ART. III.-Essays on the Coal Formation and its Fossils, and a Description of the Coal Fields of North America and Great Britain, annexed to the Government Survey of the Geology of Pennsylvania. By Henry Darwin Rogers, State Geologist. Edinburgh and Phila- delphia: 1858. 3 vols. 4to. with Plans, IV.-Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission to China and Japan in the years 1857, 1858, and 1859. By V. History of Europe, from the fall of Napoleon in 1815, to the Accession of Louis Napoleon in 1852. By Sir 68 96 VI.-1. Guide to the Gardens of the Zoological Society of London. By D. W. Mitchell, B.A., F.L.S. ; and P. L. Sclater, M.A. Third edition. London: 1859. 2. Zoological Sketches. By Joseph Wolf. Edited by 3. Annual Reports of the Zoological Society of 5. Animaux Utiles, Domestication et Naturalisation. Par Isidore Geoffroy St. Hillaire. Paris: 1854. present time, now first collected and arranged, with an Analytical Review, showing their results upon the Amendment of the Law, by Sir John Eardley- VIII.-Souvenirs et Correspondance de Madame Récamier. Par Madame Lenormant. 2 vols. Paris: 1859, 3. American Almanac of General Information. 1857- 4. Annuaire d'Economie Politique et de Statistique. 5. Report on Finances. By the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. New York: 1858. 6. On the Pressure of Taxation. By George W. 7. Report on Taxation, direct and indirect, adopted THE EDINBURGH REVIEW, JANUARY, 1860. No. CCXXV. ART. I.-1. Effects of Arts, Trades, and Professions, and of Civic States and Habits of Living, on Health and Longevity; with Suggestions for the Removal of many of the Agents which produce Disease and shorten the Duration of Life. By C. TURNER THAKRAH, Esq. London: 1832. 2. Contributions to Vital Statistics, being a Development of the Rate of Mortality and the Laws of Sickness, from original and extensive data; with an Inquiry into the Influence of Locality, Occupations, and Habits of Life on Health; an Analytical View of Railway Accidents; and an Investigation into the Progress of Crime in England and Wales. By F. G. P. NEISON, F.L.S. Third edition. London: 1859. 3. On the Health of Nightmen, Scavengers, and Dustmen. By WILLIAM AUGUSTUS GUY, M.B., Cantab. Journal of the Statistical Society. Vol. II. Part I. 4. On the Duration of Life in the Members of the several Professions. By WILLIAM A. GUY, M.B., Cantab. Read before the Statistical Society of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 11th September, 1846. 5. On the Duration of Life among the Families of the Peerage and Baronetage of the United Kingdom. By WILLIAM A. GUY, M.B., Cantab. Journal of the Statistical Society, March, 1845. 6. Die Metallurgischen Krankheiten des Oberharzes. Von Dr. CARL HEINRICH BROCKMAN. Königlich-Hannoverschem Hof-und Bergmedicus zu Clausthal, Osterode. 7. Papers relating to the Sanitary State of the People of England; being the Results of an Inquiry into the different VOL. CXI. NO. CCXXV. B I' Proportions of Death produced by certain Diseases in the different Districts in England. Communicated to the General Board of Health. By EDWARD HEADLAM GREENHOW, M.D.: with an Introductory Report by the Medical Officer of the Board, on the Preventability of certain kinds of premature Death. 1858. T is but natural to suppose, that in such a busy hive of industry as England, where so large a proportion of the population at least one-half- is engaged in the prosecution of arts and manufactures, that the effects of unceasing toil, and the debilitating influences of many employments, will have a certain effect upon the health and longevity of the artisan. We cannot pit the tender muscles of the child against the senseless energy of steam, without producing a strain upon the vital principle of the workers which must be highly injurious to it. We cannot consign a population as large as that of many German States to live perpetually in the bowels of the earth, without being prepared for an increased death-rate. The hundreds of diverse manufactures and handicrafts which make the land hum with labour, must all be prosecuted under circumstances more or less inimical to perfect health. If we take the agricultural labourer of the better class, whose daily toil is performed under the roof of heaven, it must be clear that all trades which pursue their monotonous vocations in the crowded workshops of crowded cities, in constrained attitudes, and subject to debilitating emanations, must, to a certain extent, fall short of his standard of health. Nevertheless, we do not think the public are prepared for the state of things which a close examination of the sanitary condition of certain portions of the working population divulges. Accustomed to be furnished with all the appliances of easy life and luxury, the great middle and upper classes have never perhaps given a thought as to the manner in which these wants and appliances are supplied. Accustomed to sip the honey, it never strikes us that perhaps its product involves in some cases the life of the working-bee. Yet the lady, who, from the silken ease of her fauteuil, surveys her drawing-room, may learn a lesson of compassion for the poor workman in nearly every article that lies before her. Those glazed visiting-cards, if they could speak, possibly could tell of the paralyzed hand that made them; that splendid mirror which lights up the stately room, has, without doubt, reflected the trembling form of the emaciated Italian artificer poisoned with mercurial fumes; those hangings so soft and delicate, may have produced permanent disease to the weaver, whose