ABSTRACT
Few Government documents are more interesting than the Registrar-General's decennial report on occupational mortality in England and Wales, and it is safe to say that none of equal importance is more neglected. This is partly due to the fact that it refers to the years 1910-1912 partly perhaps because most of it is unsuited for party propaganda. New trades such as electricity supply and motor driving, attract young men, and therefore have spuriously low death-rates. Sailors are absent when the census is taken, but come home to die, and therefore seem to be very unhealthy. The guilt of this death-rate is about equally divided between the manufacturers of strong drink and the advocates of temperance. As compared with their landlords, barmen are less than half as likely to die of alcoholism and its sequel, cirrhosis of the liver; but they are more than twice as likely to perish of consumption and other lung diseases account for nearly half their mortality.
