THE ROLL CALL
The Roll Call ON MEN AND MEASURES Thou Shalt Not Kill MR. H. (says Bulletin No. 86, just published by the Bureau of Labor of the United States government) was empl®yed in a match factory in...
...This substitute discovered by the chemists of the French government is known as sesquisulphide...
...He had most of his teeth removed...
...It is no consideration which should stand in the way of the demand for humane legislation upon this subject...
...It is further reported that "while on the operating table the patient swallowed his tongue and in order to relieve him from imminent suffocation the surgeon cut an opening through the throat...
...He began to have trouble with his teeth...
...She went to a dentist, who extracted the tooth and found its roots so honeycombed that he could insert a common sewing needle into the affected parts...
...She has a boy six years old, a little girl of four, and a baby but two years old...
...What Other Countries Have Done BY LATEST government reports, there are about 3,500 persons employed in match factories in the United States...
...No less than twenty-five were serious cases of phosphorous necrosis, and of this number several died...
...This patent the trust has valued at $100-000, and has agreed that if the government shall prohibit the use of white phosphorous in the manufacture of matches in this country, the trust will allow all manufacturers of matches upon paying in proportion to its output towards this price of the sesquisulphide patent, to use the sesquisulphide formula on equal terms with itself...
...Of these, about 1,500 are women and children...
...With the partial exception of two factories, the entire industry consists of the manufacture of matches with the use of poisonous phosphorous...
...Which suggests something of the condition of a man with both his jaws removed...
...In accordance with the President's recommendation, a bill was prepared by the American Association for Labor Legislation and has been introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman Esch, of Wisconsin...
...A. first treated her, beginning with the first operation November 15, 1901...
...The price thus placed by the trust on the sesquisulphide patent is less than two per cent of the value of the annual product of the match factories of this country...
...Whether this increase in cost is as great as the expense of some of the elaborate efforts now being made by manufacturers to protect the health of employees while using the poisonous phosphorous and which would be unnecessary if sesquisulphide were substituted, we doubt...
...Many of the other victims, including at least fifteen who lost jaws by operations, have existed for years with terrible deformities, and one woman, after eight years of medical treatment and regular visits of the company's dental expert, still lives under conditions that to most people would make the grave appear a most fortunate refuge...
...The poison first manifested itself eight years ago, shortly after her marriage...
...The Ravages of Necrosis THE investigation of the industrial disease of phosphorous poisoning was made for the United States Bureau of Labor by John B. Andrews, Ph...
...There have been hearings on the bill before the Committee on Ways and Means, although, at last accounts, the bill had not been reported to the House by the committee...
...All of the arguments and excuses of the manufacturers sound childish or worse, when confronted with the story of Mr...
...But two months later she commenced to have trouble with her teeth...
...As the pus flows from the dead and decaying bone it naturally mixes with the saliva and with food thus poisoning the entire system...
...It is in the air they breathe...
...Records of more than one hundred cases of the disease were discovered in a very short time...
...H., or the story of Anna M., or of any one of the scores of authenticated cases of death and disease worse than death, which is the record down to date of the manufacture of matches with poisonous phosphorous in this country...
...They say that it will cost mere to make matches using non-poisonous substitute for the deadly white phosphorous...
...All of her lower teeth except the middle six have come out and several inches of the jawbone is bare, with pus oozing from the sockets...
...In this case the dead bone does not form a sequestrum or separated portion which might easily be removed from the living bone beneath...
...Efforts at regulation to mitigate the evi have failed abroad...
...Three years ago an ab-cess opened through her right jaw, and one year ago another opened on the left...
...And the occasion of this article is that there is legislation pending in congress to that end...
...currettage and drainage...
...An intensive investigation by Dr...
...Pus ran from the socket," says the government bulletin...
...He returned to the hospital and had his entire lower jaw removed...
...the employee, ceases soon to be an employee of the match factory and becomes merely an addition to the wreckage of industry,a victim of phosphorous necrosis...
...Somehow, sometime, it finds its way to the month, the teeth, the jaws...
...Finally, as the trouble continued, she went to Drs...
...Andrew's investigation and the report of the government Labor Bureau that in his message to Congress, he said: "I invite attention to the very serious injury caused to all those who are engaged in the manufacture of phosphorous matches...
...C. and D. for further medical aid, and is receiving medical treatment from them at the present time...
...He had trouble with his teeth, had some extracted, was finally examined by a doctor and told that his jaw was like "honeycomb...
...Whereupon the government set about to find and did find a non-poisonous substitute for this ingredient to be used in match making...
...It is true that the match trust owns the American patent on sesquisulphide...
...In the ease of phosphorous poisoning, the prevention consists in stopping THE USB OF poisonous phosphorous in the making op matches in this country, as it has been stopped in Germany, France, Luxemburg, Italy, Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden and Great Britain...
...Nevertheless, all of this death and misery, caused by phosphorous poisoning, like that caused by most of our occupational diseases, is easily preventable...
...Anna B." says the report, "had phosphorous necrosis which caused the loss of an eye as well as her upper jaw, and finally after terrible suffering resulted in her death...
...At the thirty-seventh National Conference of Charities and Correction last May, Dr...
...He went to a doctor, and then to a hospital...
...It is said that the cost of match manufacture with this substitute is slightly increased over the cost with poisonous phosphorous...
...Of course, the bill is being opposed by a few dollar-greedy manufacturers...
...The French government found its revenue expectations from its match monopoly defeated because of the expense incident to the care and compensation of employees in the government factories who fell victims to the poison of white phosphorous...
...The hospital record states as follows: "Phosphorous necrosis...
