Document NGmw1nVVjeNo32VwdxYGJ2yaw

10 FRANK A. PATTY foundations such as the Air Pollution Foundation and the National Sanitation Foundation later developed programs pointed toward air- and stream-pollution evaluation and control. C. EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS Those colleges that had given any organized instruction in industrial hygiene prior to 1940 now provided short courses for greatly expanded classes in an effort to give a large number of interested persons sufficient knowledge to make them useful workers in the field during war-expanded production. During and following this period many medical schools set up short courses in industrial medicine and hygiene as orientation and refresher courses. A few institutions of advanced learning have provided special instruction in health and safety. The present plans include advanced training and education leading to degrees in health and safety engineering, and the opportunities for advanced instruction for chemists, physicists, mechanical engineers, and others who wish to prepare themselves for industrial hygiene engineering are improving. A report* of the Committee on Professional Education of the American Public Health Association lists Columbia, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Toronto, Yale, and the state universities' of California, Michigan, Minnesota, aiid North Carolina among the institutions accredited to give the degree, of master of public health for the academic year 1946-47. This report recognizes the basic sciences underlying publicJiealth_practicesrjn.cluding...industml-hy.giene...Therefore)-all-graduates-of these schools presumably will have received at least a good orientation course in industrial hygiene; some may have an opportunity to prepare for later specializa tion in it. A proposed report on. educational qualifications of industrial. hygiene personnel was published at the request of the above-named American Public Health Association Committee.5 As the reservoir of competent, experienced in dustrial hygienists grows, we hope for a greater number of qualified teachers of the subject in order that more students may be encouraged to specialize in the field and thus fill the growing needs of industry and official health and accident control agencies for such specialists. There has been concurrently a movement to provide advanced courses in exteh'sive, be A merger of safety and' industrlafliygiene into something y^'^>^(S,005(e^v|,hat there is opportunity for such academic instruc- material and qualified faculty, as well as a division of opinion regarding the scope of the field and the aims to be fulfilled. `Committee on Professional Education, Am. J. Pub. Health, 36, 244 (1948). " Committee on Professional Education, Am. J. Pub. Health, 44, 1197 (1954). INDUSTRIAL HYGIENE--RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 11 D. RESEARCH ORGANIZATIONS Much research into the toxicity of materials and into methods of analysis Ipdjbontrol of harmful''exposures was conducted during World War II by the Bleed States Public Health Service, and some by industry. Several industries, Ifelmg'the need for such research, made plans to enter the field following the return iraPfai'cetime activities. The need for research into the cause and effects of many fpift&ted forms of air pollution is great. Such work can never expect to keep pace Snlodustrial development, the manufacturing chemist, and the even faster Imping; physicist, but can follow more closely than has been done in the past, rtfaffiover, the individual homeowner needs to be made more aware of his contrilipto a rapidly growing air-borne waste disposal problem. HI. Industrial Hygiene in Foreign Countries The best insight into what European countries are doing in industrial hygiene - given in material regarding toxic limits and industrial health in wartime wished by the International Labour Office. According to reports, the rules and 'regulations in these countries concerning the use of poisonous materials in industry f<iie|based on the results, of periodic medical examinations of the workers in plants *h ifffliing such substances. At certain intervals prescribed by regulations the worker lirausfc be examined by a physician. It is the task of the physician to make an early .ghosts to recognize and evaluate the first signs of absorption of a poison and if r :cssary to remove men from work temporarily. The ILO believes that this is a [able method for the timely detection of endangered workers and also of the JiaJards in a specific plant. The shortcomings of such a plan of approach obviously m evaluating the first sign of absorption--a trick physioians in the United ,eS have not been able to turn to their complete satisfaction. The toxic materials . give rise to recognizable, specific, dependable clipical signs in advance of j'eyous injury are disappointingly few. "V 4 Bhe ILO report points to the lack of compulsion in the United States regard- aperiodic medical examinations. There is little room to doubt that regular and TOfrequent medical examinations are a desirable way of discovering dangerous , ^ j&lires. especially in the absence of competent industriakhygiene engineering ^valuation and contron WEeh'fhe'twd'methods are prbperly ci^ordinaIed,Tibwever, ..^ingfiribst dependable safeguard against harmful exposures is provided. V i, A. ENGLAND ^^T^England'the ffiedi'cal phases of industrial health have received more atten- ijll milftKan the more technical and engineering phases of evaluation and control. ' support for this opinion is seen in the report of foundry experience.6 Only 4 oPP^ndblasters were engaged in steel foundries prior to the war, yet 31 sapd- it.ers were given certificates covering death, total disablement, or suspension j *' in steel foundries, Engineering (London), 158, 152 (1944).