poisonous substances, the workmen should wash the exposed parts-face, hands, hair, beard-on leaving work, especially before eating, and should never eat in the work-room. After work, they should change their outer clothes, and a daily bath is very desirable in some occupations. To protect from lead and other dusty poisons, a linen. suit, frequently washed, may be worn.

The effects of certain poisons on the female sex and on children are so injurious that special laws are required to restrict their employment in manufactures where poisons are used. The restrictions of the English Factory Act of 1878 are as follows:

No woman, or person under sixteen, shall take meals in any part of glass-works in which the materials are mixed, or where flint-glass is made, or where grinding, polishing, or cutting is carried on; or in any part of lucifer-match works in which any manufacturing process or handicraft (except that of cutting the wood) is usually carried on; or in the dippers'

room, dippers' drying-room, or china scouring-room, in any earthenware works.

There is absolute exclusion from labor in the following cases: girls under sixteen, not allowed to be employed in an establishment where bricks or tiles (not ornamental tiles) are made or finished, or salt is made or finished. No child under fourteen to be employed in a part of the building where dry-grinding in the metal trade, or the dipping of lucifer-matches, is carried on; under eleven years, all metal grinding is forbidden, and fustian cutting. Persons under sixteen are forbidden to work at silvering mirrors by the mercurial process, or at making white-lead. Children under fourteen and girls under fifteen are excluded from parts where the process of melting or annealing glass is carried on.

CHAPTER II.

INJURIES FROM ATMOSPHERIC CHANGES.

THE

HE unquestionable benefit which free exposure to the air in all weathers confers is subject to certain drawbacks. It is not necessary to consider sunstroke, in the case of day-laborers, nor accidents by falling from roofs, or from railroad collisions, as forming an element in "industrial hygiene; but there are certain causes which affect the health permanently, as bronchitis and pneumonia; and to this may be added a liability to paralysis of the facial nerve, which is especially the possession of drivers of carts, etc.

Bronchitis and rheumatism are common enough also among those whose trade exposes them to great heat, as blacksmiths, stokers on steamships, forgemen, puddlers, glass-blowers, dyers, and washerwomen. It is, in fact, neither heat nor cold that causes the trouble, but excessively rapid transitions from heat to cold.

The trade of baker is apt to be very unhealthy, owing to the confined, close, dark, overheated quar