IT is claimed for this volume of some 900 closely printed pages that it constitutes the first serious attempt in this or indeed any other country to deal comprehensively with the conduct of trades in relation to the life and health of the workers. And there is a certain fitness in the fact that such a book should first be produced here and that its authors should be British, inasmuch as Great Britain has led the van in factory legislation as she has hitherto led it in industrial enterprise. Industrial enterprise and the economic and social amelioration of the worker inevitably go together, for in proportion as each country advances in commercial prosperity and in economic development, higher ideals of comfort and higher standards of industrial hygiene are demanded by its people. Our own legislative attempts to secure these began with the opening years of the last century, and have been made the basis of, and the occasion for, similar attempts abroad. The general result has been that during the last forty or fifty years the lot of the artisan has been everywhere brightened by the improvement of the conditions under which much of his labour has to be performed. Dangerous Trades: the Historical, Social, and Legal Aspects of Industrial Occupations as affecting Health. By a number of Experts. Edited by Thomas Oliver (London: John Murray, 1902.)