+---------------------+-------------+----------+---------+-----------+ | | | Probable | | | | | | Number of|Number of|Attack Rate| | | Number of | Persons | Reported| per | | Industry. |Examinations.| employed.| Cases. | Thousand. | +---------------------+-------------+----------+---------+-----------+ |White lead | 77,752 | 1,495 | 34 | 22 | |Red lead | 8,096 | 675 | 10 | 15 | |Vitreous enamelling | 3,064 | 766 | 17 | 22 | |Tinning of metals | 1,475 | 492 | 17 | 34 | |Electric accumulators| 13,065 | 1,089 | 31 | 28 | |Paints and colours | 19,081 | 1,590 | 17 | 11 | |Earthenware and china| 78,560 | 6,547 | 77 | 12 | +---------------------+-------------+----------+---------+-----------+ As has been mentioned above, the accurate information we have of the numbers employed in the several processes in the earthenware and china industry enable us to use the figures for that industry to illustrate, what is certainly true of all other lead industries also, the fact of the relative greater degree of risk in one process than another. The fall in the number of fatal cases attributed to lead poisoning, as is perhaps to be expected, seeing that the great majority are deaths from chronic lead poisoning, does not run parallel with the diminution in the number of cases. Thus, in the five years 1905 to 1909 the deaths numbered 144, as compared with 131 in the previous five years, although the cases fell from 3,761 to 3,001. We believe this is due to an increasing inclination to attribute chronic nephritis, and even (without sufficient justification in our opinion) phthisis and pneumonia, to lead poisoning on the death certificates of lead workers. Copies of all death certificates on which lead poisoning is entered as directly or indirectly a cause are received by the Chief Inspector of Factories. All of industrial origin are included in the return. Of a total of 264 which could be followed up, encephalopathic symptoms appeared on the death certificate in 38 (10·6 per cent.); Bright’s disease, cerebral hæmorrhage, paralysis, or chronic lead poisoning either alone or as a combination of symptoms closely connected, in 188 (71·2 per cent.); phthisis in 13 (5·0 per cent.); and other diseases, such as pneumonia, etc., in 25 (9·4 per cent.). Table IX. brings out the relative frequency in the several groups of industries, and, as is to be anticipated, the different average age at death when due to acute and chronic lead poisoning. TABLE VIII.--LEAD POISONING IN EARTHENWARE AND CHINA WORKS (CHINA, EARTHENWARE, TILES, MAJOLICA, JET AND ROCKINGHAM, CHINA FURNITURE AND ELECTRICAL FITTINGS, SANITARY WARE).