The Prescott daily news., 1914-05-21
THE MEDICAL ASPECT OF CHILD
 LABOR

The University of Vienna has estab- lished chair of social medicine. As industrial hygiene is the most impor- tant branch of this subject, Professor Teleky, the head of the department, early became interested in tuberculo- sis as an industrial disease, and logi- cally was led to study the effects of different occupations on wage earning children with a predisposition to this disease. He found that in Germany as well as in Austria there is an un- duly high tuberculosis-rate among youthful wage earners. Kayserling has shown that while in Berlin the tuberculosis death-rate for all the lat CT years of life has fallen since 1900 no diminution has been found in the death-rate for children of wage-earn- ing age. Won Pirquet attributes the rise in the tuberculosis morbidity-rate during the years between 15 and 20 to overstrain and undernutrition in ap- premiership life.
 Teleky has shown that sickness in- creases among children who leave school for work. The increase during the first year of work is not great, but in the second and third years it is pro- nounced, 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- derdeveIoped children, predisposed to tuberculosis, might be kept out of oc- equations in which too great demands were made on their strength. In Vienna medical control of such mat ters is easier than with us, because of the well-established system of appren- ticeship. Most industries employ phy- sicians, who examine applicants for apprenticeships and may reject the physically unfit. Theoretically, this is a good system, but Teleky has found it effective in practice The physi- clans are almost obliged to accept or reject applicants according to the state of labor market. Also, the best paid industries get the strongest boys, while the weaker boys must accept lower wages and poorer conditions or go into the unskilled occupations, which means that the children who most need it are not protected.
 Realizing that the choice of occu- patton should be made during school life and with the advice of teacher and doctor, Teleky, with the coopera- tion of other physicians, opened consultation cline for school children 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 improper conditions of labor-heat, dust, insult ticient light, stagnant air--eut also by the work itself-the physical overstrain placed on an underdeveloped organism which should have it's energies con served for growth. After studying the problem at first hand, and seeing all efforts to prevent the disasterous 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 for children to enter industrial work; and even at 16 the transition from school life to industri- al life should not be too abrupt. He agrees with Kaup that for the youth under Is the work-day should be limit ed to ten hours, including time for three meals, with each week at least three half holidays for study and sport, and each year two weeks va cation. The importance of such inves- tigations, says The Journal of the American Medical Association, is that child-labor by lowering resistance in the child may favor the development of tuberculosis in children.
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