Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1914-06-07
Child LABOR
IS Main TOPIC
Medical People Discuss the Vari.
GUS Aspects of the Children
Working at Early Age.

~ 90
The University of Vienna has ef
tablished a chair of social medicine
As industrial hygiene is the most i'm
portant branch Of this subject, Pro
lessor Teleky, the head of the depart
ment, early became interested in tn
berculosis as an industrial disease
and logically was led to study the Ell
fects of different occupations OF
~wage.earning children with a predis
position to this disease. He fount
that in Germany as we'll as in Aus
tria there is an unduly high tubercu
lOsis-rate among youthful %wage-earn
ers. Kayserling has shown thai
while in Berlin the tuberculosis deatf
rate for all the later years Of life has
fallen since 1900, no diminution has
been found in the death-rate for chill
dren Of wage-carning age. Won Pr
quet attributes the rise in the tuber
culosis morbidity-rate during the
years between Is and 20 to oyerstrain
and undernutrition in apprenticeship
life.
Sickness Increases.
Telcky has shown that sickness in
creases among children who leave
school for work. The increase dur
ing the first year OF work is not
great, but in the second and third
years it is pronounced, and in the
fourth year is higher than the first
He then took up the question OF
control OF the choice OF occupation so
that some regard might be given to
the welfare of the child, and that un-
derdeveloped children, predisposed to
tuberculosis, might be kept out OF
occupations in which too great de-
mands were made on their strength.
In Vienna medical control of such
matters is easier than with us, be.
cause of the well-established system
of apprenticeship. Most industries
employ physicians, who examine ap-
plicants for apprenticeships and may
reject the physically unfit. Theore-
tically, this is a good system, but
Teleky has found it ineffective in
practice. The physicians are almost
obliged to accept or reject applicants
according to the state of the labor
market. Also, the abest-paid indus
tries get the strongest boys, while
weaker boys must accept lower wag-
es and poorer conditions or go into
the unskilled occupations, which
means that the children who most
need it are not protected.
Should Choose Occupation.
Realizing that the choice of occupa-
ton should be made during school
life and with the advice of teacher
and doctor, Teleky, with the coopera-
ton Of other physicians, opened a
consultation clinic for school-child.
rem and their parents, in which advice
was given as to the occupation for
which the child was fitted.
He found that disease is produced
in working children not only by i'm
proper conditions of labar-heat,
dust, insufficient light, stagnant air.
put also by the work itself-the ply
steal overstrain placed on an unde.
veloped organism which should have
Its energies conserved for growth.
After studying the problem at first
hand, and seeing all efforts to pre-.
vent the disastrous effect of labor on
underdeveloped children fail, Teleky
finds no remedy save the raising Of
the age.limit for employment. The
age of Is, he thinks, is early enough
Tor children to enter industrial work;
and even at Is the transition from
school life to industrial life should
not be too abrupt. He agrees with
kaup that for the youth under IS the
work-day should be limited to ten
hours, including time for three meals,
with each week at least three half
holidays for study and sport, ane
each year a two weeks vacation. The
Importance Of a such Investigations,
says The Journal Of the American
Medical Association, is that child.lab-
or by lowering resistance in the child
may fa7or the development of tuber-
culosis in children. a.
MIC @->.,.-