Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/382

378 of the body insures the reflection of injuries to the brain centers in the disturbance of all other organs.

The monotony of work is linked to the strain under which it is carried on. In the knitting industry a girl now has to watch from two to ten needles instead of one. In sewing shops the needles make 4,400 stitches a minute. The operator can tell when a needle or a thread is broken or a stitch misplaced only by a variation in a beam of light thrown on the needle. Constant attention to so minute a detail puts a fearful strain on the eyes and nerves. In textile mills the number of machines has so increased that the operator is kept always at the highest rate of speed. In a large publishing house girls who bind the magazine must handle 25,000 copies, each weighing three fourths of a pound, in ten hours. Piece work aggravates the evil of keeping up with a machine. In the millinery trade "rush work" is of a similar character. This speed coupled with the monotony of doing the same operation repeatedly brings about nervous exhaustion. The monotony of the work exercises only little patches of the nervous system. Mental and physical fatigue are closely bound together, A muscle in contracting uses nitrogen and liberates a poison or toxin. Under normal conditions this toxin is carried out of the body by way of the kidneys and lungs, and is neutralized by an antitoxin. If the muscle is exercised too frequently the toxins multiply faster than the ability to eradicate them. The poison accumulates and the muscle becomes fatigued. Further work is performed at the expense of the will, which puts a drain on the nervous system. Fatigue may go to the point of exhaustion, and result in death by chemical self-poisoning. Normally the tired body throws off the toxins during sleep and is then ready for another full day's work. But if the body does not get rest, the fatigued muscles on the second day can do only one half the normal amount of work before again becoming fatigued. At the beginning the overwork may pass unnoticed, but since fatigue is accumulative it eventually results in a complete nervous breakdown, because fatigue really weakens the brain centers that control the muscles, although the feeling of being tired is primarily felt in the muscles themselves, "Women are predisposed to nervous trouble, and their nerves are weakened by the various sex functions. Nervous tension exaggerates any bad tendencies already present. The industrial woman works to the point of over-fatigue and then goes home to do housework, or seeks excitement in dances and shows, thus adding nerve strain to nerve strain. Sleeplessness and loss of appetite follow; succeeding days of work pile up fatigue until the brain cells and nerves collapse. A usual accompaniment of nerve exhaustion is menstrual irregularities and poverty of the blood. The constant vibration in a mill may help bring about organic troubles, particularly if the organs have been weakened by other causes. The