Single Branches of Industry

The work between the machinery gives rise to multitudes of accidents of more or less serious nature, which have for the operative the secondary effect of unfitting him for his work more or less completely. The most common accident is the squeezing off of a single joint of a finger, somewhat less common the loss of the whole finger, half or a whole hand, an arm, etc. , in the machinery. Lockjaw very often follows, even upon the lesser among these injuries, and brings death with it. Besides the deformed persons, a great number of maimed ones may be seen going about in Manchester; this one has lost an arm or a part of one, that one a foot, the third half a leg; it is like living in the midst of an army just returned from a campaign. But the most dangerous portion of the machinery is the strapping which conveys motive power from the shaft to the separate machines, especially if it contains buckles, which, however, are rarely used now. Whoever is seized by the strap is carried up with lightning speed, thrown against the ceiling above and floor below with such force that there is rarely a whole bone left in the body, and death follows instantly. Between June 12th and August 3rd, 1843 , the Manchester Guardian reported the following serious accidents (the trifling ones it does not notice): June 12th , a boy died in Manchester of lockjaw, caused by his hand being crushed between wheels. June 16th , a youth in Saddleworth seized by a wheel and carried away with it; died, utterly mangled. June 29th , a young man at Green Acres Moor, near Manchester, at work in a machine shop, fell under the grindstone, which broke two of his ribs and lacerated him terribly. July 24th , a girl in Oldham died, carried around fifty times by a strap; no bone unbroken. July 27th , a girl in Manchester seized by the blower (the first machine that receives the raw cotton), and died of injuries received. August 3rd , a bobbins turner died in Dukenfield, caught in a strap, every rib broken. In the year 1843 , the Manchester Infirmary treated 962 cases of wounds and mutilations caused by machinery, while the number of all other accidents within the district of the hospital was 2,426, so that for five accidents from all other causes, two were caused by machinery. The