...Efforts of the manufacturers in this country, and particularly the Diamond Match Company, which controls most of the larger American factories and has done seemingly everything within its power to pre-event and lessen the ravages of phosphorous poisoning, except to abolish the poison, have apparently been in vain...
...When I saw her in December, 1909, she was scarcely able to open her lips enough to speak and could not separate her upper from her six remaining lower teeth...
...They say they have built up a valuable trade in certain brands of phosphorous matches...
...The doctors say perhaps they could cure me by cutting out my jaw, but I am young yet, and how would it look...
...If the Esch bill should require amendment to perfect it in some details, it should be so amended...
...One who has experienced the nauseating stench can readily understand why dentists and physicians alike shun patients who are afflicted with 'phossy jaw.' And one wonders how citizens otherwise humane can permit their work people to run the risk of this peril by unnecessarily continuing the use of poisonous phosphorous...
...He was a married man about 46 years of age...
...The physicians in an effort to preserve the contour of her face and to avoid leaving an unsightly scar, attempted to operate on the inside...
...They say that one company has a monopoly of the right to use the formula for the manufacture in this country of the non-poisonous match...
...The enforcement of regulations, the expense of special construction of factories in an effort to prevent the disease, the maintenance of company dentists and company physicians at company expense, provisions made at great expense for sanitary protecticr, special lavatories, sanitary lunch and dining rooms for employees provided by the company;all these seem to be useless in combating the dread effects of the poison among employees...
...We doubt there is even the argument, if it is an argument, of a few cents more or less saved on matches...
...Says the Labor Bureau Bulletin, "With both upper and lower jaws entirely removed and with the poison still continuing its deadly work, this man lived month after month, suffering untold agonies and taking only occasional nourishment through a tube...
...Andrews read a paper on "Industrial Diseases and Occupational Standards," in which he gave the following brief history of one of the cases, scores of which he discovered, authenticated and reported in the course of a brief investigation of the match factories of this country: "Eight years ago, at twenty-one years of age, Mary Wilson, tall, strong and full of the joy of life, married Henry Welsh...
...He performed a second operation August 11, 1903, removing several large splinters of bone from her jaw...
...write your senators and congressman in washington to see to it that this legislation is passed as a matter op public duty, in the name of humanity, or better still, send them a petition to that effect signed by yourself and your neighbors...
...She told me that the two older children were well and strong, but that 'the baby seems to have trouble in its blood.' "'The odor is awful, but I can't help it,' she mumbled...
...B. of Chicago removed both upper and lower maxillae...
...George R. worked at dipping matches in a match factory in Maine...
...This factory, at which Mr...
...Years ago the government of France conceived the idea for revenue purposes of making a government monopoly of the manufacture of matches...
...And they say a number of other trivial and immaterial things, none of which is entitled to serious consideration in the face of the facts as shown by the government report...
...She was a healthy girl and had unusually good teeth...
...I would rather be dead, I think...
...H. died about a year after this operation...
...Andrews in the homes of the work people of three factories yielded a total of eighty-two cases of phosphorous poisoning...
...The odor from the suppurating bone is more awful than anything that can be imagined...
...D., Secretary of the American Association for Labor Legislation...
...I recommend the adoption of this method of stamping out a very serious abuse...
...But a bill of this character should be passed by the present congress, and with the least possible delay...
...She grew no better and through dentist B. she secured daily treatments at her home...
...It is on their hands and their clothing...
...The important thing is that it should be stopped...
...The case grew worse...
...Bone involved...
...In two factories at least, eight perfectly authenticated serious cases are known to have occurred during the year immediately preceding the investigation, and references were found to others just as recent...
...H. worked and Anna M. worked and were poisoned is one of sixteen factories of the same kind in the United States...
...The government report states, "Several physicians, including the leading surgeons of were called in consultation and treated her, but she suffered terrible agony...
...The record of one operation, dated April 17, 1908, in the record book of Dr...
...Summarizing the investigation at this factory the report says, "In a few days spent m during December, 1909, the records of forty cases of phosphorous poisoning were secured...
...N. is as follows: "Abcess of left lower jaw, extending down side of neck...
...86, just published by the Bureau of Labor of the United States government) was empl®yed in a match factory in Wisconsin...
...He didn't know the occupation was dangerous" says the government report...
...There are sixteen factories in the United States...
...At that time all known processes of the manufacture of friction matches involved the use of poisonous phosphorous...
...She had worked for several years as a "packer" in the match factory, and continued to work there after marriage...
...Both require constant bandaging...
...Stop the Use of Deadly Phosphorous THERE is no reason, absolutely none, why the people of the United States should continue the use of matches made with poisonous phosphorus after it has been prohibited by law in most, if not all, countries of advanced civilization...
...After she worked in the factory awhile one of her molars began to be sensitive to cold and heat and to give her pain...
...Anna M. was taken to the hospital to have the bone scraped...
...The diseases incident to this are frightful, and as matches can be made from other materials entirely innocuous, I believve that the injurious manufacture could be diiscouraged, and ought to be discouraged, by the impositon of a heavy federal tax...
...The disease seems to be equally prevalent where expensive and laborious efforts at sanitation and prevention are employed, and where management and employees both operate in ignorance of or indifference to the disease...
...It simply continues to die and to dispose of itself in the most nauseating and dangerous manner...
...She could not eat, and slowly starved to death as a result of the poison...
...So strongly was President Taft impressed by Dr...
...From that time until his death in December, 1901, (twenty-two years) he had no solid food...
...The Case of Anna M. LITTLE ANNA M. went to work packing matches in a factory at fourteen years of age...
Vol. 3 • January 1911 • No. 3
