Report of the Departmental Committee on Compensation for Industrial Diseases.

  • Great Britain. Home Office. Committee on Compensation for Industrial Diseases.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Departmental Committee on Compensation for Industrial Diseases. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    15/460 (page 3)
    ce) ) This argument is subject to the qualification that where a disease is common in a particular trade, and the same disease exists, but very rarely, outside the trade, it may be right to make it the subject of compensation, even though the employers may be called upon to relieve the small percentage of cases which would occur among the men employed in the industry while due to causes unconnected with the industry. In this connection, we have had to consider also whether we should investigate, with a view to inclusion in the Schedulé, cases of persons who, in the course of their employment, contract by contagion or infection some widely prevalent disease. The claim for compensation may sometimes appear to be a strong one, as in the case of a labourer sent to assist in disinfecting a ship which has had cases of small- pox on board and who himseif catches the disease. And here, although the illness is not specific to the employment, sufficient proof that it was contracted in the course of the employment may sometimes be possible. But to admit this class of claim would involve admitting also the claim of the nurse or the doctor’s assistant who attends an infectious case and takes the infection, the schoolmaster who contracts measles from the pupils in his school, the shop assistant who catches influenza from another assistant in the same shop, the domestic servant who takes an illness which chances to be in the house—a variety of cases which we have no reason to think Parliament intended to be considered as industrial diseases. We are of opinion that neither the wording of the Act, nor the character of the Third Schedule in its present form, nor the discussion of the Bill in Parliament, gives any indication that our legislation on Workmen’s Compensation contemplates cases of ordinary ilinesses contracted by chance through exposure to infection while in an employer's service. The Act permits the burden of proof, in the question whether a disease was or was not due to the employment, to be laid in any class of cases either on the workman who makes a claim or on the employer who resists it. Section 8 (1) provides that compensation shall be paid to a workman who is found to be suffering from a disease mentioned in the first column of the Third Schedule to the Act. Section 8 (2) provides that if the workman was employed in any process mentioned in the second column of the Third Schedule opposite to that disease, then, in ordinary course, the disease shall be deemed to be due to the nature of the employment unless the employer proves the contrary. Ina case, for example, of anthrax, the workman, if he is employed in the handling of wool, hair, bristles, hides or skins (the processes mentioned in the second column of the schedule), is entitled to his compensation, unless the employer can show that the disease was not due to the trade; but if the workman is employed as a farm labourer he is still able to claim compensation, although his occupation is not mentioned in the Schedule, only the onus would rest upon him of showing that his disease had been caused by the employment. In each of the cases we have investigated we have therefore found it necessary to consider on which party it is just to lay the burden of proof—in other words, what processes, if any, should be added to the second column of the Schedule in connection with diseases to be added to the first. Section 8 (6) empowers the Secretary of State, when making additions to the Third Schedule, to modify the Industrial Diseases Clause itself in its application to the added diseases. We have borne this fact in mind, but we have not found it necessary to propose any such modification. I.—Forms or PolIsoninG. 1. Nitro- and amido-derivatives of Benzene.—Dinitrobenzol and dinitrotoluol— nitro-derivatives of benzene—are recognised as capable of producing marked symptoms of ill health among the comparatively small number of men engaged in their manufacture, or in their use in the preparation of certain high explosives. These symptoms may incapacitate for some weeks or months. Poisonous effects result from inhalation of fumes or dust, and, unlike most other chemicals, from direct absorption through the skin in handling the material itself or solutions containing it. The symptoms are due to degeneration and destruction of the red corpuscles in the blood, and to direct action, in severe cases, on the nerve centres. Anxmia and cyanosis (lividity), most easily seen in the lips, are always prominent