Occupational diseases in industrial enterprises of St. Petersburg at the beginning of the twentieth century

Patrakeev Andrey Vladimirovich Postgraduate student; Department of National History; Vologda State University 160033, Russia, Vologda region, Vologda, Tekstilshchikov str., 21B, sq. 59 patrakeev2012@mail.ru

The problem of acquiring occupational diseases has deep historical roots and has not lost its relevance today. It is inseparable from the issue of occupational safety at industrial enterprises in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century. The study of the problem of the acquisition of occupational diseases, as a certain indicator of working conditions, allows for a more in-depth study of the issue of the formation and development of labor protection in the designated period.

The purpose of the study is to study the history of occupational diseases and the occupational safety system at industrial enterprises in St. Petersburg in the early twentieth century.

To achieve this goal, it is assumed that the following tasks will be solved:

- identify the causes of occupational diseases of workers;

- analyze legislation in the field of labor protection and social insurance;

- to determine the degree of social support for workers in case of acquiring an occupational disease.

The object of the study is the occupational safety system at industrial enterprises of St. Petersburg in the early twentieth century.

The subject of the study is occupational diseases in industrial enterprises of St. Petersburg in the early twentieth century.

The following general scientific and special historical methods were used to reveal the content of the topic in the article. General scientific methods include analysis, synthesis, generalization, and special ones include comparative historical, problem-chronological, and statistical methods.

The scientific novelty of the topic under study lies in the fact that the issue of occupational diseases was not the subject of independent study and was considered by researchers only as an auxiliary plot or historical event, against which other problems were highlighted. The characterization of occupational diseases and their consequences, based on the involvement of a range of sources introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, aims to fill this gap.

The chronological framework of the study covers the period from the beginning of the XX century to 1913. The choice of the lower limit of the study is due to the increase in occupational morbidity at industrial enterprises in Russia in the early twentieth century, which was a consequence of the processes of development and intensification of production, the lack of basic sanitary and hygienic requirements. In addition, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the law of June 2, 1903 "Rules on compensation of workers and employees injured as a result of accidents, as well as members of their families, in enterprises of the factory, mining and mining industry" was put into effect. The content of this law raises the problem of industrial injuries for the first time at the legislative level. The upper limit of the study is related to the further elaboration of legislative acts in the field of labor protection and social insurance of workers who have received diseases at work.

The territorial framework is limited to the city of St. Petersburg, which at the beginning of the twentieth century was one of the most developed industrial regions of Russia. During the period under study, St. Petersburg's factory enterprises had a high level of production concentration and were better equipped technically. The number of workers was high. The St. Petersburg industry was represented by a variety of types of industries with their own peculiarities of equipment and technology, which, for the most part, lacked sanitary standards, which entailed the inevitability of acquiring occupational diseases.

Unlike the issue of occupational injuries, the problem of occupational diseases has not been widely reflected in historiography. Thus, in the works of I. I. Shelymagin, an overview of the legislative framework of the studied period is given as a whole. Other authors, S. N. Semanov and E. E. Kruse, touched upon the problem of working conditions, exploitation of women's labor and noted the discrepancy between the source base of that time and the real values of occupational diseases. Researcher S. I. Kaplun, also paying attention to working conditions, emphasized hygiene and pointed out what could be improved from the point of view of labor protection.

Thus, the problem of working conditions in production is widely covered in historiography, the characteristics of legal acts on social insurance of workers are given, but there are no separate studies on occupational diseases, which will partly be filled in by the content of this article.

The following groups of sources were used within the framework of the topic under study:

1. Legislative acts: the law of 1903 "Rules on remuneration of workers and employees injured as a result of accidents, as well as members of their families, in enterprises of the factory, mining and mining industry"; a set of laws of 1912 "On the establishment of presences for workers' insurance", "On the establishment of the Council for Workers' Insurance", "On the provision of workers in case of illness", "On the insurance of workers against accidents"; "The Statute of Industrial Labor" 1913

2. Materials of the periodical press. Thus, V. Ya. Kanel investigated the problem of labor protection and social insurance in general, and the issue of occupational diseases in particular. Kanel did not see the difference between an industrial accident and an occupational disease. Despite the different ways, he wrote, the result is the same: an accident suddenly incapacitates, an occupational disease takes away strength from day to day. The author particularly noted that the number of damages in industrial establishments depended on a number of conditions, the first of which was the sanitary working environment ^{[1, pp. 25, 21]}.

3. Reports:

- a member of the State Duma on the justification of remuneration for the acquisition of an occupational disease;

- doctors who constantly talked about the debilitating effect of factory labor on the worker's body. The reports were an important source that showed the real state of affairs at industrial enterprises. In particular, speaking at the First All-Russian Women's Congress, Dr. N. A. Kirillova drew attention to the unbearable working conditions of workers in the textile and chemical industries at the beginning of the XX century ^{[2, p. 296]}. Doctor A. N. Vinokurov at the XI Pirogov Congress made a report on the sanitary condition and medical care in St. Petersburg factories and plants in the late XIX – early XX centuries. He noted the extremely difficult working conditions of the workers and recognized the condition of the factory premises as very unsatisfactory. As the most dangerous factors that workers suffered from, he highlighted the lack of ventilation, fuses against dust, harmful gases and vapors, the presence of primitive equipment, heavy manual work ^{[3, p. 316]};

- reports and records of factory inspectors, who were the guides of state policy in the field, an important link in the labor protection system. After analyzing their works, it can be concluded that they are the most representative source on the basis of which further conclusions can be drawn. In particular, factory inspector S. Gvozdev believed that injuries were not the only enemy of workers' health and life. He noted that unbearably difficult working conditions gave rise to equally severe occupational diseases. If the technical side of the work constantly threatened the worker with sudden disability, then work unfavorable in terms of hygiene slowly but incessantly destroyed his health, developing occupational diseases in him ^{[4, p. 187]}.

The source base as a whole makes it possible to reveal the topic under study.

Occupational disease is an inevitability for employees of enterprises in which the specifics of equipment and production technology are associated with the presence of negative concomitant factors. An urgent task was to develop measures aimed at minimizing the effects of these factors on the human body.

The disgusting working conditions so exhausted the workers' bodies that the disease became a daily danger ^{[5, p. 65]}. According to government circles themselves, the number of occupational diseases was 16-17 times higher than the number of accidents. Occupational diseases, due to the fact that they originated from a certain type of occupation, should include not only poisoning, but also a lot of other diseases, including tuberculosis, nervous disorders, rheumatism, anemia, which affected 50% of all factory workers in Russia ^{[5, p. 87]}. Shelymagin noted that in St. Petersburg at the Novo-Sampsonievskaya factory, workers coughed up blood from dust and hard work, and the cannon workshop of the Putilov factory was called the "tuberculosis factory". The author argued that the connection of occupational disease with the conditions of production is more indisputable than the connection of an accident with them, because occupational diseases can be attributed less to the careless actions of the employee himself. And, as a result, he did not make a fundamental difference between them when establishing the responsibility of entrepreneurs ^{[5, pp. 89-90]}.

The situation with occupational diseases at various industrial enterprises in St. Petersburg was similar. The analysis of complaints conducted by S. N. Semanov, a historian and writer, gave a similar picture of the situation of workers in factories. For example, workers at the shipyard F. R. Ilya complained about the cold in the workshops, that due to the lack of boiled water to quench their thirst, they had to run to the ice hole. The workers of the Vasileostrovsky flax mill wrote on June 26, 1901: "Cars are never cleaned, terrible stench, dust, it is hot and stuffy, especially for women. And you need to stand for some 40 kopecks in such harmful dust, although you can avoid this, that's why there are fans, only they are never in use, only when there is a commission. And so, we can't see each other from the dust."

Violations of basic sanitary standards were constantly noted at enterprises. Sanitary doctors of St. Petersburg recorded numerous facts of the criminal attitude of entrepreneurs to the life and health of the worker. Some of these facts were included in official reports. For example, in 1903, the sanitary doctor of the Peterhof district provided information on working conditions at enterprises under his jurisdiction. He noted that at the Tentel chemical plant, the extraction of acids was accompanied by their abundant release into the working room, there were no fuses. At the Trainin Zinc Plant, the rolling of iron sheets in zinc baths and during tinning was accompanied by abundant release of soot and caustic decomposition products of fatty oils from high temperature. At the Triumphal paper-spinning manufactory, the trepanning machine released a lot of dust, hoods and fans acted unsatisfactorily. At the Putilov plant in the iron foundry, there was a complete absence of artificial devices for the rapid removal of carbon monoxide and other caustic gases.

Factory inspection officials reacted to the workers' statements. They conducted investigations and gave conclusions. As a rule, they stated the fact of a violation, but at the same time indicated that the factory inspection was already aware of it, and promised to take action. However, even the adoption of measures did not lead to an improvement in working conditions. In particular, the senior factory inspector of the St. Petersburg province, S. A. Lebedev, sent a letter to entrepreneur Cheshire, one of the owners of the Nikolskaya Manufactory, with a proposal to eliminate some unacceptable aspects at the enterprise that affected labor safety. In response, a reply was received, in which all the facts were denied. Cheshire's letter was attached to the case, and the measures of the factory inspection were exhausted ^{[6, pp. 125-126]}. The exception was the transfer of information to higher-level organizations. S. A. Lebedev, in a document dated February 9, 1909 under the heading "Secret", reported on the unsatisfactory state of ventilation at the Nikolskaya Manufactory and reported that workers complain of swallowing large amounts of dust, which contributes to diseases ^{[7, L. 34-35]}. A year later, after visiting the same manufactory, Lebedev noted that the air in some departments of the factory was still extremely spoiled, the requirement for ventilation was not fulfilled ^{[6, pp. 126-127]}.

The statistics providing information on those injured at St. Petersburg enterprises did not reflect the number of workers who lost their ability to work due to occupational diseases. In more detail, the issue of the incidence of St. Petersburg metalworkers could be traced in the analysis of data on two enterprises: The Baltic Shipbuilding state-owned Plant and the Mechanical Plant of the Westinghouse Joint-Stock Company, which provided data on the number of cases. At the same time, it is not possible to identify the exact number of occupational diseases. The morbidity of workers at the Baltic plant was very high. In 1902-1906, the number of cases exceeded 100% of the available workforce on average per year. The data on the Baltic Plant make it possible to establish a direct link between morbidity and working conditions of workers. Lung diseases were mainly suffered by assemblers, drills, carpenters and painters – workers who had to inhale metal or other dust. Heart disease was most common among blacksmiths and hammers who were subjected to heavy physical exertion. Finally, machinists and stokers had the largest number of hernia diseases. And, in general, the morbidity rate of factory workers was closely related to the degree of physical overstrain. The percentage of morbidity of workers at the Westinghouse plant in 1903-1904 was higher than at the Baltic plant, although the average figures in both cases are approximately equal. 20% of the diseases were various forms of bronchitis. In second place among the diseases was catarrh of the stomach and intestines, as a result of poor nutrition of workers ^{[6, pp. 129-132]}. The incidence even among the leading categories of the factory industry - metalworkers and textile workers was very high. However, it must be borne in mind that these workers were concentrated mainly in large enterprises and were still in slightly better conditions than workers in other industries ^{[6, p. 134]}.

Special attention is paid to the issue of occupational morbidity of women. During the period under study, women began to work in metallurgy (formerly a purely male industry). According to the St. Petersburg census of 1890, only 34 women were noted among metalworkers, and in 1900 their number already exceeded one thousand people ^{[6, p. 45]}.

In enterprises, women were not given rest before and after childbirth, unlike enterprises in some foreign countries, such as Sweden, Germany and Norway, where such a system already existed ^{[8, p. 33]}. In St. Petersburg, pregnant women were provided with rest only at the Leontiev brothers' enterprise ^{[8, p. 35]}. Grueling work, lack of rest during pregnancy and medical support, and an acute shortage of maternity hospitals in St. Petersburg led to the fact that the mortality rate of children among mothers working in factories was approximately 54%. Most of the survivors were a special type of children, which was called "factory children". They were weak, lagged behind in development, and a large percentage of them were considered unfit to serve military service in the future ^{[8, p. 34]}.

Women worked especially hard in textile enterprises. They contracted tuberculosis from dust, heat and humid air. Since the buildings were built in several floors, the floors were shaken by the operation of the equipment, which caused the workers to feel dizzy and neurasthenia. The noise of the looms made the women deaf. At the dressing and dyeing factories, the air temperature reached 45 °^. The workers' skin peeled off and their teeth crumbled; they took an antidote daily to prevent poisoning with black aniline. At the state-owned Card factory, 3/4 of the workers were women. My eyesight was particularly affected by gas lighting and other negative factors. The presence of talcum powder in the air and the 32-degree heat caused the women to suffer from anemia and tuberculosis. Working conditions in match factories were especially dangerous. After working for some time, the workers began to have inflammation of the periosteum, rotting of the jaws; gradually all the bones softened and broke from minor causes. No less dangerous was the work at chemical enterprises. For example, at the Okhta state-owned powder mills, in workshops for the production of acids, within 10 years after starting work, workers died from diseases and general exhaustion of the body. There is also information that working conditions in shoe factories, including the largest of them, the enterprise of the Skorokhod partnership, were hard labor ^{[8, pp. 35-37]}.In March 1914, at the enterprises of St. Petersburg "Triangle", "Laferm", "A.N. Bogdanov and Co.", "A.N. Shaposhnikov Co.", "Kolobov and Bobrov" there was a mass poisoning of workers. The members of the Council of the St. Petersburg Society of Breeders and Manufacturers at a meeting on March 19, 1914 decided that the factory management was not to blame for what happened, and blamed everything on "mass psychosis". At the meeting of the Council, it was proposed to dismiss workers who have been absent from work for more than a week and not pay for downtime. Meanwhile, the diseases took on wide dimensions, therefore, the Department of Industrial Labor of the Ministry of Trade and Industry sent a circular to all members of the factory inspection, ordering them to immediately indicate to these enterprises the need to establish incessant duty of doctors and daily reports on the number of cases ^{[9, pp. 124-125]}. It was found that the cause of poisoning of female workers at the Triangle enterprise was the use of cheap but harmful glue ^{[8, p. 36]}.

S. I. Kaplun, a medical scientist, doctor, hygienist, professor, founder of the scientific school, organizer of the first Department of Occupational Hygiene, has repeatedly noted the close relationship between mortality and certain particularly harmful aspects of professional work. He drew attention to the fact that occupational working conditions caused diseases that were found exclusively in workers, since other classes of society did not face these dangers of work. Kaplun particularly noted that, first of all, all the dangers of industrial labor affect a woman ^{[10, pp. 35-36]}. In his work "Occupational Safety and its organs", one can find practice-oriented sound proposals to reduce the level of occupational morbidity. He clearly structured his results of the analytical work carried out: negative factors of production, consequences, measures to minimize the consequences. The author noted that when working with standing or lifting excessive weights, there were changes in the skeleton or individual bones. As a result, curvature of the spine, humps, curvature of the knees, a flat foot appeared, causing excruciating pain when walking; in addition, a constant standing position, preventing the correct outflow of blood from the lower extremities, caused its stagnation, which in turn resulted in dilated veins on the legs and persistent ulcers that are difficult to treat. The proposed option for reducing occupational diseases in this case was the use of benches in all industries where you had to stand for a long time in a row, so that from time to time the worker would give himself a few minutes to rest while sitting. It was very important to limit the weight of lifted and carried weights to certain limits. Heavy physical labor caused excessive overstrain of all organs, as a result of which there were diseases of the heart, lungs, muscles; hernias. It was proposed to combat all the dangers caused by increased stress on individual organs by reducing and correctly distributing working hours, improving general hygienic working conditions, and most importantly – by introducing new, improved, significantly eliminating all harmful aspects of production methods. Some professions required constant strain of vision, often it was supplemented by poor lighting. This led to persistent myopia. The most obvious measure was the provision of normal lighting and compliance with the regime of work and rest of the eyes. The workers had to be able to suspend work for visual gymnastics. In many industries, including those related to metal smelting and casting, rubber vulcanization and firing, workers were exposed to excessively high temperatures. With the intense heat of the environment, the correct heat output of the human body was upset, increased tissue breakdown began, the person lost weight and weakened. There has been the development of skin diseases due to body pollution, as well as the development of rheumatic and colds. As a result of quenching the constantly tormenting thirst, acute and chronic diseases of the digestive organs appeared. A number of sanitary measures were recommended here. First of all, the radical isolation of workshops with constant or even temporary high temperatures from all other work spaces. The next measure was the mechanization of production, as far as it was technically possible. The main means of labor, furnaces, had to be surrounded by good casings made of non-conductive heat material. Enhanced ventilation, humidification with special devices, the supply of workers in hot workshops with a sufficient amount of boiled water, the use of all these simple methods could facilitate the labor process.

Workers employed in workshops where the air was excessively humid and oversaturated with water vapor had rheumatism, a tendency to catch a cold, as well as frequent injuries and mutilations, as the fog covered even close objects with a thick veil. To improve their working conditions, as an option, it was proposed to lay cemented floors with proper drains and wooden decking, and use special protective waterproof clothing. Among the representatives of professions associated with severe tension of the respiratory organs, not only emphysema was common, but also an increased predisposition to all lung diseases, including pulmonary tuberculosis ^{[11, pp. 299-302]}, which has long been ranked among the so-called social diseases. Kaplun noted that this disease claimed millions of lives every year ^{[10, p. 30]}. Dust has always been one of the most dangerous factors of industrial labor affecting health. In order to streamline the fight against it, the dust was classified by type. Acute and containing pathogens of various diseases were particularly dangerous ^{[11, p. 302]}. The author gave relative indicators of coordination of the number of patients with lung diseases. They are presented in the table.

Table

The average number of cases of lung diseases per 1,000 people at the enterprises of the factory industry in the early twentieth century, (people)

^{[11, p. 303]}.

These tables show a direct relationship between working conditions and the number of cases: in dusty rooms, lung morbidity rates increase 2-3 times, and tuberculosis accounts for a significant part of lung diseases.

It should be noted that almost 100% of printing workers suffered from tuberculosis ^{[6, p. 127]}.

Due to significant morbidity rates, special attention has always been paid to dust removal in production. Measures to improve the production method itself that needed to be taken: 1) conducting all processes of grinding, grinding and mixing of dry materials in hermetically sealed devices; 2) storage and transportation of sprayable substances in tightly closed vessels; 3) pouring from one vessel to another automatically through special devices covered throughout; 4) replacing, if technology allows, dry grinding with wet; 5) more complete closure of dust-forming machines with covers.

The use of conventional ventilation in this case would not bring the desired result, but it could be achieved by using strong mechanical fans and removing dust with special suction pneumatic devices. If all of the above was impossible, then the last resort remained: the use of personal protective equipment.

The issue of labor in enterprises where industrial poisons took place has always deserved special attention: lead, mercury, phosphorus. For example, when working with lead paints, the occupational morbidity was one hundred percent. Obviously, the fight against poisoning should have been carried out before by changing production methods aimed at completely replacing toxic substances with harmless ones, but, unfortunately, this was practically not possible. Therefore, the most obvious thing remained: compliance with a number of sanitary and hygienic requirements at work, strict observance of personal hygiene ^{[11, pp. 303-305]}. All the proposed measures to improve working conditions could be applied at enterprises, including St. Petersburg.

Inadequate working conditions were complemented by limited legislation in the field of social insurance, which was provided through the labor protection system. At the beginning of the twentieth century. in Russia, there was a constant organizational link between occupational safety and social insurance against industrial accidents, and later against diseases, including occupational diseases, and their issues were very closely linked.

Support for workers with occupational diseases was not provided at the State level. The Law of June 2, 1903 "Rules on remuneration of workers and employees injured as a result of accidents, as well as members of their families, in enterprises of the factory, mining and mining industry" provided for payments only in case of injury, and even then under certain conditions. The law did not provide a direct answer to the question of provision in case of occupational disease, but, according to Article 1, it was possible to accurately distinguish two categories of bodily injuries caused by work and those that occurred as a result of work ^{[12, p. 600]}. Precisely, occupational diseases could be attributed to the second category, but due to the lack of clarification, the law of 1903 practically excluded the responsibility of entrepreneurs for occupational diseases ^{[5, p. 91]}. Disability was not protected by law or judicial practice. An analysis of the situations in which employees applied for compensation showed that they were either simply refused, or they still owed money ^{[5, pp. 94-95]}. Only in case of attribution of occupational diseases to accidents would the issue of payments be feasible. However, this did not happen, since the legislator did not give an accurate definition of an occupational disease, noting only that it differs in the duration of development and there are almost always no injuries ^{[5, p. 93]}. At the legislative level, possible support remained – shortening the working day ^{[11, p. 305]}. As for entrepreneurs, they unanimously opposed remuneration for occupational diseases ^{[5, p. 92]}.

It was not possible to put occupational diseases and injuries on a par due to the fact that not only was the concept of occupational disease itself absent; it was necessary to establish a causal relationship between its acquisition and working conditions ^{[13, l.7]}, separation of occupational diseases from "ordinary" ^{[13, l.11]}. The question remained open about the place of acquisition of the disease during the transition of an employee from one production to another ^{[13, L.7]}.

There was no legislation on occupational diseases, the need to adopt such laws was due to difficult, harmful working conditions, and a shift in this direction occurred at the beginning of the twentieth century. in connection with the adoption of the law "On providing workers in case of illness" dated 06/23/1912 and the approval of the "Rules on safety measures for work in establishments of the factory industry" dated 03/31/1913

Only since the entry into force of the set of laws of 1912, workers were entitled to receive sickness benefits (regardless of whether the disease was occupational or not), which was based on insurance principles, that is, it was paid at the expense of non-refundable contributions ^{[14, pp. 855-868]}. The provided social guarantee did not particularly affect the level of occupational morbidity, which remained quite high due to the lack of an adequate occupational safety system.

In 1913, all existing laws in the field of labor safety in Russia, including the "Rules on work safety measures in establishments of the factory industry" were allocated to the Charter "On Industrial Labor". The "rules" obliged the owners of enterprises to take measures to ensure safe working conditions, for the first time requirements were imposed on clean air, room temperature, safety of explosive, toxic and harmful substances and the procedure for their issuance ^{[15, pp. 332-338]}.

Thus, the development of industry in the early twentieth century required the regulation of labor legislation, including in the field of labor protection. Harmful, dangerous, heavy industries contributed to the emergence and growth of diseases among workers, however, laws that could compensate for the damage to health suffered as a result of professional work were in a state of formation. In addition, some business owners were not concerned about the working conditions of workers, they put the task of maximizing profit at the forefront without additional costs for the creation of health-saving technologies in production. In a situation of high labor supply in the labor market, there was no need to protect the employee, but outbreaks of morbidity and the growth of the strike movement among workers required the state and entrepreneurs to start working on issues related to occupational diseases at the legislative level.