MASONS' PHTHISIS.

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grinding occupying only a certain portion of a man's time, the grinders' asthma was not of sufficient importance in the amount of its effects to attract attention. In the instance of this occupation, however, as well as in that of most others that are specially characterised by a much shortened life, the fatality must be referred in part to the reckless intemperance of the artisans themselves. The habits and moral condition of these grinders, on the testimony of all the medical writers, are fearfully sensual and depraved: drunkenness and low debauchery filling up the greater part of their unemployed time; and Dr. Holland says-and it is to be feared that the observation might be extended to other trades and occupations-"the more desperate the branch, the more ignorant, reckless, and dissipated are the workmen." In other occupations, the effect of inhaling various fine and irritating powders into the lungs, may not be so rapid in their effects; but they are believed to be fearfully powerful in shortening the life, and determining to pulmonary disease. "I have reason

to believe," writes Dr. Alison, "that there is hardly an instance of a mason, regularly employed in hewing stones in Edinburgh, living free from phthisical symptoms to the age of fifty." The earliness at which pulmonary symptoms are liable to occur, or, perhaps, the degree of the liability to such disease, among those who work at the different branches of the mason's art, varies very much; being dependent upon the degree of exposure to the dust from the stone. Marble-polishers, and those who saw stone,

and those who finish or work it for the finer purposes of building, and those who quarry it, although liable to suffer respectively in different degrees, are commonly more subject to disease of the lungs, than those who work with unwrought or unfinished stone, or than those who are chiefly or exclusively engaged in building up stone which has been wrought by others.

Exposure to the influence of damp or wet, affects, in an important degree, the healthiness or otherwise of any occupation. Colliers, and miners generally, often suffer much from this cause, when due care is not taken to drain the mines efficiently. I have often met with cases in which these men have had to work in a bent and recumbent position, with part of the body constantly immersed in water, during successive months. The usual consequence has been a severe rheumatic condition, sometimes leading to disease of the heart, or of the great vessels. Exposure to a damp air, which is at the same time heated, as in many of the processes of manufacture, is even more immediately and necessarily prejudicial to the health; debilitating the system, increasing its susceptibility to atmospherical influences, giving rise to dyspepsia, and often leading to pulmonary disease.

Exposure to the weather is less prejudicial to the health, than when the effects of a wet air are connected with confinement, and the imperfect ventilation of a mine or a building. Yet, coachmen, carters, boatmen, &c., suffer as to their chances of health, and probabilities of life, from the constant exposure to the air, in all weathers and seasons.

EFFECT OF NIGHT-WORK,

ETC.

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It is certain, that many of the diseases from which these classes of the people suffer, are referable, however, to the intemperance of their habits, rather than to any other circumstance; and the much greater healthiness of agricultural labourers, who may be little less exposed to the weather, but who are necessarily and notoriously so much more temperate, may be admitted in proof of this. If exposure to the night air, and loss of sleep during the night-time, is the condition of the life, in addition to much exposure to weather, the evil effect on the health is found to be largely increased. The average illnesses and mortality of watchmen, night-porters, persons employed on the lines of railway, nurses of the sick, &c., afford full evidence of this; and the shortened lives of surgeons, whose practice is in the outlying rural districts, or otherwise involves a large amount of professional occupation in the night-time, supply the strongest testimony of the same kind. All who are called upon by the necessities of their vocation, to infringe any of the great organic laws, should be so much the more careful to fulfil all and every other condition of health and longevity; and the classes referred to, whose occupations necessitate exposure to atmospherical vicissitudes and influences in an extraordinary degree, and especially if the effect of night-work be added thereto, should be by so much more temperate, and lead in every way more careful lives.

The lives of seamen are much affected by the great exposure to weather, their occupation requires ;

to which must be added, the effect of the nightwatches to which they are alternately exposed. At the same time, the causes of injury to the health among seamen, are so many, and so important, that undue weight may be readily assigned to any of them. The frequent and rapid changes of climate to which so many of them are exposed; the deficient ventilation that probably prevails in nearly all ships, and which prevails to so great an extent in the larger number of vessels; the habits of intemperance which are still prevalent among so many sailors; the dietaries of many ships, which, if not deficient in the quantity of food, are often of a very unsatisfactory quality, and often consist, during many successive weeks, of salted meat and biscuit,-which are not seldom, it is to be feared, in a very bad condition, from having been kept too long, or kept in a damp place,-and which, however good in quality, require to be mixed with fresh, and less azotised, and more aqueous food, for the maintenance and security of health; such are some of the many causes, which aid in deteriorating the healthiness of the lives of seamen; and, when the importance of such causes, severally and collectively, is considered, the wonder is that the lives of seafaring men should be even so far healthy as they are. The marine atmosphere, the freedom of the air far out at sea from any possible terrestrial emanations, -the comparative freedom of the mind from cares or anxieties, unless during rough weather, or in certain more intricate and difficult passages of the wide waters, the steady and disciplined occupation,

EFFECT OF LEAD, ETC.

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and the commonly sufficient, and only occasionally severe, muscular exertion-may, however, collectively considered, serve to account for the degree of healthiness enjoyed by mariners, notwithstanding the commonly deficient ventilation of the between decks, notwithstanding the great and sudden changes of temperature to which they are exposed, in passing from the berth to the deck, or to the rigging, notwithstanding frequent changes of climate, &c., &c.

The different occupations in which men are exposed to the effect of mineral or other agencies of deleterious or poisonous character, remain to be noticed. Of these agents, lead and mercury are the most important. The painter, plumber, &c., suffer from the effects of lead. The earlier risk incurred from exposure to the effect of lead, is torpidity of bowels, debility of the muscular system generally, and eventual colic, with abdominal inaction; the less early risk is the increase of the muscular debility, or rather of the imperfect command over the muscles of organic life, and, finally, of the command over those of voluntary movement, that is exercised by the nervous system,—and partial paralysis, great vital depression, and much functional derangement. These symptoms sometimes arise, and may prove to be difficult of explanation, or remain unaccounted for, when the water made use of in the dietary contains lead in solution.

In the instances of those who have to make use of the salts or oxydes of lead, or to inhale the fumes of lead, in the course of their employment, the