London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Battersea 1895

Report upon the public health and sanitary condition of the Parish of St. Mary, Battersea during the year1895

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76
than twelve hours continuously. The requirement, in the Act
of 1878, of ventilation by fans in any factory where the inhalation
of dust may injure the workpeople is extended to any
factory or workshop "where any process is carried on by which
any gas, vapour, or other impurity is generated and inhaled by
the workers to an injurious extent." Again, the Secretary of
State may prohibit, modify, or limit the employment of all or
any classes of persons in any process or particular description
of manual labour which is certified by the Secretary of State to
be injurious to health, or life, or limb. Any prohibitive or restrictive
rules made in virtue of this provision are, however, to
be laid for forty days, before coming into operation, before both
Houses of Parliament. Every medical practitioner attending a
patient whom he believes to be suffering from lead, phosphorus,
or arsenical poisoning, or anthrax, contracted in any factory or
workshop, is to notify his opinion both to the Chief Inspector
of Factories and to the certifying surgeon for the district, and
the Secretary of State may extend this provision to any other
disease occurring in a factory or workshop. A medical practitioner
is to be paid for any such notification by the Treasury.
Every certifying surgeon is now authorised, if so directed by the
Secretary of State, to make any special enquiry and re-examine
any young person or child at the expense of the Treasury. It may
be convenient to include at this point the provision that any
accident causing loss of life, or preventing the person injured
from working five hours on any one of the three working days
after its occurrence, is to be reported forthwith to the Inspector
for the district. To the category which we are considering also
belong the following provisions. The arbitrators in any arbitration
as to dangerous or unhealthy employments, under the
Factory and Workshops Act, 1891, may, if the workmen request
it, appoint some person to represent them, and take such part
as may be directed in the proceedings. The right of representation
thus conceded to the workmen is one of the most important
reforms effected by the new Act. Again, "the penal compensation
"already provided in the case of persons injured by neglect