Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-08-11
MEDICINE IN INDUSTRY
BY H. Addington Bruce

| " EGUN under the stimulus of the enact
* ing of workmens compensation laws
49, and fostered by wartime experiences
with industrial hazards, the practice of hav-
ing employees and prospective employees medi-
cally examined finds increasing favor among
| large employers of industry. 1t is a practice
| of great benefit to the employees themselves
as well of value in various ways to the
employers.
But it's possibilities for good can never be
| fully attained until the medical examinations
| are made more comprehensive than is usually
| the rule at present. In especial they are de-
| ficient in pretty generally ignoring the mental
| health and characteristics of the individuals
| examined.
| The examiners and the employers who en-
| gage them seem to forget that the mental
state of workers may be, and often is, of far
more Importance than the bodily condition.
They seem to forget that if the mentality is
to any marked extent disordered the eff
cheney not alone of the affected worker, but
| Of all with whom he works, may be appre-
ciably lowered.
At any rate, the common procedure is to
| make no mental examination or inquiry what
| ever, but to be content with examining the
eyes, teeth, lungs, heart and other bodily Or
| gans The worker himself, the ego possess
| ing these organs, the examiners ignore.
Or, as more deliberately put in a critical
statement by DR.. Charles Macfie Campbell, di-
rector of the Boston Psychopathic Hospital
and professor in the Harvard Medical
School:
1.-THE average examination leaves out of
account all the factors which make up the
personality, the constitutional traits, the
workers ability to get on with his fellows
the ability to face facts squarey and
straighten out situations as they arise, in
stead of ndulging in empty day-dreaming
and cherishing grudges.
"Nor do the usual examinations afford any
estimate of the workers ability to keep on
doggedy at a task, instead of fitting from
job to job, and his responsiveness to social
demands and such those of honesty, truth
fulness, decency and loyalty
The industrial situation today suggests
very strongly the desirability of the more ex-
tended examinations and Investigations indi-
Gated by DR.. Campbell. And, in fact, accord
ing to employment manager of long ex-
perience:
'"There is good reason for believing that
mental causes are at the bottom off 80 per
cent of the heavy turnover charge on indus
try and so per cent of absenteeism.''
Not that the examinations should be made
with view tt eliminating ruthlessly from
industry all the mentally inadequate or NAL
adjusted. Many of these may readily be
aided to normality, or be provided with work
suitable to their peculiar characteristics, to
the gain alike of the maladjusted ones them
selves, of industry and of society as whole.
But their mental status must be determined
before help can be given them with any sure
ty of it's effectiveness. And such determina-
ton is possible only through testings and in
quiries now too seldom made until malad-
justment has led to serious misbehavior.
Copyright 1921, by the Associated NeWspa-
pers.)