Incentives

THE subject of this short paper was chosen quite deliberately-not because one has any fresh contribution to make to it, nor because it can be summarised briefly, but because it gives me yet another opportunity of saying that the practice of Occupational Medicine is more than the provision of casualty services, the study of toxic hazards, and the diagnosis and prevention of industrial diseases. Toxic hazards and industrial diseases are relatively rare (with a few obvious exceptions), but few will deny that in the industrial community boredom, vague ill health, and psychosomatic illnesses are not uncommon. Even if these problems were not presented to him in his study of absenteeism, in his scrutiny of accident rates, in his recognition of accident-prone individuals, in his perusal of medical certificates, and in his knowledge of persistent lateness in the morning occurring in certain groups, they would be thrust at the doctor in industry by the steady stream of men and women to his consulting-room, whose failure to achieve harmony in their industrial relationships is the greatest of their ills. The medical department of any factory is the place where the first signs of a breakdown in morale can be detected-long before industrial unrest (with consequent fall in production, and, in the end, strikes) develops. It behoves us therefore to try to understand what constitutes "Morale," and what factors can influence it. The recognition that it can be influenced is acceptance of the fact that morale is a dynamic and not a static force. Just as it can deteriorate as a result of wrong actions and attitudes, so it can be made to improve, if we understand its nature and the kind of therapeutics to exhibit. Morale in the individual is a mental quality intimately bound up with mental health, efficiency at work, and happiness. Group morale differs from individual morale. It is not the sum nor the average of the morale of the individuals who make up the group-if one can speak of it in those terms. It is usually lower and much less mature-as I have seen many times amongst shop stewards, who, in the consulting-room are usually very reasonable fellows, but on the platform at a mass meeting, in the presence of their mates, may be hysterically unreasonable. The group, however, is much more susceptible of suggestion, and it is through the technique of suggestion, whether direct or indirect, whether …