Workmen's Compensation: Its Medical Aspect

The compensation of workmen for ' accident' during the course or as a result of occupation is thirty-six years old in England. Like many other enactments of this nature, its apparent initial simplicity is a delusion, and some of the legal, medico-legal, and medical aspects are vague and indeterminate. The words 'by accident' occur in various sections of the Act, but are nowhere defined. It required ultimate appeal to the House of Lords to decide whether rupture occurring to a workman in the course of his duty was ' an accident,.' in the meaning of the Act. On the other hand mental derangement and suicide have been held to be ' accidents' in the sense of the Act. In England, medical practitioners, under the National Insurance Act and the Workmen's Compensation Act, may have important relations with their industrial patients and upon their judgment may depend very important issues. Sir John Collie has had a large experience both as medical adviser, consultant and referee in workmen's compensation cases. He gives excellent and detailed advice how to approach such cases and how to conduct their medical examination. In various chapters he discusses the common diseases and disabilities which are the result of accident, and shows how to apportion these diseases to their proper causes, both ordinary and occupational. He has excellent advice for the medical men who willingly or unwillingly may be called on to give evidence in the witness box in workmen's cases. There is a Workmen's Compensation Act in India, but owing to the nature of the law the ordinary medical practitioner here does not come into such close contact with these cases ah in England. Nevertheless, the book will be found of very great interest and is one to be kept in mind for reference by the specialist and the practitioners here who may be called upon to deal with such cases of