1918 War Work: on munition workers & epidemics

MRC Special Reports on the wastage of labour in munitions factories employing women and on the prevalence and aetiology of tuberculosis among industrial workers made recommendations to reduce multiple attacks of disease and repeated accidents. The reports also led to important methodological work by Greenwood, Yule and Newbold on how to analyse multiple happenings.

Greenwood’s 1918 treatise in British Medical Journal on the epidemiology of influenza had already recognised the risk to pregnant women and increase in severity across three epidemic waves, which were both evident in 21st century swine-flu.

During World War II, tuberculosis was an ongoing concern but changes to licensing laws during and after the First World War had helped to reduce industrial accidents.

References

1. 1918 MRC Special Report Series No16. A report on the causes of wastage of labour in munitions factories employing women.
2. Greenwood M. The epidemiology of influenza.  British Medical Journal 1918; ii: 563-66.
3. 1919 MRC Special Report Series No 22. An inquiry into the prevalence and aetiology of tuberculosis among industrial workers, with special reference to female munitions workers.
4. Greenwood M, Yule GU. An inquiry into the nature of frequency distributions representative of multiple happenings with particular reference to the occurrence of multiple attacks of disease or of repeated accidents. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 1920; 83: 255-279.
5. 1942 MRC Special Report Series No 246. Report of the Committee on Tuberculosis in War-Time.
6. Fowke H (late Woods). The effect of supplements of vitamins and minerals on the health of girls. British Medical Journal 1943; ii: 519-ZZZ.
7. 1944 MRC Special Report Series No 248. Committee on Hospital Morbidity Statistics: A provisional classification of diseases and injuries for use in compiling morbidity statistics.

[/callout]