Reliability

“ All this talk about 'efficiency' is really part of the same movement, though very few realize it; it's nothing more or less than cutting out guess work and waste—and what else, after all, is our Safety work? ”

“ Physical health and vigor, and mental strength and power, are to a great degree a matter of hereditary transmission, over which the individual has no control. Yet, taking our natures as they are, we can renovate, reinvigorate, and advance them by attentive study of and conformity to the laws upon which health and vigor are based. I propose in the present article briefly to glance at the chief physical agencies—air, exercise, clothing, food, and rest—and at some of the mental and moral influences, by the bad or good employment of which the physical stock is deteriorated or improved. ”

“ But I believe that the practical principle in which safety resides, the ideal to be kept in view, the standard by which to test all arrangements intended for overcoming the difficulty, may be conveyed in these words: the greatest dissemination of power consistent with efficiency ”

“ Where so much depends on personal observation, and the adaptation of our knowledge to special circumstances, the acquirements which are most essential to success are a practical familiarity with the different phases of disease, and a well-grounded confidence in the administration of remedies—acquirements which the greatest talent will not command without steady, persevering industry, and which any man of moderate ability may possess, if, with a determined will, he devote himself to their attainment. ”

“ Assurance is more than life. It is health, strength, power, vigor, activity, energy, manliness, beauty. ”

“ The factors of safety are indeterminable; the duplications of their internal mechanisms are conjectural, variable. The strength of the unit is the sum of the strengths of its members. The weakness of the unit can be a single small failing in a single man. ”

“ If I will to watch for stars, or to measure places of heavenly bodies, or to be guided in the determination of my will by the appearance of certain chemical precipitates in test-tubes, or to stake my fortune in the stock-market, or to be determined in my acts by the empirical outcome of this patient’s disease, — well, in all such cases, it is an experience that I first am to accept as the determination of my purpose. ”

“ Business will some day become clean. A machine that stops every little while is an imperfect machine, and its imperfection is within itself. A body that falls sick every little while is a diseased body, and its disease is within itself. ”

“ In prevention, by what we might call social betterment, it is sought to reach the will, heart or judgment of the individual by altering the strength or direction of some of the forces of his social environment, or by transfering him to new surroundings. ”

“ In such emergencies, surrounded by frightful danger, exposed to fatal consequences by a false step or an error in judgment, the safety of valuable lives hanging upon a thread, experience allied to calmness, and cool self-reliance under the most trying contingencies, is essential to successful operation. ”

“ A method of inspection and repair by which the man who inspects will be required to have some mechanical experience, who can talk and understand English and comprehend what the result will be if he fails to discover defects and have them remedied, and who will report, not to a foreman whose duty it is to repair the defect, but to a superior whose business it is to find them. ”

“ In most other forms of disease, individuals may [Pg 6] exercise their own judgment or preferences in the selection of medical attendants, nurses, and such appliances as may be thought necessary to comfort and recovery; they more or less fully realize their own condition and requirements, are capable, in some measure at least, of controlling their desires and feelings, and of explaining their experiences, and are generally influenced by such favorable indications as may arise in the progress of their diseases. ”

“ Sound judgment based on long experience, knowledge of conditions under which the work immediately in hand must be done, observation, and accurate, deductive reasoning as to the causes of failure are absolutely necessary for success. ”

“ So that there appears to be two divisions of usefulness,—safety and power. Safety is the secure and unimpaired preservation of a sound state. Power is a possession of things suitable to preserving what is one's own, and to acquiring what belongs to another. ”

“ Cases similar to this are of constant occurrence, and are familiarly known to medical men who have a principle to account for it. The continual operation of exciting causes so as to produce a certain degree of action of the system, will prevent, as well as remedy, diseases of debility. ”

“ But the patient, plodding work which gives a universal system of units and related standards, and which enables a great physical subject like electricity and magnetism to rise from a mere enumeration of qualitative results to a science of the most delicate and exact measurement, and to find its practical applications in all the affairs of daily life and commerce, is equally deserving of the admiration and gratitude of mankind. ”

“ These wide powers of self-support and adjustment overbalance a hundred times any little remnant defects in its machinery or gearing. Easily ninety-nine per cent of all our troubles through life are due to inevitable wear and tear, scarcity of food-fuel, of water, of rest, and external accidents—injuries and infectious diseases. ”

“ Health fortified by such conditions as the organism depends upon for its fabrication and maintenance opposes itself to all exciting causes of disease by the relative integrity, strength and vigor of all the organs and functions of the body. ”

“ One must have a cool, quick, and accurate appreciation of the margin of safety under all circumstances; it is the utilization of this entire margin—to the very verge—that yields the largest results in the way of rapid progress. ”

“ Only the healthy should keep these rules. Whoever is ill or a sufferer from any injuries, or has lost his health through bad habits, for him there are special rules for each disease, only to be found [Pg 105] in the medical books. Let it be remembered that every change in a life habit is the beginning of an ailment.
21. If no physician can be secured, then ailing people may use these rules as well as the healthy.
These rules are, of course, full of the common sense of medicine that endures at all times. ”

“ All the profound study of hygiene and of the art of healing for the men of our circle are like the efforts of a mechanic, who, having stopped all the valves of an overheated engine, should invent something to prevent this engine from bursting. ”

