MINERS' EYESIGHT

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 190, 7 May 1919, Page 3

MINERS' EYESIGHT

A LESSON IN THE VALUE OF ' ItESEABCH. (By th'e .Medical Correspondent of the • London "Times.") "The caUßes of industrial troubles are many, and not the/least of them is tho danger which exists inherently in many occupations. As dangers are eliminated, and so grievances removed, contentment increases.

One of the most troublesome, though not perhaps dangerous, complaints to whicn coalmincrs aro (subjected in this country is undoubtedly the condition known as miner's nystagmus. It is a disease of the eye in wliich that organ makes, a twitching movement from side, to side; occasionally, blindness follows its onset. The cause of the condition was not understood until recently, and so there seemed to, be nothing to be done for it. However, as tho result of very carelul work conducted before the war, certain neiy facts were at last established, the most important, of which was' that miners working in open mines to which daylight- penetrated did not' get nystagmus. _■ Finally it n'as shown that the condition was due primarily to tho lamp and to bad lignting. Tho Americans have already acted.on thisjnformation and have instituted electric headlamps, charged froin a battery which the man carries on his person. .This course has not generally been followed at home beeuuse of a tear that the proceeding is not safe. That such fears are quito groundless is now the view of those, b(|it qualified to judge, and the time/is ripe lor further work by qualified persons, ' /

Unhappily, the money available for research of this and other kinds is so small that extended effort is nearly impossible. It is time that this fact was grasped by everybody. Public apathy has closed the avenues to knowledge again and again.

It has_ also left officials of a certain school without t'he stimulus which seems essential to their efficiency. We learn, for example,\that the Local Government Board are sending inspectors round to tho various local authorities to find out w\i proposals for drainage and sewage disposal, they have before them, TTiis information being given, it has boon announced in according to our information, that pressure will not be brought to bear to have those works carried out until the labour conditions are such that it is necessary for tho Government to provide employment. If this bo indeed the policy of the Local Government Board, it is time that it was changed. Public health work may be useful as furnishing emifloyinent, but tliat' emphatically is not its main object. Its main object is tho health of the people. Water supply and sanitation are not stock jobs, but vastly important aspects of preventive medicine and of the housing problem. The record of the Local Government Board for general inefficiency is. an unenviable one. It is surely time that this Department recognised its duty and did it.