Modern industrial management is endeavor ing to meet these conditions by insisting that all employees submit themselves to a thorough physical examination, not only at the time of employment but at subsequent periods, with a view to seeing that those who are found to be suffering from preventable defects shall re ceive proper medical or surgical treatment and so be restored to the highest position in the ranks of the wage-earner that it is possible for them to attain.
In the beginning the workers have often been suspicious of the physical examination on the ground that it is designed to afford a means of detecting the less desirable operatives with a view to discharging them but this is a fear that is soon overcome. Following the examination, the results are gone over in detail with the man and, where medical, dental or surgical treat ment is deemed necessary, he is advised con cerning it, and, not infrequently, he is given substantial aid in carrying out the directions of the examiner. If the examination shows that the worker is suffering from a disability that unfits him for the particular task in which he is engaged and remedial treatment promises small results, as in affections of the heart, he is assigned to a job which he can hold with less danger and with higher possibilities of efficient service.
The question of sickness prevention and life extension was considered a matter of such great importance to the nation that the National Industrial Conference Board made a special investigation of the subject and, in May 1918, its findings and recommendations were pub lished in (Research Report No. 6.) It declared
that existing "conditions call for a vigorous policy of remedial action"; and continued: a. . . all sickness and disability which can reasonably be prevented should be prevented instead of being allowed to remain unremedted until they impose a burden of misery and poverty- on the individual and a burden of cost on society.
"Preventive work in the case of such com municable diseases as typhoid fever, tuberculosis, pneumonia and diphtheria has been brilliantly successful. . . . The results already achieved . . . through local effort with limited funds establish beyond a doubt the urgent need of a thoroughgoing investigation of its further pos sibilities under a definite national policy. . . . Periodic physical examination, not only of in dustrial workers but of the entire population is another important matter for consideration.
°First a national study of prevailing disease and its causes; then a national program for the prevention of all preventable sickness, with liberal but intelligent provisions for unpre ventable sickness, through compensation or otherwise, as a duty of society to its members: — this is submitted as a rational, constructive and humane program for dealing with the sickness problem in its individual as well as its social and industrial aspects.° In many manufacturing plants and com mercial houses where no regular examining physician is a member of the staff, this service in prevention of disease is obtained through one of the commercial agencies engaged in such work.