LIFE EXTENSION. Among the many facts which have been revealed by the investiga tions of scientific shop management none has proved more startling than the disclosure of the economic waste involved in the sickness and premature death of skilled workers in all in dustries. While it may, at first thought, seem contrary to the spirit of modern industrial management to speak of men as "machines," those who are most interested in the promotion of the principles of sickness prevention and life extension insist that it is necessary that this view should be taken if one is to fully com prehend the fact that the human body is a great laboratory which transforms food into the energy that industry requires in its work of production. As Dr. F. C. Wells said, in an address before the Executive's Club of New York: "We should look upon the men at work in the shops and stores as human machines marvelous human machines, yet still machines. It is tremendously important to you as em ployers that these human machines are work ing properly. . . . We often hear it said that a man has died a sudden death. This is a mis take. This apparently sudden death is merely the end of a long-preceding process of decay, and this decay, which is during every working day attacking some of your men, ought to be detected so that, as with a turning lathe, the proper methods of upkeep may be provided. Each machine has what may be called its nor mal load, under which it works without strain. With men, too, it is not unusual for strains to be so serious that they crumble up. The machine is working poorly. You cannot tell how much work a man should do unless you give him a physical examination. The amount of work which he does, and which anybody can see, is no proper test." This is the principle back of life extension work in indostry. How badly such activities are needed was shown by the investigations of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, under whose direction seven community sur veys were made, in widely separated localities, to determine the extent of sickness, especially among the wage-earning population. The per
centages of those sick as well as the percentages of those who were so sick as to be unable to work are given in the following table: While comprehensive figures as to the ex tent of sickness throughout the United States are not obtainable, the surveys of the Metro politan Life Insurance Company are illumina tive, for they also show that the average loss for the 376,573 persons covered by these in vestigations was 8.4 days per year, or 6.9 work ing days, and if the same ratio applies to the entire industrial population of the country, it can easily be estimated that the annual wage loss through sickness for 40,000,000 workers would be in excess of $500,000,000.
Although there are no figures on which even estimates of the loss due to premature death from preventable disease can be based, the United States army statistics disclose conditions which must exert an important effect upon the earning capacity of the individual and, naturally disabilities which not only impair the produc tive capacity of the worker thus afflicted but which later result in disabling disease and death. For example, of the 2,500,000 men between the ages of 21 and 31 years who were examined for military service in 1917, approximately 33 per cent were rejected because physically unfit, while a more particular study of the reasons for rejection shows the prominence of such disabilities as defective hearing, impaired vision, decayed teeth, heart affections, defects of the nose and throat, flatfoot, etc., not to mention the more serious organic ills, all disabilities that are certain to constitute a handicap to the victim in any line of work that he may pursue, for all are physical defects that would in all probability have an effect upon the worker's capacity for production. Even in cases where the disabilities do not result in extended absence from work, it is obviously impossible to expect anything like maximum efficiency from a work ing force, 25 per cent of whom are suffering from disorders or deformities of the eyes, nose, heart, lungs or other organs.