ALCOHOL AS A FACTOR IN INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENTS

The British Association for the Advancement of Science has recently made an exceedingly important and lengthy study of "The Question of Fatigue from an Economic Standpoint." It includes a personal investigation in the United States by Mr. P. Sargent Florence, of Cambridge University, England. In the effort to determine the causal relations in accidents, the time element was given special attention.

By finding out at what period of the working spells accidents occur with greatest frequency and comparing them with output during the same period, it is possible to learn not only what part bodily fatigue plays in accidents but also the importance of other supposable causes, such as the abuse of liquor.

After a thorough discussion of the reliability of the figures indicating the time distribution of accidents and the proportionate distribution of output, the report has the following to say on the subject of drink as a cause of industrial accidents, which is a complete refutation of accepted opinions on the subject or of opinions that are industriously circulated for a special purpose:

"In fact our figures agree with one another to such an extent, particularly those of accidents, that we are justified in speaking of a 'normal' time-distribution of output and of accidents, or considered inversely, accident-immunity. The shape of the output and accident-immunity curves for a five-hour spell may for purposes of illustration be summarized as follows:

*Where there are only four hours in the spell, strike out the last output, but the fourth accident, hour.

"In seeking an explanation of this 'normal' time-distribution of the accident rate and the output in a spell of manufacturing work, let us concentrate on the illustrative table. Here we find four similar degrees: very great, great, fair and small, succeeding one another in both the output and the accident-immunity column, though earlier in the spell with accidents than with output. Now both output and accident immunity vary inversely to fatigue; these four decreasing degrees, therefore, may well be measuring an increase in fatigue.

"The only other possible cause that could by itself explain the rise in the accidents, at any rate, during the morning and afternoon, is the drinking of alcohol before starting the spell. This explanation has been advanced by the Temperance Scientific Federation of Boston, and taken up by certain employers. To prove this contention, however, it would have to be shown firstly that the most debilitating effect of alcohol on control occurs just about four hours after its drinking, and not earlier or later, and secondly that such alcohol drinking is a regular habit among the workers.

"The first point is far from established either scientifically or from everyday—but not necessarily personal-experience. All that we can say for certain is that if alcohol is taken at all in large quantities, the attention and muscular control that avoids accidents is lost immediately, and in the first hour.

"The second point can certainly not be established at all in some of our records. The women cotton-spinners, the picked men workers at Hans Renolds', at the Cadillac Company, at the National Cash Register Company, and the girls at Jacob's and Cadbury's and the Denison Manufacturing Company are all certainly not drinkers, yet all of them show the same accident 'curve' as other and possibly hard-drinking employes.

"If it be only fatigue, then, that can explain the middle hours, what of the first hour of output and the fifth hour of accident immunity that are left over? Here the explanation must be different in each case, and such a difference may well be, since variations in accidents and output are not always measuring the same psychophysical activities. It is now contended that the small output in the first hour is due to 'practice' and that the fair accident immunity in the fifth or last hour is due to anticipatory 'excitement,'

both pulling in an opposite direction to fatigue, and here more than overcoming the fatigue effects; that this excitement does not affect the output at the end of the spell, and that, contrary to all expectation, this practice does not affect the accidents at the beginning of the spell. This contention, founded on the facts in the tables below, is backed by the somewhat theoretical suggestions of Section III. There it was advanced that the main psycho-physical activity directly measured by output-rate variations was the changing of speed, and, by Weber's very definition, practice is a removal of pressure from the central nervous organ manifested in an increase of facility, rapidity, certainty, and regularity. On the other hand, that the main psycho-physical activities specially measured by accident-rate variations were attention and muscular control, and on these activities of the central nervous system a 'psychomotor state' of excitement would presumably be far more potent than one like practice, that is removing pressure from the nervous

centres.

"Now, if this explanation of the agreements and disagreements. in the ascertained time-distribution of accidents and output respectively be correct, the following would be the psycho-physical diagnosis of a spell of factory work considered chronologically.

"First hour: Fingers, arms, body and mind after their rest are working slow, but sure. To increase the pace and even perhaps to concentrate attention is uphill work and a fight against subjective feelings of sloth. In an emergency, however, muscles could be perfectly controlled.

"Second hour: Body and mind getting into their stride again, are working very fast, but not perhaps so exactly. Feelings of sloth are conquered, but there is a terrible long prospect of work ahead. However, as work is running easily, the mind may think of pleasanter things: attention scatters.

"Third or third and fourth hour: Body and mind running on, but attention lost. If any sudden danger threatens or emergency arises, it may not be quick enough perceived, and when perceived, muscles may not be quick enough to prevent an accident; they can continue rhythmically and automatically at the same work, but for any change of movements that may be suddenly called, there is insufficient control.

"Last hour (fourth or fifth): Body no longer running automatically with the same ease, an effort of the will required (a spurt) to keep speed up; but the end is ahead, with food and rest; the attention awakes and control over the muscles is braced updanger is better perceived and more quickly avoided. At the very end, however, even this new attention and control may tire, as indeed the whole body is tired, and only a rest can bring recovery."

NEW ZEALAND'S PLAN

(From Report of the New Zealand Moderate League on Licensing, 1915.)

"A large deputation of delegates of the Moderate League from various parts of the Dominion interviewed the Prime Minister on Saturday, 7th August, 1915. The deputation was briefly introduced by the Hon. A. L. Herdman (Attorney-General), who expressed his pleasure at introducing the gentlemen forming the deputation who had come from all parts of New Zealand to submit to Government the views of the Moderate League on licensing matters.

PROPER CONTROL WANTED

"Mr. Alexander Boyle (president of the Canterbury branch) explained that the deputation represented the Moderate League established throughout New Zealand last year. A conference was held in Wellington on November 27th last, when a number of resolutions bearing on the Licensing Law and the Liquor question generally were adopted, and the object of the deputation was to place. those resolutions before Government and to ask that they be given the earliest and most earnest attention possible, consistent with the larger demands that the affairs of Empire were making.

"At the outset we wish to express our gratification that we can approach you on the subject of liquor legislation and regulation at a time when the interest of the whole world has been attracted to this matter to a degree hitherto unparalleled. There is evidence on every hand that the study of the liquor question is to be from now on pursued in a rational and thorough manner, and not left to the bickerings of extremists on either side. The reported evils arising from the excessive indulgence in alcohol of a small percentage of war-munition workers and shipyard employes, while now proved to be greatly exaggerated and exploited by the prohibitionists of England, has served to awaken the British public to a sense of their responsibility in the liquor question never before