ACCIDENTS, Causes and Preventiort of. Industrial Accidents.— For many years mod ern industry, especially in the United States, has been confronted with the serious problem of preventing injuries, whether avoidable or unavoidable. The avoidable injuries are due to the carelessness of the victim, the employer or a fellow employee, while unavoidable injuries or accidents constitute the occupational risk. The chief causes of preventable industrial in juries are: (1) Lack of provision of safety in construction; (2) excessive hours of labor; (3) unremitting pressure for large output, resulting in the maintenance of too great speed; (4) inadequate factory inspection; (5) failure to remedy known defects; (6) insufficient signal systems or methods of warning; (7) ignorance of workers and the failure of employers to instruct and direct them. The first annual re port (1915) of the New York State Workmen's Compensation Commission states that there were not more than 100 cases in a total of 18,930 awards allowed in which the question of intoxication was raised either by the em ployer or insurance carrier; in not a single case did the commission decide that the injuries were due wholly to intoxication, nor was a single grant disallowed on the ground of intoxication. A Minnesota bulletin assigned 71.6 per cent of industrial accidents to hazards of industry and 52 per cent to contributory negligence. The principal causes of accidents were ascribed to °youth, ignorance of the English language, in competence, carelessness, ranging all the way from momentary inattention or forgetfulness to foolhardy recklessness, personal short-com ings, like deafness, or excitability and absorp tion in the work at hand which make the workman oblivious of approaching danger, fatigue and nerve strain.° A Massachusetts report states that °dusty trades, industrial poisons, and occupational diseases are responsi ble for an annual loss in the United States of $750,000,000, through needless diseases and dis ablements,° and that poor conditions in many factories, mills and shops have a direct bearing upon the number of accidents. The Ohio report of 1915 ascribes the accidents that were passed upon by the commission to the follow ing Falling and shifting objects, 19,606; machinery, 14,018; hand tools and simple apparatus, 5,231; nature of material used or similar working conditions, 4,900; falls, 4,774; carrying, lifting or handling great weights, 1,196; transportation on tracks, 912; transporta tion not on tracks, 699; suffocation and asphyxi ation, 139; animals, 457; sunstroke and heat prostration, 107; intentional violence of fellow employee, 41; intentional violence of persons not employees, 34.
There are no statistics for the country as a whole relating to industries individually, but the mortality tables of the 1910 census give a fair idea of the accident rate, the statistics covering about 56 per cent of the country's population. Ctf the males 10 years of age and over, 22,652, grouped in 148 occupations, died through acci dent, while 881 females of the same ages, grouped in 140 occupations, met the same fate. Among the males one death out of every 10 was accidental, while the ratio among the females was one out of 30. Among steam rail way employees there was one death by acci dent, to 1.9 deaths by all causes; among manu facturing laborers one to 8.4; among miners and quarrymen one to 2.5; among persons en gaged in agricultural pursuits, one to 15.5; among salesmen, one to 18; and among lawyers, one to 23; while teachers and clergymen ap peared to be most free from fatal accidents, the ratios being one to 31 and one to 30 respec tively. In the Bureau of Labor Statistics Bul letin 157 (1915) F. L. Hoffman estimates the number of fatal industrial accidents in 1913 at 35,000, while there were approximately 700,000 injuries which resulted in disability for more than fbur weeks. The ratio of fatal injuries per thousand employees ranged from 4.00 for metal mining, 3.50 for coal mining, 3.00 for fisheries, navigation, lumbering, building and street railway employees to .25 for general manufacturing. In coal mines the number of fatal accidents decreased from 2,785 in 1913 to 2,454 in 1914, the most prolific cause of death being the falling of roofs and coal. The death rate per thousand employees for the entire country was 3.22 in 1914 against 3.73 in 1913. Carl M. Hansen of the Workmen's Compen sation Service Bureau places the number of workmen killed annually at 40,000 to 45,000, while the Massachusetts Industrial Accident Board places those killed by accident at 75,000 and the number of those injured annually at 3,000,000.