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SEX IN INDUSTRY.
hard coughing and occasionally whitish expectoration. In the first year of work, the operative suffers constantly from bronchial catarrh; and a considerable proportion of those who come to this occupation from rural districts abandon it, even though they may be only sufferers from constant catarrh, without other worse symptoms.
“ If, however, they persevere in this occupation, more important symptoms supervene, sometimes soon, often after a year of work, such as cough with pectoral pain, marked anaamia, obstinate debility, and loss of appetite. White viscid sputa is now expectorated with difficulty, and shows under the microscope cotton-fibres for several hours after quitting the factory. Marked emaciation, sometimes — but rarely — profuse diarrhoea, deprives the operator of his strength, and compels him to leave his work, and betake himself to his home or to the hospital.
“ These, of course, are the most unfavorable, and happily not the most frequent cases. But people very often go on coughing their whole life long, and die at an advanced age. . . . Sickly people, especially those liable to pulmonary affections, do not bear up long. The most unfavorable cases are usually found among women; and in a factory of three hundred or four hundred operatives, there will generally be found two or three cases of this kind every year. Other diseases of not infrequent occurrence are phthisis,