OF THE

Department of Health of the City of New York

All communications relating to the publications of the Department of Health should be addressed to the Commissioner of Health, 149 Centre St., N. Y.

Entered as second class matter May 7, 1913, at the post office at New York, N. Y.... under the Act of August 24, 1912.

By LOUIS I. HARRIS, M.D., Chief, Division of Industrial Hygiene.

To the medical student undergoing the transition from that darkness which is assumed to surround the layman's conception of medicine, toward that fulness and richness of medical wisdom which his diploma proclaims him to possess, it must often seem a source of wonder that the writers of medical text books in general should know so definitely in their discussions on etiology precisely how often certain occupations produce particular pathological conditions. Only later when, as practitioner, he is emboldened by personal experience, does he perhaps question the validity of these book statements that are written with a sort of pontifical authority. But if any writer is to be limited only to statements that he may make from personal knowledge and experience, it is apparent that it would often be impossible for him to write at all.

The superannuated statistical compilations, built from a study of manufacturing communities, living in an era of detached family houses, whose methods and environment have been radically changed with each decade, should be thrown into the discard to make way for newly-collected statistical data which shall more appropriately portray conditions where factory lofts, sub-basements, and tenement houses have displaced the old structures. Primitive statistics, almost old enough to be called prehistoric, are too often kept in service even though originally they were imported misfits.

Especially because conditions in factory construction and the housing of working people are constantly undergoing marked changes, a complete revision of conclusions that have been based on studies of previous conditions in these particulars is necessary.

The facts here reported are presented as a portrayal of conditions in a small but important industrial field in the City of New York, which may perhaps suggest certain etiological relations which would be of service to the general practitioner and point out to the sanitarian lines for further study.

This report embodies a study of one hundred and thirteen shops and factories in which fur garments, caps, gloves and felt hats are manufactured, or prepared for manufacture. It also includes the findings of the physical examination of eight hundred and eighty-nine persons employed at these various places. Those who were the subjects of physical examination were taken from among

a total of nearly forty-one hundred employes in the factories investigated, and represents the types engaged in each process in the manufacture of fur and hatters' fur. The total of those engaged in the fur and allied trades in this city is about 16,000.

Description of Processes.

The distinction between the work of those employed in the manufacture of fur garments, gloves and caps, and of those who prepare hatters' fur, is a most important one. In the former, the raw fur is first shaved so as to remove the dried and hardened fat and connective tissue that adhere to it; this is known as "fleshing fur." The skin is then treated with sawdust, salt, sand, and water, to make it soft and pliable and to remove the natural grease; this process is spoken of as "dressing fur." The fur is subsequently dyed with various vegetable and chemical dyes, principal among which are ursol colors (aniline products), logwood, turmeric, pyrolignate of iron, Sicilian shumac, nut-gall, chlorate of potash, verdigris, chrome salts and peroxide of hydrogen. The dyed fur is now ready to be made up into garments. It is wet, cut, stretched and nailed to conform to various designs sketched on tables, and allowed to remain so for a number of hours, the various pieces being then sewed together by machine and finished by hand as in the case of cloth garments. To remove dust and loose hairs the fur is frequently beaten by hand in the workrooms, or, less often, in a closed compartment. Where the beating is done by hand, two long bamboo sticks are employed, with which the employe keeps up a constant tatoo on the fur garments.

In the preparation of hatters' fur, preliminary to the making of felt hats, rabbit, coney, nutria, muskrat and hare skins are employed. The skins, which have been stripped from the animals by the trappers, very much as a glove is removed from the hand, are cut open by minors or by unskilled adult laborers. The fur is combed and brushed by hand with stiff brushes to remove accumulated dirt. Some of the skins are brushed by machines furnished with suction devices. They are dampened and the long hairs are clipped or plucked, by hand, if coney skins, or by machinery, if hare skins. The plucking machines have suction devices, but when plucking is done by hand, the workers stand in a mass of hair that sometimes forms a carpet many inches deep. The hand pluckers place the skin upon which they work on an inclined leg stump, firmly fastened to the floor. A loop of clothesline is thrown over the skin; the lower end of this loop, reaching to within an inch of the floor, serves as a stirrup for the left foot of the worker who, by exerting traction on the loop, holds the skin firmly against the stump, assisting in this with pressure of his left hand. This posture allows the toes of the left foot, which is in the stirrup, barely to touch the floor, and causes the worker to lean forward and press his abdomen against the upper pole of the stump, the better to maintain his balance. In one shop over fifty men were so employed for a fifty-eight hour period weekly. Despite this posture, scoliosis, flat-foot or other orthopedic deformity, and abdominal myositis, or other pathological sequelae, were not observed. (It may be stated, however, that these workers are a nomad tribe, entering and leaving their employment in a steady stream, thus often escaping the consequences of their particular kind of work.) The plucker wears a thick piece of rubber hose stuck on the thumb of his right hand so that the rabbit hair will not slip from under the knife which he grasps within the remaining fingers. The plucking process is dwelt on at length because it creates an atmosphere that is, perhaps, the most unhygienic and haz

ardous in a trade altogether so offensive that some others, usually so regarded, are aristocratic occupations in comparison.

