The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1914-07-18
SOCIAL SERVICE BULLETIN
| ANOTHER ASPECT OF CHILD
LABOR

| ANOTHER ASPECT OF CHILD
LABOR.
The University of Vienna has es-
tablished chair of social medicine.
AS industrial hygiene is the most inn
portant branch of this subject, Prof.
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 occupation on wage earning
children with predisposition to this
disease. He found that in Germany
as we'll as in Austria there is an I'M
duly high tuberculosis rate among
youthful wage earners. Kayserling
has shown that, while in Berlin the
tuberculosis death rate for all the
later years of life has fallen off since
1900, no diminution has been found
in the death rate for children of
wage.earning age. Won Pirquet at
tributes the rise in the tuberculosis
mortality rate during the years be-
tween fifteen and twenty to over
strain and under-nutrition in appren-
ticeship life. Teleky has shown that
sickness increases among children
who leave school for work. The in
crease during 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 occupa-
ton so that regard might be given to
the welfare of the child, and that
under-developed 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 APP
plicants, for apprenticeship, and may
reject the physically unfit.
theoretically, this is a good sys-
tenn, but Teleky has found it ineffec-
tive in practice. The physicians are
almost obliged to accept or reject
applicants according to the state of
the 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 occupa-
ton should be made during school
life and with the advice of the teach
er and doctor, Teleky, with the CO.
operation of other physicians, op-
ened consultation clinic for school
children and their parents, in which
advice was given as to the occupa-
ton for which the child was fitted.
He found that disease is produced in
working children not only by impro-
per conditions of labor-heat, dust,
insufficient light, stagnant air-but
also by the work itself-the physical
overstrain placed on an under-devel-
oped organism which should have its
energies conserved for growth. AZ
ter studying the problem at first
hand, and seeing all efforts to pre-
vent the disastrous effect of labor on
under-developed children fail, Teleky
finds no remedy save the raising of
the age limit for employment. The
age of sixteen, he thinks, is early
enough for children to enter indus
trial work, and even at sixteen the
transition from school life to indus
trial life should not be too abrupt.
He agrees with Kaup that for the
youth under sixteen, the work day
should be limited to ten hours, in
Guiding time for three meals, with
each week at least three half holi-
days for study and sport, and each
year two weeks vacation. The i'm
portance of such investigations is
that child labor by lowering resis-
lance in the child may favor the de-
velopment of tuberculosis in children.
Is. S. c. of A. F. S. c.