Accidents in Factories
There are heavy casualties in industry, as well as in war, and during this war there has been a considerable increase in industrial accidents. If unnecessary risks -should never be taken in war it is even more obvious that they should not be taken in industrY humanitarianism and the need to conserve man-power alike make it a duty to neglect no means known to science to reduce the casualties. The third Emergency Report of the Industrial Health Research Board is concerned with the " personal factor " in accidents. It shows that there are more accidents where workers are inex- perienced, or fatigued by long hours. or exposed to bad atmospheric conditions, or unfitted for thc particular job to which they are allotted, or working at high speed. Here are conditions which can be modified by good management Again, research has shown that some people are more liable to accidents than others ; there is such a thing as " accident proneness," and those who frequently have slight accidents are likely some day to have a serious one. The Board's report about the measurement of this " proneness " by tests is of great interest ; but the statement that where provision for such scientific tests cannot be made much valuable information might be acquired by card-index records for all workers, suggests a simple procedure which ought to be adopted in every factory. It is certainly not too much to require that exact accident records should be kept. Their intelligent use would reduce casualties.
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