TRADE DISEASES

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 119, 27 August 1910, Page 8

TRADE DISEASES

Every man w.ho works -for a long time at any one of the score* of industrial trades is pretty nearlv sure to contract sooner or later the l.'.xlilv disease that is connected with liii occupation. Some of these maladies are mysterious, many are dangerous. Bakers generally have tbad teeth; the flour dust collects in their teeth, becomes acid, and give rise to a special kind of decay. Bakers, too, owing to their irregular life—sleeping in the day and working at night—and°tbeeause of the hot air and dust they breathe, are great victims of consumption. Boiler-makers lose their hearing from the continual racket in which they have to labor. Those men who work around- the breweries ]ook strong and healthy, ibut the beer that they drink ruins their livers, and they generally die before reaching middle age. One of the peculiar diseases that is but temporary in its effect, and to which a man is immune after having experienced it once, is "brass founders' ague." jThree-quarters of the new employees of brass founilaries experience it. They ihnve severe chills and headache, cough a great deal, and then develop a high fever; the illness passes in a day or so. It is caused by the inhalation of metallic dust or vapors of zinc or copper. Blacksmiths suffer from paralysis of the entire right side, due to the continual shock of hammering, and their eyes become weak from the glare of the fire. Professional cooks are also subject to impairment of the eyesight; they have to open oven doors continually to see how whatever they are 'baking or roasting is progressing, and the outrush of the heated vapor a fleets their eyes. The strong funics of naphtha are a little deadly than those of chloroform. ;''Xiiphtha intoxication" i-? peculiar to those employed in the manufacture of this product and to tliose who use it largely in cleaning establishments and in ,rubber factories. .Furniture polishers can generally 'be picked out in a crowd on account of the eczema which covers the hands, arms and face. This is supposed to be due to impure alcohol used in the polishes.