White lead workers : being an examination of the recent parliamentary papers. Showing that the proposed legislation cannot remedy the state of affairs under the old stack process, and calling attention to the true remedy. / by "Observer".

Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: White lead workers : being an examination of the recent parliamentary papers. Showing that the proposed legislation cannot remedy the state of affairs under the old stack process, and calling attention to the true remedy. / by "Observer". Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    Paeish op Saint LeonauDj Shoreditch. Extract from a Report of the Workhouse and Infirmary Visit- ing Committee, adopted by the Guardians of the Poor of the above Parish at a Meeting held on the 3rd day of May, 1882. It was referred to your Committee to consider the question of the frequency of cases admitted to the Infirmary suffering from lead-poisoning, and whether any steps should be taken by the Guardians in connection therewith. While your Committee approached this reference as a pecuniary question in which the ratepayers are directly interested, that of the health, and indeed life, of a large section of the labouring class necessarily obtruded itself. Dr. Forbes, Medical Officer of the Infirmary, informed your Committee that during the past 18 months 23 patients have been admitted to the Infirmary, suffering directly in various forms from the eflfects of lead-poisoning. The duration of the stay of these patients in the Infirmary, except where death occurred, which was so with three cases, varied from three or four weeks to six months, and some unfortunately will, in all probability, remain paupers for life. Taken in connection with the fact that many of the sufferers have families dependent upon them, the gravity of the charge upon the ratepayers will be at once apparent. Four patients in the Infirmary, on the day of your Committee's visit, were brought before them, and their cases alone would be sufficient to show the importance of the question under considera- tion. Although not now acutely ill, their dropped hands and paralysed feet were indeed pitiable to behold. * * -x- * * * [Following this are descriptions of four cases at considerable length, which are commented upon in the course of this Paper, and the Committee in conclusion say,] — They recommend your Board to lay the facts elicited by your Committee before the Home Secretary, with an expression of hope that the matter will receive the earliest possible attention.