and would certainly be "King of the fair" on "Pennypacking-day," for he sells a case of 50 boxes, each containing 100 lucifers, for fourpence. The Disease of the Lucifer. - We now come to an unfortunate attendant of this trade, which attacks the workpeople in some manufactories in the form of a frightful disease. It commences with toothache, is followed by decay in the jaw-bones, pieces as large as peas working themselves out, until the lower jaw, in some cases, entirely disappears. We give an account of a young girl of twenty years of age, of pale and scrofulous aspect. She went to work at the lucifer-factory when she was nine years old, and after she had worked for about four years, the complaint began like a toothache. Her teeth had all been sound before that time, at any rate had not troubled her by aching. She was occupied in putting the lids on the boxes. She could smell the phosphorus at first, but soon grew used to it; at night she could see that her clothes were glowing in the chair where she had put them; her hands and arms were also all in a glow. She used to wash her hands, and attend to cleanliness. On uncovering her face, we perceived that her lower jaw was almost entirely wanting, and at the sides of her mouth were two or three large holes. The jaw was removed at the Infirmary seven years ago. In France, where the consumption of phosphorus is very large, there has been a fearful development of the disease, which has attracted great attention from the Imperial Academy of Medicine, the Conseil d'Hygiène, and Government Commissions; which, it is hoped, will end in the adoption of, The Remedy,-In the suppression of the old phosphorus and its substitution by the new kind or amorphous phosphorus, for which some of the leading Paris manufacturers have already presented a petition. PERILS OF MATCH-MAKING. 111 This curious modification of phosphorus was first discovered by Schrötter, of Vienna, who found that if ordinary phosphorus was subjected to a temperature of 480° or 500° for some time, it acquired a red colour, was no longer fusible, volatile, inflammable at low temperatures, nor poisonous. As it may, therefore, be handled without danger, and evolves no fumes in the atmosphere, we believe it offers a certain preventive, and leads us to thank that gracious Providence who has so ordered events that the cure is at hand. In concluding, we think there can hardly be less than 50,000 persons employed in the manufacture of lucifermatches, of whom a large number are children and young people, more or less exposed to the inroad of this hideous complaint. However much the evil has been mitigated in this country by the care and precautions of the manufacturers, as well as by the employment of a large proportion of chlorate of potash, there does not appear to exist a doubt in the mind of thoughtful masters of the great benefit which would arise from substituting the amorphous for the old forms of phosphorus. Among many similar testimonies communicated to the patentee of the new phosphorus, we select one from Mr. Hynam, Finsbury, London, who writes, "I am convinced that it will be of great benefit to all the manufacturers as well as the public in general. I should like to see it in general use." And another from Mr. Dixon, the senior partner of the firm at Newton Heath, who says, "There can in our opinion be little doubt but that this material (amorphous phosphorus) is the fore-runner of vast improvements in match-making, not only in reference to the health of those employed in the production of them, but also as regards the offensive effluvia arising from the composition now in use to the general consumer." To rescue thousands of persons from working in an atmosphere too often absolutely luminous at night with the vapour of phosphorus, and by a change so simple that it will not only involve no additional alterations nor trouble to the manufacturer, but really diminish some present difficulties, is certainly worth an effort on the part of our leading philanthropists. Nor is this solely a question affecting the health and lives of the work people. It is impossible that in every room of our houses, boxes of highly poisonous matches can be left without any precaution, without occasioning fatal accidents. Our coroners' inquests have already recorded the death of children from this cause; and, doubtless, many have perished from similar accidents, without its ever being traced to the true source.* * A remarkable case of poisoning was lately detailed in "La Presse," by M. Figuier.-At Cambrin, in the Pas de Calais, two individuals went into a cabaret, and asked for a cup of coffee. Scarcely had they swallowed the contents, when they dropped over on one another dead. The woman who kept the cabaret, in great excitement, ran and apprised the authorities. Suspicion of having poisoned her guests at once alighted on herself. She protested that they had tasted nothing in her house except coffee, of which there was still some in the coffee-pot on the fire; and to show how good it was she filled a cup for herself, drank it, and soon fell dead beside the two corpses. On examining the coffee-pot, there was found in it a box of lucifer-matches! The most important medical work on this disease gives us the following melancholy facts, and which loudly call for Government interference: "Of 100 workpeople employed in 3 manufactories at Vienna, 22 were attacked by necrosis of the jaws. Of 68 cases reported, 15 recovered, 15 died, 15 remained under treatment, and the others are not known. "In one manufactory at Nuremburg, where 60 or 70 persons were employed, there were 15 cases of disease and 8 deaths! "There have also been numerous fatal cases in Sweden, France, and England." While this article is in the press, it has come to our knowledge that in one manufactory, near London, two young men (not of dissolute habits) both died in the course of four or five years, from the effects of their employment in dipping lucifer-matches. DANGER OF COMMON PHOSPHORUS. 113 In France, the medical societies have been occupied with this question, on the ground of the cases of murder and suicide in which phosphorus matches have been the agents employed, an agent the more to be dreaded, because, as they truly state, it is impossible to distinguish it by any chemical test afterwards, from the phosphoric acid and phosphates so generally present in the organs and tissues of the body. The Academy of Medicine have, in fact, submitted to the French Minister of Commerce, a proposal for the suppression, by authority, of the use of common phosphorus, and for the employment of which, there is now no longer any excuse, since M. Lundström's discovery has been made public. The Jury of the Paris Exhibition have stamped the use of this amorphous phosphorus with their approbation by awarding silver medals to M. Lundström, and M. Camaille, match-manufacturer of Paris, and Mr. A. Albright of Oldbury, the patentee of this article, and the gold medal to the discoverer, Prof. Schrötter of Vienna. In the hope that this will soon become generally adopted, we think we may fairly claim for our Lucifer the character we ascribed to it in our prefatory remarks, while we believe no other invention of modern times has so quickly reached its present state of perfection, nor attained so wide a diffusion among the nations of the earth, carrying its conveniences equally to the poor and the rich. T. R. THE HILLS. UPON the hills, upon the hills! To bound along with the living breeze In life's thronged vale I do but move, Oh! for a painter's hand To catch the gloom or glow, Which sun and shade alternately The aged thorn, the copsewood oak, The tricolor polygala That springs beneath my feet,— And the golden-vested tormentil That spangles the turf so sweet; My earliest childhood loved To gather these fair flowers, And I love them still for their own sweet selves, Upon the hills, the mighty hills, Their summits in the skies! |