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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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Department of Industrial Medicine.

The sandhog's disease - the bends - was covered in the first law, because the English have the bends too. Everybody who goes down to work under water in pressure caissons is subject to the bends and is exposed to the hazards of the bends, which is a very terrible disease and comes from the super-pressure. There are great rules for handling a man now so that he's put gradually under pressure and then, when he comes out, he's released gradually from the pressure. If you release the pressure suddenly, they just burst and you have death. Even under precautions the disease of bends results in some cases. That was covered by the Workmen's Compensation Act. Although we continued to improve the rules for handling bends, we weren't in such a desperate situation about that because the men injured did have a compensation case.

Silicosis is only gotten when you are working in an area where there is silica; not all tunneling is in a silica sand deposit. The most striking illustrations that we had of silicosis in the State of New York - the ones that came most strikingly to my attention earliest - were in the excavation work in New York City, while they were excavating for new buildings. The City of New York rests on a solid granite rock. Granite is full of silica. As every “sidewalk





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