The air was thick with cotton dust and fluff in the mills. Water provided for drinking was covered in cotton fluff. In some of the mill sheds the temperature reached as high as 82º (20º centigrade). The noise from machinery was deafening. Floors were slippery with machinery oil so people worked barefoot to avoid slipping and falling on the oily floor. There were few safety measures and many accidents. Workers also suffered from many different illnesses. People often worked overtime or during their breaks. The air was thick with cotton dust and fluff in the mills. Water provided for drinking was covered in cotton fluff. Often there were only a couple of toilets for all the workers and the stench was overpowering. In some of the mill sheds the temperature reached as high as 82º (20º C). The noise from machinery was deafening. Floors were slippery with machinery oil so employees worked barefoot to avoid slipping and falling on the oily floor. Workers suffered from many different illnesses. Chest complaints and headaches were common. Sores, abscesses and rickets were caused by malnutrition. The air was so thick with cotton dust it could lead to byssinosis (chest complaint). Food taken into the mill was covered in dust and fluff and children often suffered from dehydration after refusing to drink water clogged up with cotton fluff. Poor sanitation and contaminated water supplies led to epidemics of cholera and typhoid while typhus was spread through lice. Tuberculosis and influenza, which are airborne diseases, flourished in the damp unhealthy overcrowded conditions. There were also outbreaks of dysentery and smallpox. Edwin Chadwick in his Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain showed that '...in 1839 for every person who died of old age or violence, eight died of specific diseases...'; and that one in three children died before they were five. A description of mill workers by a medical worker in 1833 is horrifyingly unflattering: '...their complexion is sallow and pallid--with a peculiar flatness of feature, caused by the want of a proper quantity of adipose substance [fatty tissue] to cushion out the cheeks...their stature low--the average height of four hundred men, measured at different times, and different places, being five feet six inches...their limbs slender, and playing badly and ungracefully...a very general bowing of the legs...great numbers of girls and women walking lamely or awkwardly, with raised chests and spinal flexures...nearly all have flat feet, accompanied with a down-tread, differing very widely from the elasticity of action in the foot and ankle, attendant upon perfect formation...hair thin and straight--many of the men having but little beard, and that in patches of a few hairs...' from P. Gaskell, The Manufacturing Population of England. (London, 1833) There were few safety measures and many accidents. Machinery had no safety guards. Cleaning or maintenance was carried out while the machinery was working since stoppages meant time and money. If children were cleaning underneath a working machine and did not move quickly enough through the moving parts they were very badly injured. Often exhausted from gruelling hours of repetitive or heavy work, children fell asleep on the job or simply lost their concentration. For this they could be ducked in the drinking water; or they were beaten and thrown downstairs, suffering bruises and broken limbs. Some of the treatments were horrendous. There was no National Health Service so all medical care had to be paid for by the recipient. If someone was injured at work, a letter would be sent to the hospital with the victim stating that the mill would pay for any treatment. Without this letter many would not get treatment from the hospital. Sometimes a mill would delay the letter a few days and by this time a wound would have begun to heal imperfectly or a limb start to mend crookedly. Most mills had their own doctors but workers still had to pay for treatments for illness or infection out of their own wages. Potions, poultices (hot soft herb paste wrapped in cloth and pressed against infected wound or source of pain to soothe and heal) and various herbs were used to treat minor ailments. Arsenic was considered good for skin complaints. The Apprentice House doctor at Quarry Bank Mill treated headaches by placing a very hot poultice on the forehead, pressing it there until a large blister had formed, and then lancing the blister. This was so painful it often caused the patient to forget about their headache completely. Live leeches were frequently used in treatment, being placed on the body to bleed the patient and suck out the poison. Often they just caused patients to become weak and anaemic. Anti-biotics did not exist in the 19th century and more serious illnesses were frequently fatal. Lack of proteins (from meat, fish, nuts, cheese, milk, eggs and butter) and vitamins from animal products, fruit and vegetables) causes tiredness, hinders growth, and results in illness. Proteins plus vitamins A and C help the body to fight infections; vitamin B is essential for healthy growth; lack of vitamin D leads to rickets (softening of bones/bone deformities). Mill workers ate bread, oatcakes, watery porridge, potatoes, and a little bacon. Sometimes the porridge was flavoured with onions. Porridge was also made in thick lumps so it could be eaten with the hands at work. Tripe (sheep stomach lining), slink (calf born too early), and broxy (diseased sheep) were regarded as treats by the poorest. Fresh foods were at a premium except usually for potatoes. Bread, porridge, potatoes and oatcakes do not have many proteins or vitamins. A series of the disastrous harvests during the first twenty five years of the 19th century, followed barely twenty years later by potato blight disease and yet another poor harvest in 1845, threatened the two main diet staples of bread and potatoes. The repeal of the Corn Laws brought down the price of bread but many still went hungry. In Ireland thousands died and thousands more emigrated to Liverpool in search of work. The need for cheaper food was met by 'scientific farming methods' (using chemical fertilisers); feeding cattle through the winter on cottonseed and linseed cakes; and the development (during the early years of the 19th century) of food presevation through 'heat processing' followed by storage in glass jars or tins. Although these methods of food production could produce the quantities of cheap food required, quality suffered since often vitamins and proteins are destroyed or damaged by artificial growth and processing. Taste and texture could also be radically altered. Compare fresh carrots cooked in boiling water (and a pinch of salt or sugar) with tinned carrots re-heated in a pan and frozen carrots heated in a microwave oven. Cheaper foods, or to be more precise, greater profits, were also obtained by putting additives in food. 'Salt butter is moulded into the form of pounds of fresh butter, and cased over with fresh. In other instances a pound of fresh is conspicuously placed to be tasted; but that pound is not sold; and in other instances salt butter, washed is moulded and sold as fresh...pounded rice and other cheap materials are mixed in sugar, and sold at full monopoly price. A chemical substance...the refuse of the soap manufactories...is also mixed with other substances and sold as sugar...chicory is mixed in good coffee. Chicory, or some similarly cheap substance, is skilfully moulded into the form of the coffee berry, and it is mixed with the bulk very liberally...cocoa is extensively adulterated with fine brown earth, wrought up with mutton fat, so as to amalgamate with portions of the real article...the leaves of tea are mingled with sloe levies and other abominations. Used leaves are also re-dried, and re-coloured on hot copper plates, and sold as tea. Pepper is adulterated with dust from husks etc; port wine is altogether manufactured (from spirits, dyes etc.), it being notorious that more port wine is drunk in this country than is made in Portugal. Nasty things of all sorts are mixed with weed tobacco in all its manufactured forms.' (Liverpool Mercury quoted in Engels, Friedrich. Condition of the Working Class in England. 1845) Click on Health and Diet Collection to view images and narratives and learn more about ailments, treatments, diet and deficiencies. 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