Reports to the Secretary of State for the Home department on the use of phosphorus in the manufacture of lucifer matches.

  • Thorpe, T. E. (Thomas Edward), 1845-1925.
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Reports to the Secretary of State for the Home department on the use of phosphorus in the manufacture of lucifer matches. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    54/294 (page 34)
    Regulations as to labour, &e. in Bel- gian match factories. At the time of my visit only two dippers were at work ; one of these had dipped 13 years, and the other 9, and they expressed themselves as well satisfied with the efficiency and convenience of the arrangement. The mode of ventilating the drying chambers will be obvious from Pigs. 14 and 15 (plan and elevation). Each chamber is connected with a brickwork channel leading to the end wall of the building, in which is placed a Blackman fan of 1 m. 20 cm. in diameter, and making 500 revolutions a minute. It will be further noticed how the dipping tables (Fig. 15) and also the boxing tables, Figs. 14 and 16, are connected with this main channel. From observations made by Inspector Van Overstraeten, the speed of air at the mouth of the hood over the dipping table is from 1 • 10 metres to 1 • 40 metres per second with the given number of fan revolutions. I made a few trials with dry paste, which I caused to ignite, and the phosphoric fumes were rapidly and effectually swept away. The boxing tables (Fig. 16) are provided with rectangular channels of wood, having openings opposite each worker covered with wire work to prevent burnt matches, boxes, &c. being thrown into the channels. These wooden channels, which it will be seen (Fig. 14) run the whole length of the tables, are connected with the main channel by sheet-iron tubes, 30 to 40 centimetres in diameter, furnished with regulating valves. M. Van Overstraeten, by anemometric observations, found that in Room No. 1, 1,858 cubic metres of air per hour were aspirated through the drying chambers, and 594 cubic metres through the openings at the boxing tables. In other words the 16 workers in this room were each supplied with 153 cubic metres of fresh air per hour, which is more than times as much as the maximum amount prescribed by hygienic authorities. At such relatively high speeds there is, of course, the objection that the work-room would be unduly cooled in winter to the discomfort of the operatives, but I was assured that even at the dipping-tables where the speed always exceeds 1 metre per second, the women suffer no inconvenience. In Sweden, how- ever, as I shall show, the necessity of warming in winter the enormous volumes of very cold air which are drawn through the factories is a very serious item of expenditure and a considerable charge upon the cost of production. With regard to the hours of labour and periods of rest, it is ordered by the Act of December 26, 1892, that the duration of the actual work of children and youths under the age of 16, as well as of women and girls between the ages of-16 and 21, shall not exceed 10J hours 'per diem-, and that the hours of work shall be separated by at least three intervals of rest, of which the total duration shall not be less than an hour and a half. The rest during the middle of the day shall not be less than of one hour’s duration, during which the workpeople shall leave the workshops. It is further ordered that a notice stating the hours of beginning and ending (1) of work and (2) of the periods of rest, shall be posted up, in a suitable place, in the various workshops ; and that a copy of such notice, and of any subsequent alteration of it, shall be sent to the Minister of Labour. No woman after child-birth may resume her work until after an interval of four weeks. Children and youths under 16 years of age, or women between the ages of 16 and 21, may not be employed in the manufacture of phosphorus, nor in the shops where paste containing ordinary phosphorus is made, nor in the rooms where matches dipped in such paste are dried. No child under 14 years of age may be employed in filling boxes with matches containing ordinary phosphorus. The Act of September 2], 1894, makes provision for the sanitary condition of the factories. As regards air space it enjoins that each worker shall have at least 30 cubic metres and that the rooms shall be properly ventilated and that there shall be a supply of at least 30 cubic metres of fresh air per hour for each worker—which must be increased to 60 cubic metres in special cases, the inlets and outlets of the air to be placed in such manner as not to inconvenience the workers, or to be capable of being interfered with by them. The workshops are to be vacated as much as possible during the periods of rest, and the workpeople are not to take their food in any locality where poisonous substances are handled. The masters are bound to provide a sufficient supply of good drinking water.