Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 69, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 March 1911 — HAPPENINGS IN THE CITIES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HAPPENINGS IN THE CITIES

Match-Making a Dangerous Business

NSW YORK.—Phosphorus matches kill and maim the men and girls who make them. The working men and girls who are engaged in the manufacture and the packing of the ordinary match run a heavy risk of contracting phosphorus necrosis, and those who get this disease generally die a horrible and lingering death. These facts are brought out in. the report of the United States bureau of labor, which recently investigated the match industry. Phosphorus necrosis, or mhtch poisoning, attacks thfe teeth and jaws. The teeth become loose and fall out and the bone of the Jaw becomes porous and decays. It is necessary then to remove large parts of the bone, and frequently the entire jaw. One man who worked in a match factory in Wisconsin had to have his whole upper and lower jaws removed, so badly had the disease attaked him. Then he lived for months, taking occasional nourishment through a tube. Another case reported by the bureau of labor was that of a girl of 14 who went to work packing matches. The poisonous atmosphere of the place

affected her teeth, and when she went to a dentist he found her whole lower jaw honeycombed by the phosphorus poisoning. Abscesses followed and the child was unable to eat She slowly starved to death. Many other cases are cited in the report No one who works in these factories apparently Is immune from the disease, and sanitary. precautions which have been taken in some of the larger factories have been ineffectual. The atmosphere must of necessity contain the fumes of phosphorus, and they are deadly. Not all-the men and girls who are poisoned die, of course. Some of them check the disease early by a radical operation, having their lower jaws removed. Those who are not willing to be maimed in this way generally die as a result of absorbing the poisons generated by their own decaying teeth and bones. The man who made the investigar tions for tile bureau of labor was John „B. Andrews, and so strongly was President Taft impressed by his report that he recommended the passage of a bill to discourage the manufacture of phosphorus matches by a heavy federal tax. Such a bill was introduced early in the session. The match trust, however, forestalled the passage of -the bill by withdrawing the patent on the harmless substitute it uses in place of the deadly phosphorous.