Indian hygiene and demography.

  • International Congress of Hygiene and Demography
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Indian hygiene and demography. 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.

    226/270 (page 222)
    whilst the lizard’s has a hard shell. To distinguish between the eggs of poisonous and non-poisonous snakes is, however, impossible. But in a case of this kind there need be no comjjunction in destroying the innocent with the guilty. The work of introducing preventive medicine amongst a people who believe that almost all disease is sent by angry gods, powerful demons, or evil spirits, must necessarily advance pari passu with religious as well as general enlightenment. Happily, sanitary measures, partial or complete, introduced into some of the larger towns, have met with no serious opposition from the natives; e.g., they will drink and otherwise use water conveyed through pipes, though they will not use it for religious ceremonies; but the stronghold of custom and prejudice is in the home, the assault and carrying of which, by gentle methods peculiarly their own, can best be undertaken by women—the medically educated and noble-hearted daughters of the United Kingdom. — - > India Factory Legislation. BY Holt S. Hallett, C.E. [Note.—This and the following paper, together with the subsequent discussion, are reprinted from the proceedings of the Demographic Division.] In the census of 1881 one-twelfth of the population of India was classed as “ workers ” in various materials. Of these more than 8,000,000 were distinguished as fenrales, and nearly 13,000,000 as males. In the British Isles such workers are protected, so far as females and young males are concerned, from the exactions of their employers by our factory and workshop legislation. In India, however, where the patient endurance of the people surpasses imagination, and the sweater is master of the situation, protective legislation is refused to the great bulk of the working classes. Barely 50,000 women and children out of the 10,000,000 or 12,000,000 women and children employed in industrial pursuits have been brought within the scope of the recently enacted India Factory Act. Under the India Factory Act all workers of both sexes and all ages who are engaged in the following works are excluded from pro- tection :— 1. Factories employing less than 50 hands, with exceptions which may be made by local governments for factories employing not less than 20 hands. 2. Factories working less than four months in the year, which include most of the cotton presses and ginning factories. 3. Factories on indigo, tea, and coffee plantations. 4. Workshops.