stomach has been injured by its constant pressure against the beam; the porcelain vase on the bracket has dragged the dipper's' hand into a poison that, sooner or later, will destroy its power, and, may be, produce in him mania and death; nay, the very paper on the walls, tinted with all the vernal brightness of spring, has, for all we know, ulcerated with its poisonous dust the fingers of the hanger. The history of the manufacture of almost every article of elegance or virtù would disclose to us pictures of workmen transiently or permanently disabled in the production of them. All this suffering-much of it totally preventible - goes on without complaint, the workman falls out of the ranks, and another instantly takes his place, to be succeeded perhaps by a third. We are convinced that such a waste of health and life could not be endured, if the public were fully alive to the magnitude of the evil; for this reason we shall endeavour, in the following essay, to give a true picture of what may perhaps, without pedantry, be termed the pathology of industrial occupations and professions in this country. Foremost among those artisans who suffer from the inhalation of dust and other gritty particles given off in the pursuit of their employment are the grinders of Sheffield. Dr. J. C. Hall, in a series of papers published lately in the British Medical Journal,' draws a picture of the condition of these unfortunate men, which is indeed appalling, and without doubt gives them the bad pre-eminence of pursuing the most deadly trade in existence. Grinding is divided into dry, wet, and mixed; that is, the various articles of steel turned out of the cutlers' shops of Sheffield, are subjected to the stone entirely dry, revolving in water, or to processes involving both methods. Of the three, the former is by far the most deadly: forks, needles, brace-bits, &c., are ground entirely on the dry stone, and the amount of finely divided metal dust and silicious grit given out in the process may be imagined, when we state that a dozen of razors, weighing 2lb. 4ozs. as they come from the forge in the rough, lose in the process of shaping' on the dry stone, upwards of 5 ounces, and the stone itself, seven inches in diameter, would be reduced one inch. To receive the mixture of stone and steel dust thus rapidly given off, the position of the grinder is but too convenient; straddled across his horsing,' as the frame in which the grindstone revolves is called, with his knees bent in an acute angle, his body inclined forwards, and his head hanging over the work, his mouth is brought into fatal contact with the poisonous dust, and his eyes with the rush of the sparks. Fork-grinding is performed entirely on the dry stone, and consequently it is the most deadly occupation pursued in Sheffield. About 500 men and boys are at present devoting themselves to destruction during the period of early manhood, for the benefit of the users of steel forks. 'The silver fork school' imagines perhaps that these vile appliances have long been banished to the same limbo as snuffers, and will be surprised to learn that more steel forks than ever are thus fashioned in Sheffield, and the poor grinder, as he receives into his lungs the products of the fashioning in his own person, exemplifies the awful passage in the burialservice dust to dust'6 as the disease thus induced cuts him off at the average age of twenty-nine years! I shall be 'thirty-six years old next month,' remarked a grinder, pathetically, to Dr. Hall, and you know, measter, that's getting a very 'old man in our trade.' Another operation, almost as deadly as fork-grinding, is that of racing the stone.' These grindstones are but roughly reduced to the circular form by the quarrymen, and the grinder undertakes the business of reducing and removing all their asperities, which he does by revolving them against a piece of steel- a tremendous dust being given off in the process. In wet grinding, which is employed in the manufacture of saws, files, sickles, table-knives, and edge-tools, comparatively little dust is made, and in these employments the grinders enjoy comparatively longer life; their average age ranging from thirty-five to forty years. In addition to the destructive effects of these particles of metal and stone upon the delicate membrane of the lungs, the dry-grinder is subjected to serious injury of the eyes from the red-hot particles of steel thrown off in the shape of sparks. The more careful of the workmen protect themselves from the danger, however, by wearing large spectacles of ordinary window glass. These spectacles, when they have been in use a little time, give practical evidence of their utility, for on examining them they are found to be speckled all over with the particles of steel, which, when red-hot, become embedded in the glass. In the rough nomenclature of the trade, the disease which thus early destroys the fashioner of forks and needles is termed the grinder's rot. The lung, when examined after death, looks as though it had been dipped in ink, and the texture, instead of exhibiting the usual spongy character of that organ when in health, cuts like a piece of india-rubber! The colour and the solidification of the dry-grinder's lung is owing to the chronic inflammation to which it has been subjected by the presence from an early age of irritating particles of steel and stone within its finest air passages. But why dry grind at all, the reader will involuntarily exclaim, if the wages of the occupation are death? The grinder replies, that there are certain operations which |