Steel dust, stone dust, clay dust, alkali dust, fluff dust, fibre dust- all these things kill, and they are more deadly than machine-guns and pom-poms.Worst of all is the lead dust in the white lead trades.Here is a description of the typical dissolution of a young, healthy, well-developed girl who goes to work in a white lead factory:
Here, after a varying degree of exposure, she becomes anaemic.It may be that her gums show a very faint blue line, or perchance her teeth and gums are perfectly sound, and no blue line is discernible.
Coincidentally with the anaemia she has been getting thinner, but so gradually as scarcely to impress itself upon her or her friends.
Sickness, however, ensues, and headaches, growing in intensity, are developed.These are frequently attended by obscuration of vision or temporary blindness.Such a girl passes into what appears to her friends and medical adviser as ordinary hysteria.This gradually deepens without warning, until she suddenly seized with a convulsion, beginning in one-half of the face, then involving the arm, next the leg of the same side of the body, until the convulsion, violent and purely epileptic form in character, becomes universal.
This is attended by loss of consciousness, out of which she passes into a series of convulsions, gradually increasing in severity, in one of which she dies- or consciousness, partial or perfect, is regained, either, it may be, for a few minutes, a few hours, or days, during which violent headache is complained of, or she is delirious and excited, as in acute mania, or dull and sullen as in melancholia, and requires to be roused, when she is found wandering, and her speech is somewhat imperfect.Without further warning, save that the pulse, which has become soft, with nearly the normal number of beats, all at once becomes low and hard; she is suddenly seized with another convulsion, in which she dies, or passes into a state of coma from which she never rallies.In another case the convulsions will gradually subside, the headache disappears and the patient recovers, only to find that she has completely lost her eyesight, a loss that may be temporary or permanent.
And here are a few specific cases of white lead poisoning:
Charlotte Rafferty, a fine, well-grown young woman with a splendid constitution- who had never had a day's illness in her life- became a white lead worker.Convulsions seized her at the foot of the ladder in the works.Dr.Oliver examined her, found the blue line along her gums, which shows that the system is under the influence of the lead.He knew that the convulsions would shortly return.They did so, and she died.
Mary Ann Toler- a girl of seventeen, who had never had a fit in her life- three times became ill and had to leave off work in the factory.Before she was nineteen she showed symptoms of lead poisoning- had fits, frothed at the mouth, and died.
Mary A., an unusually vigorous woman, was able to work in the lead factory for twenty years, having colic once only during that time.Her eight children all died in early infancy from convulsions.One morning, whilst brushing her hair, this woman suddenly lost all power in both her wrists.
Eliza H., aged twenty-five, after five months at lead works, was seized with colic.She entered another factory (after being refused by the first one) and worked on uninterruptedly for two years.Then the former symptoms returned, she was seized with convulsions, and died in two days of acute lead poisoning.
Mr.Vaughan Nash, speaking of the unborn generation, says: 'The children of the white lead worker enter the world, as a rule, only to die from the convulsions of lead poisoning- they are either born prematurely, or die within the first year.'
And, finally, let me instance the case of Harriet A.Walker, a young girl of seventeen, killed while leading a forlorn hope on the industrial battlefield.She was employed as an enamelled ware brusher, wherein lead poisoning is encountered.Her father and brother were both out of employment.She concealed her illness, walked six miles a day to and from work, earned her seven or eight shillings per week, and died, at seventeen.
Depression in trade also plays an important part in hurling theworkers into the Abyss.With a week's wages between a family and pauperism, a month's enforced idleness means hardship and misery almost undescribable, and from the ravages of which the victims do not always recover when work is to be had again.Just now the daily papers contain the report of a meeting of the Carlisle Branch of the Docker's Union, wherein it is stated that many of the men, for months past, have not averaged a weekly income of more than $1.00 to $1.25.The stagnated state of the shipping industry in the port of London is held accountable for this condition of affairs.
To the young working-man or working-woman, or married couple, there is no assurance of happy or healthy middle life, nor of solvent old age.Work as they will, they cannot make their future secure.It is all a matter of chance.Everything depends upon the thing happening, the thing with which they have nothing to do.
Precaution cannot fend it off, nor can wiles evade it.If they remain on the industrial battlefield they must face it and take their chance against heavy odds.Of course, if they are favorably made and are not tied by kinship duties, they may run away from the industrial battlefield.In which event, the safest thing the man can do is to join the army; and for the woman, possibly, to become a Red Cross nurse or go into a nunnery.In either case they must forego home and children and all that makes life worth living and old age other than a nightmare.
