Evening star., 1933-01-29
INDUSTRIAL PER|LS
SEEN ON INCREASE
Woman Doctor DepIores Re-
turn to SWeatshop Methods
in United States.

An increase in the hazards Of indus
trial diseases Is foreseen as one Of the
results of the depression by DR.. Alice
Hamilton, associate professor Of medi-
cine at Harvard Medical School. This,
coupled with the breakdown In wage
scales and the regulations for the pro-
lection of women and children in in
dustry and the return of the sweat
shop, create a situation which she de-
scribes as losing our standards fright
fully" and going back so years"
DR. Hamilton Is silvery- haired, soft
voiced woman who knows so much
about the chemistry of industrial poi
sons that manufacturers from all parts
Of the country send to Cambridge to
consult her about new industrial proc
esses, and when she lectured the other
night at the New York Academy of
Medicine gray-haired medical meri
scribbled like college boys, jotting down
the words of science that fell from her
lips.
DR.. Hamilton is the first woman to
become a member of the faculty of Har
yard Medical School, and also has served
for three years as advisory member Of
the Health Committee of the League of
Nations.
Research Must Go On.
Great advances have been made in
the field of industrial medicine, and it
would be a tremendous pity if the re-
search work should be stopped because
of the depression" she said at the Cos
mopolitan Club, 122 East Sixty-sixth
street. The United States Public
Health Service, for example, branch
of the Treasury Department, Is the one
laboratory in the country where indie
pendent research in the industrial field
is being carried on with animals, and
1t would be disaster if this bureau
we're allowed to suffer in the name of
budget reduction Its trifling cost would
be nothing to the Federal budget, but
q tremendous loss to science.
In private manufacturing plants
throughout the country We tinc thai
the medical research departments are
among the first to suffer, and that doc
tors, if not nurses, are being dropped
THE dangers of accident and disease
are numerically reduced. of course, as
the numbers of employed decrease, but
everywhere we find employees and en-
ployers taking chances that they would
not have done in prosperous times.
Cites Death Of Girl.
For this. one cannot really blame
anybody. For example, few years ago
I should have been very indignant with
an employer who allowed girls to work
without the proper safeguards, but to-
day I feel it impossible to judge him
harshly There was plant where hun
dreds had been laid off, and suddenly
there came a rush order. Girls were
hustled back to their machines and
were very thankful to get the work, Of
course
unfortunately, the department where
fumes from certain solvent were most
dangerous was also obliged to work
Sundays. Now. this plant had an ex-
cellent exhaust system, which was in
operation when the works were going
full blast, but when only one depart
ment was busy 1t was considered too
expensive to operate the ventilating
system. AS result one girl died"
DR.. Hamilton has devoted 20 years to
fighting industrial diseases. and is still
on the alert for new poisons that creep
into the new processes in manufactur-
ing. The greatest field just now for
poison hunting is in the new lacquers
and enamels that make bathtubs, gas
ranges and automobile bodies so hand
somely shiny, she said.
DR.. Hamilton views the industrial
world with the mingled sorrow of the
reformer and the pride Of the scientist.
She got her philanthropic point Of view
from her early years at Hull House.
where she was a disciple of Miss Jane
Addanls, who is still one of her most
intimate friends.
(Copyright. 1889