The Effects of Arts, Trades, and Professions on Health and Longevity (2nd edition, 1832)

Thackrah, Charles Turner, 1986.

Preface by Saul Benison. 

 

Charles Turner Thackrah's classic study was the first systematic publication in Great Britain on industrial disease and its prevention. As a young poor law doctor in the 1820s, Thackrah practiced in the booming city of Leeds, center of the flax and wool industry. A shrewd observer and clinician, Thackrah followed his patients into factories to trace the causes of disease. "The work people" he wrote, "are less thought of than the machinery: the latter is frequently examined to ascertain its capabilities—the former is scarcely ever."

Thackrah's famous tract on the conditions he found and the means of prevention was initially published in 1831, and brought him immediate national and international recognition. The 1832, enlarged edition is reprinted here with a biographical introduction by A. Meiklejohn, and a new preface by the well-known American medical historian, Dr. Saul Benison, Professor of History, University of Cincinnati.