United labor bulletin., 1910-12-01
A CLINIC FOR
INDUSTRIAL DISEASES.
(By John B. Andrews, Secretary Ameri-
can Association for Labor Legisla-
tion, in The Survey)


Some of us had hoped that industrial
America with its wonderful resources
its famed philanthropes and its un-
counted thousands..of work-diseased men
and women. might be first among ma
tions to recognize the need of special
hospital and clinic for industrial dis
eases. But the honor belongs to Italy.
Eight years ago group of social
minded medical men in Milan united in
demand for Systematic study of dis
eases of occupation. Four years ago they
called together from many nations th,
first International Congress on Industrial
Diseases. Last March they saw the
hopes of years culminate in the dedica-
tion of the first labor clinic.
For the scientific study and ~preven-
ton of occupational diseases" is the in
scription in letters OF gold on back
ground of white marble over the en-
trance of this unique hospital. Three
large four-story buildings, new and we'll
equipped with the latest scientific appar-
atus in laboratories, hospital wards, lee
ture room and library, are here frankly
dedicated to the elimination of those dis
eases peculiar to Industrial employ
ments. Already twelve scientific men
are cooperating with the director. DR..
Devote, although the laboratories were
not opened until March 20. In one of
the hospital wards the director is giving
special attention to fourteen patients.
One of these, man trembling with the
peculiar palsy due to mercurial poison
ing, began work in hat factory when
ron voarc of 400 oud falt tho offactS Of
the poison almost Immediately. Another
patients suffers with lead colic." the re-
suit of his work as a house painter
Seven of his thirteen children died dur
ing the first few months after they came
into the world, on account, perhaps, Of
the presence of poison in the fathers
system. Other patients are being treated
for ills occasioned by work in high tenn
peratures, in dusty or poisonous atmos-
pheres, and for the results of overstrain.
The laboratories, TOO, are fully
equipped. Here we find treadmills in
which dogs patiently trot up endless
hills in order that their blood corpuscles
may disclose new truths concerning the
toxin of fatigue. Machines register on
revolving discs the fiuctuating curves In
scribed by long series of muscular
strains, in order that the effects OF over
work and artificial stimulus may be cor
related with immunity from disease.
Here, too, ''leaded' mother goats and
guinea pigs add to our fund of knowl-
edge concerning the effects Of lead pois-
oning upon premature birth and the sup
ply of mothers milk.
These experiments, moreover, are of
much more than ordinary laboratory in
terest. A practical provision extends the
activities of the clinic into industrial es-
tablishments, and supplements the work
of government factory inspectors. DR..
Carozzi, who has devoted much time to
this important work, is fully supplied
with portable air-test devices. When
thorized to enter Establishments to in
spect sanitary conditions.
These practal experiments, carried on
with a broad scientific devotion to the
conservation of human resources, offer
both encouragement and reproach to us
in the United States. What have we of
equal value to offer the sons and daugh-
ters of Italy whom we invite to our
shores? Country dentists have confessed
TO us that they were merely Experiment
ing" with match factory employees af-
hicted with the dreadful 'phossy jaw"
Industrial diseases of many kinds are
leaving pitiful wrecks to burden and
shame us. Is it not matter of reproach
that it was not in weary, smoke-be-
grimed Pittsburgh, nor amid the textile
mills of New England. nor among the
mines and smelters and factories of the
great Industrial centres of the United
States, but beneath the sunny skies of
Italy that this need found tangible ex-
preston in the first clinic for industrial
diseases?
When Florence Nightingale and Henri
Dunant saw the battlefields strewn with
dead and wounded, they gave a moment
to thought, and then passed on to the
world an idea which grew into that be-
neficent organization known as the Red