“ This artifice for restoring health to a bedridden patient, is not mentioned in a way of approbation, but of regret, or at least of confession. Yet, while it declares my weakness, it develops or at least confirms a well-known principle, which it concerns mankind, patients as well as physicians, most fully and clearly to understand. The medical efficiency of an agent is greatly enhanced when the mind can be made to go along with it. ”

“ To PRESERVE HEALTH,–to guard against disease, should be the object, on the score of economy, comfort, and safety; and this may be accomplished in all cases, unless under rare and very peculiar circumstances of exposure. A uniform state of health may be maintained until old age, by a careful observance of the rules already set forth. ”

“ He must have a natural love of order and of cleanliness, and a systematic type of mind. This position calls for a man with an experience that will enable him to detect liability of breakdowns before they actually occur. He must be resourceful in repairing unexpected breakdowns in an emergency, and be able at all times to carry out literally the directions given on the instruction cards of the Planning Department for cleaning, maintaining, and repairing the machines. ”

“ At the present time we are far from knowing all the functions of the various parts of the human engine, as is shown by the number of investigators in physiology at the present time. Present-day problems have much to do with the care of the human mechanism and with its surroundings. The solution of these problems will come from applying the sciences of hygiene, preventive medicine, and sanitation. ”

“ Therefore, under Traditional Management there is no way of knowing that good health and increased strength will result from the work, and we know that in many cases poor health and depleted strength have been the outcome of the work. ”

“ Safety leaders have demonstrated that accidents and injuries can be effectively reduced by greater caution in work habits, by consistent use of protective equipment, and by careful planning for emergencies. ”

“ The efficiency of each of these body regulators is increased by the use of right proportions of the others. They supplement each other’s efforts like partners in a well organized business enterprise, each with its particular function and responsibility. ”

“ The maladies and defects which we detect in modern industry are but the measure of a present maladjustment.
"The progessive adjustment of a structure to environment in the unconscious or low conscious world is necessarily slow. But where the conscious will of man, either as an individual or as a society, can be utilized for an adjusting force, the pace of progress may be indefinitely quickened. ”

“ First let it be said, that the very fact of one's holding the thought of perfect health sets into operation vital forces which will in time be more or less productive of the effect,—perfect health. Then speaking more directly in regard to the great principle itself, from its very nature, it is clear that more can be accomplished through the process of realization than through the process of affirmation, though for some affirmation may be a help, an aid to realization. ”

“ Anatomy and Physiology, through their effects on the practice of medicine and hygiene, modify our actions almost as much as does our acquaintance with the evils and benefits which common environing agencies may produce on our bodies. All Science is prevision; and all prevision ultimately aids us in greater or less degree to achieve the good and avoid the bad. As certainly as the perception of an object lying in our path warns us against stumbling over it ”

“ Colonel George B. Waring, Jr., sanitary engineer, addressing the public through the daily press, gives the following advice: "Let us take no step backward in the essential improvement of the adjuncts of our daily life. Let us only lop off luxurious superfluities, and see that what is really needed is good. ”

“ So long as the phenomena of waste and repair are in harmony—so long, in other words, as the builder follows the scavenger—so long man exists in integrity and repair—just, indeed, as houses exist. Derange nutrition, and at once degeneration, or rather let us say, alteration begins. ”

“ What may be termed the balance of power or just distribution of force in the various parts of our physical and mental nature—according to each individual type—is essential to the perfection of the organization—it is, indeed, the measure of health. It is attained and preserved by the due exercise of all the functions of our nature. ”

“ Whatever your line of business may be, you may rest assured that an analysis of its needs will disclose numerous departments in which specific mental tests and devices may be employed with a great saving in time and money and a vastly increased efficiency and output of working energy. ”

“ All who are accustomed to manufacturing operations are aware that, notwithstanding the apparent simplicity of any new problem, the development of a practical working process involves a large amount of patient investigation, frequent experiments, and a not inconsiderable number of partial or seeming failures before complete success can be attained. ”

“ I have spoken of the work of prevention, of the more important work of substitution, and I now come to the most important of all—the spirit of confidence which extended from top to bottom of the huge organization that the great mass of our men would go straight for the sake of going straight. ”

“ Just as many as you need; no more, no less. So long as there is anything wrong in the system, crises will come and go; but each crisis, if successfully passed, is another milestone on the road to perfect health. ”

“ It has ever been my experience, and that also of others, that the fewer precautions one takes, the more one relies on Nature to take care of one instead of on impracticable devices—the better for one's health in the end. ”

“ Approved schemes for the comfort and welfare of work people are also suggested by counsellors thoroughly aware that contentment is great gain, that pure air, good light, and the utmost feasible safety, contribute to the balance sheet not less than the quickest lathe tools or the best wound dynamo. ”

“ The variations of our health alone are capable of causing a variation in the intensity and quality of our productions.
“With a maximum of physical and moral health, we produce a maximum of physical and moral results. Our manual labour and our intellectual productions are always exactly proportionate to the integrity of our mechanism.” ”

“ It is impossible to tabulate in so many words the effect which this habit has on efficiency and temperament. We read and hear a great deal to-day about efficiency. Now, an individual's efficiency is an expression of that individual's health standard or capacity. To be 100 per cent. efficient one must enjoy good health. ”