The problem of the wage workers' health is made more complex on account of economic factors. The " human scrap heap of industry " is not an imagined thing, but represents a very real and constant loss of industrial efficiency and waste of health and life that ought to be prevented.

Among the more important economic factors which affect the health of the wage working population may be mentioned the following :

1. The occupational hazards of disease.

2. Irregularity of employment.

3. Unhealthful conditions of living.

4. The employment of women in industry under modern conditions of work, particularly of married women.

5. The economic disadvantage at which a large proportion of wage workers and their families are placed as the result of low wages and insufficient annual income.

Occupational DISEASE HAZARDS.

There is no longer any doubt that modern industry is responsible for a considerable proportion of workingman's physical ills. How far other conditions, such as character of diet and home and community environment, are predisposing or aggravating factors in "' occupational " diseases is impossible of exact determination. There are, however, certain specific substances and conditions in places of employment and certain conditions of employment which undoubtedly have harmful effects upon the health of many workers. These facts are becoming widely recognized in the enactment of legislation intended to decrease these health hazards.

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A large number of diseases have been traced more or less directly to the occupation. The tendency, however, in recent years has been to define these diseases as "industrial" rather than as "occupational." For, as defined in a memorial to the President of the United States by a committee of experts in 1910, industrial diseases are the " morbid results of occupational activity traceable to specific causes and labor conditions, and followed by more or less extended incapacity for work." It is not practicable to give here a list of the industrial diseases or to enumerate the harmful substances or conditions which cause them; but the following brief outline of a classification according to special causes suggests some idea of their extent and prevalence:

A. Workers in harmful substances : Metals, dusts, gases, vapors, and fumes.

B. Workers under harmful conditions: Heat, moisture, cold, confined air (all bad ventilation), overcrowding, compressed air, excessive light, strains of muscles, nerves, or special senses, and the like.

Harmful substances : Metals, dusts, gases, vapors, and fumes. — The character and to some degree the extent of the disease hazard caused by poisons, gases, fumes, dusts, etc., in certain occupations have been shown in several important investigations made in recent years by the Federal and State Governments and in recent contributions to the literature on occupational diseases and hazards. Phosphorus, lead, mercury, and arsenic poisonings are but familiar examples; there are so many diseases that have been found to result from poisons which affect workers in scores of occupations that " there is scarcely any one line of modem manufacture which is free from the dangers of industrial poisoning."? These conditions are now" so generally accepted as serious occupational hazards that it is not necessary to do more than refer to them here.

Handful conditions in places of employment. — In spite of the movement for better conditions in factories, stores, and mills it appears from recent reports that a very large proportion of the industrial establishments in this country are not free from unhygienic conditions. The report of the New York Factory Investigating Commission of its extensive examination of establishments in the State of New York pointed out that while in many of the establishments the conditions were found to be excellent and the managements exercised a proper care over the health of their employees, " unfortunately such model establishments and such enlightened employers are in the minority," and " investigations in a great number of factories throughout, the State have revealed much that is deplorable."The sanitary survey of the State of Louisiana, so far as its results have been published, indicated that over 50 per cent of all of the establishments in

" Unfortunately, such model establishments and such enlightened employers are in the minority, as by far the greater number of employers have not yet awakened to the importance of improving conditions of labor. Investigations in a great number of factories throughout the State have revealed much that is deplorable. In the production of commodities, great economy must needs be practiced as a matter of course. But there is a tendency on the part of many employers to economize not only In matters of legitimate expense, but also in space, light, air, and certain other safeguards to the health and lives of the workers. Such false economy Inevitably Injures the employer and imperils the health and lives of his employees."