Marc Linder

Thirst at work--an occupational hazard?

Of 1492 teachers 791 (53%) responded to a survey addressing whether voiding habits at work or behavioral factors influenced by this occupation predisposed women to urinary tract infection. The mean number of voids during the work day was 2.7±1.4; 24.5% voided infrequently (never or only once) and 26.5% voided four or more times during the work day; 15.8% had had a urinary tract infection in the preceding year. Half of the respondents made a conscious effort to drink less while working, to avoid needing to use the toilet. There was no association between the prevalence of urinary tract infection and the number of voids or infrequent voiding at work. Compared to women who drank the volume they desired at work, those who drank less had a 2.21-fold higher risk (95% CI 1.45–3.38) of urinary tract infection after controlling for being parous, voiding infrequently at work, and urge incontinence. Further study is warranted to determine whether modification of behavioral factors at work can reduce the incidence of urinary tract infections. If this association holds, public policy must be changed to allow workers more adequate access to toilet facilities.

A History of Medical Scientists on High Heels

For 250 years medical scientists have propagandized about the health hazards of high-heeled shoes, which originated four centuries ago. Physicians, however, largely unaware of their own professions tradition, keep reinventing the diagnostic wheel. This professional amnesia has held back the momentum of the process of educating the public. Consequently, despite these warnings, millions of women continue to wear high-heeled shoes. This article describes the history of the medical professions recognition of this worldwide health problem and the current understanding of the deleterious and often irreversible biomechanical effects of high-heeled shoewear. The article emphasizes that the reemergence of high heels and of medical interest in them in the third quarter of the 19th century, following their disappearance in the wake of the French Revolution, was associated with increasing pressure by employers to wear such shoes for long hours at work. Although medical scientists have recognized this specifically occupational phenomenon for more than a century, full-scale epidemiological studies may be necessary to bring about substantial social-behavioral change.

Projecting capitalism : a history of the internationalization of the construction industry

From the 1840s to the 20th century, large Western European and U.S. construction firms shaped the international economy by furnishing crucial physical infrastructure. The author attempts to destroy the myth that construction is a localized industry of many small firms in perfect competition, sheltered from world markets. U.S. and European firms that promote world markets were forced to transcend local and national markets and incorporate the Third World into both world markets and capital circuits. This book is valuable reading for international, political, and developmental economists; labor, economic, social, colonial, labor, engineering and material culture historians; organization theorists; and economic geographers.