The fur which remains on the pelt after the long hair has been clipped or plucked is placed on a table and scrubbed with nitrate of mercury solution, which causes the laminae of each of the fur fibres to flare out very much like barbed wire, and increases the curling tendency of the fur. In this way the fibres are prepared to become snarled, and tangled and to form felt. This application of mercury is known as "carroting." The carroted fur is placed on trays in ovens or in drying rooms, and when the mercurial solution has been volatilized, is cut by machinery which shaves the hair from the pelt and deposits it as a small mass on a metal plate, from which, girls sitting near the machines, sort out long hairs and clumps of fur of inferior quality. The pelt, or true skin, is used to make glue. The din and clatter of the cutting machines is so loud that only a strong-lunged individual can make himself heard by one standing close to him. The masses of picked fur are put up into five-pound packages, and sold to the hatter to be made into felt hats.

All small pieces and tags of fur are put through a sorting machine, which separates the fur tags from the dirt, the latter leaving the machines as continuous and very thick pads, which are collected into bins. The long hairs are used for pillows, etc.

If the beating of finished fur garments in general workrooms, as already described, has impressed the observer as being a harmful process-which indeed it is, it appears a pleasant and almost sanitary occupation in comparison with the processes in almost every department of the hatters' fur trade. The hazards in this trade in the order of importance are, notably, mercury poisoning, dust, and (in the drying rooms only) excessive heat.

The Making of a Felt Hat.

Generally, raw fur fibres and carroted fibres are mixed in the proportion of one to two; the raw fur is of fine quality and forms the surface of the felt hat, imparting to the body of the hat a softer feel and appearance. The fur is cleansed repeatedly, and picked and teased apart by machinery which is provided with a blowing contrivance, so that fur of varying quality is dropped by gravity into distinct piles, pieces of pelt, loose hair, and dirt being separated at the same time. By a pneumatic arrangement, just enough fur fibres are assembled around a perforated copper cone to form one hat. A wet cloth is then wrapped about the cone, and the two immersed in hot water for a minute. A man known as a hardener removes imperfections, fills in gaps with fur fibres, places the cone-shaped fur in a woolen cloth, and hardens the mass. Next the hat is sized, i.e., gradually shrunk from a 30- or 35-inch cone by sprinkling it with hot water. The hat is repeatedly folded in a burlap cloth and rolled, but not creased, until the fur has formed a cone-shaped body of firm and close texturethe hat being immersed in very hot water to assist in the process. Projecting hairs are then shaved off with a razor-like knife. The hat is again sized to shrink the pores laid open by shaving. To quote an authority: "Sizing and second sizing are very hot tasks, and the workman protects the palms of his hands with shields of leather or wood." The body of the hat is then stiffened with shellac, and subsequently treated with live steam to liquify and distribute the latter.

The next process is the shaping of the hat, to accomplish which it is dipped into boiling water and placed over a block which gives it its shape. It is then

dyed with logwood and madder or with aniline dyes, a mordant of bichromate of potash and tartar being used. In the finishing process the hat is softened with steam, pulled over a block and given the precise shape desired, dried and pounced (rubbed with fine sandpaper), and singed to remove the hairs and long nap. Curling consists in cutting and fashioning the brim according to mode with the aid of steam. The binding and sewing on of bands are then done by girls. Soft hats are made in practically the same way.

This description of the complicated processes in the preparation of fur and its subsequent use by hatters does not pretend to treat fully of each step. It will, however, serve to set forth the various conditions whose existence constitute a hazard to those engaged in the work. From the time fur has been treated with mercury (carroted), until the felt hat has been given its final shape, the menace of mercurialism is constantly present. "Hatters' shakes" is no mere theory, or a name surviving from the past, but a condition which disables many in the felt hat industry to-day. A prominent manufacturer, at the time when the physical examination of his men was first undertaken, declared "that no search was required to discover that hazards existed in his trade, and that every manufacturer knew precisely in which departments of his factory they were to be found. Mercury causes very frequent disability, but no one has yet found a cheaper way of felting than with mercury solution, and until a way is found, we have to continue under existing conditions."

Whether this state of affairs should be tolerated, will best appear from the clinical results which will be subsequently detailed. There are many trades in which the paramount hygienic problems are those of lighting, ventilation, and the avoidance of fatigue and strain. In hatters' fur and hat-making, however, these questions pale into insignificance beside the more fundamental ones of clearing a dust-saturated atmosphere and eliminating the exposure of working people to mercury, excessive heat and excessive moisture. In the City of New York the total of those concerned in this industry numbers (at the height of the busy season) probably some four thousand or more, but the dangerous character of their work makes their welfare, despite their comparatively small numbers, a question of special public health concern. Also the wide application of those sanitary measures, whose adoption is urgently indicated by the conditions prevailing in this trade, makes the subject one of considerable importance, especially as it relates to the great numbers whose health and lives are similarly jeopardized in other communities.

Furriers.

Of one hundred and thirteen factories investigated, one hundred and four were engaged in dressing, dyeing or manufacturing fur. Of these, fifteen were dressing establishments, seventeen places in which the fur was dyed, and seventytwo where fur was made into garments. The total number of employes in the places investigated had been considerably diminished owing to the business depression which at that time seriously affected this industry. In most places the working force was reduced about half. At the time of investigation there were employed in the above shops: