Conservative. Idaho. Software engineer. Historian. Trying to prevent Idiocracy from becoming a documentary.
Email complaints/requests about copyright infringement to clayton @ claytoncramer.com. Reminder: the last copyright troll that bothered me went bankrupt.
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Sunday, January 29, 2017
Phossy Jaw
I am watching Ripper Street, a grim show about Victorian police work in the East End of London. Tonight's episode was centered on "phossy jaw," a disfiguring poisoning of female match workers caused by exposure to white phosphorous (hence the name). Many years ago, a Salvation Army officer told me that the Army played a big part in ending phossy jaw. I could never find anything about that, but Google's continuing digitizing of books has paid off. D.E.C. Corbridge, Phosphorus: Chemistry, Biochemistry and Technology, Sixth Edition describes how the Salvation Army set up match factories in London using a new safer technology, competing with "the vested interests" and to improve wages for the workers. Talk about putting your faith in action!
The Salvation Army is definitely one of the Good Guys. They're one of the few charities that I support, having found to my dismay that many so-called "charities" are really just vehicles to pay their executives large salaries and give them first-class travel and accomodation.
ReplyDeleteI will not ever donate to the Red Cross for that reason.