The industrial diseases : their importance and methods of study / by W. Gilman Thompson.

  • Thompson, W. Gilman (William Gilman), 1856-1927.
Date:
1913
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The industrial diseases : their importance and methods of study / by W. Gilman Thompson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    (Reprinted from Tlie Industrial Diseases: Their Importance and Methods of Study BY W. GILMAN, THOMPSON, M.D. Professor of Medicine. Cornell University Medical College in New York City [A paper read before the Academies of Medicine in Buffalo and in Rochester, April 8th and 9th, 1913] HE industrial development of this country has been so rapid, so varied and extensive, that few persons have realized the degree to which concomitant diseases have arisen as a result of industrial hazards. These diseases may be defined as resulting: (1) from contact with harmful materials, (2) from harmful methods of work, (3) from harmful environment. An illustra- tion of the first group would be poisoning by inhaling wood alcohol fumes or phosphorous fumes; of the second group would be the locornotive engineer’s sciatica, due to sitting sidewise on a bench, subjecting the right hip to constant pressure and jolting; of the third group, would be compressed air illness from working in a caisson, where not the materials used, nor the mode of hand- ling them constitute the hazards, but the environment of increased atmospheric pressure. It is natural that the industrial accidents should first have re- ceived attention, for in many cases the relationship of cause and effect are immediate and obvious even to the layman. But the industrial diseases are, for the most part, of insidious and chrome development, and when acute their symptoms'may be so unfamiliar as not to be attributed to their true cause, even by p ysicians. For instance, I have known a fatal acute case of wood alcohol poisoning in a man employed to varnish the interior ot a closed beer vat to be diagnosed as deaf-h fmm >>