Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: State hygiene. 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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![ground the figure 5 was chosen. In adopting it, the moderation of the legislature has been abundantly justified, for, at present, of all the hydrochloric acid generated in Great Britain and Ireland, rather more than 98 per cent, is condensed, while less than 2 per cent, is allowed to escape. In the Act of 1863 a second new departure was made. This was the appointment of inspectors with power to enter factories and ascertain, at all times, whether the provisions of the Act were duly carried out. Hitherto the common law was the only remedy to which appeal could be made in cases where damage had been done by the emission of noxious gases into the air. But it was found insufficient, because no adequate restitution could be made in many of the cases where injury was sustained, and because, where several chemical works closely -adjoined each other, there was great difficulty in determining which had been the offender. In many cases a money payment could not possibly compensate for damage done. The growing crops on a farm doubtless have a money value, and when destroyed can be paid for in money, but who shall attempt to compensate the owner of an ancestral estate, an ancient hall surrounded by spreading elms and beech, and oaks of centuries’ growth, commanding an extensive view of wooded hill and valley, by paying him the timber value for those trees when destroyed by the acid blast of a chemical work. It is clear that in such a case protection from injury is required, not compensation for injury done. Again, at Widnes, in Lancashire, there are 18 large chemical works closely adjoining one another, all capable of doing similar damage to neighbouring vegetation. It is clear that a farmer whose crops at half a mile distance had suffered injury would find it impossible to ascertain which of the 18 works, or how many of them, had been the authors of the mischief. In a twofold manner, therefore, the common law was found insufficient to afford adequate protection in the cases described. Hence the necessity for the new departure in the Act of 1863. It might have been feared that the inspector of chemical works would be regarded by the manufacturer as a spy, a most unwelcome intruder. This has not been the case. Thanks to the wise method of the first chief inspector. Dr. R. Angus Smith, and the discretion of those who held office under him, their visits have rather been courted than resented. The best of the manufacturers regarded the tests made by the inspector as an additional guard of their interests, a further check upon the correct working of their establishments. The smaller men found that the improvements they were led to make in ]their apparatus in order to comply with the requirements of the Alkali Act, and the increased care demanded in the manipulations of their .operatives led to generally improved working and increased profits. The effort of the inspectors has been to induce the manufacturers to make constant systematic tests themselves of the condition and com position of the waste gases of their works, and not to wait till the inspector’s test should show that there was an infringement of the provisions of the Act. The result has been very marked. Whereas in the old time any effort to ascertain the composition of waste gases was](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28045476_0070.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
