-------------+-------------------------------------------- | Per cent. of deaths due to consumption | among: Age at death +---------------------+---------------------- | Occupations exposed | Males in registration | to organic dust | area, 1900-1906 -------------+---------------------+---------------------- 15-24 years | 40.1 | 27.8 25-34 years | 49.0 | 31.3 35-44 years | 35.3 | 23.6 45-54 years | 21.6 | 15.0 55-64 years | 11.0 | 8.1 65 and over | 4.5 | 2.7 -------------+---------------------+---------------------- It will be seen from this table, that deaths from consumption in these trades exposed to organic dust were more than half again as much as might reasonably have been expected. And it must be remembered that statistics indicate, "that general organic dust is less serious in its fatal effects than mineral or metallic dust, and as a result the proportionate mortality from consumption and other respiratory diseases in this group is more favorable than in the groups of occupations with exposure to mineral and metallic dusts" (l. c., p. 627). More evident dangers of occupation, because more directly traceable to their causes, are industrial accidents. Manufacturers and employers sometimes wantonly, sometimes through ignorance, neglect the precautions and appliances necessary properly to safeguard their workmen. The introduction of complicated machinery, the use of high-power explosives, the strenuous conduct of production, without corresponding efforts to offset the natural tendencies of these conditions and tools, has made peace more horrible and dangerous than war. Of all such sources of accident, mines are probably the most prolific. "The percentage of miners killed in this country is greater than in any other, being from two to four times as large as in any European country."[78] "Every year of the past decade," 1890-1900, "has seen from 500 to 700 Pennsylvania miners killed and from 1200 to 1650 injured. By comparing these figures with the total number employed, it will be found that on the average about one man in every 400 employed in the mines is killed yearly and about one out of every 150 injured."[79] In 37 New England cotton mills in 1907, 1428 employees were injured.[80] The Bethlehem Steel Works alone had a record of 927 accidents in 1909.[81] In New York State, during a year of industrial depression, 1907, there were 14,545 accidents recorded,[82] and we know that they are more numerous in prosperous years.