The American manufacturer, legally or illegally, entered on the practice of medicine in the decade between 1910 and 1920. Without qualifications or desire, he shouldered this task through sheer necessity. Preferring to stick to his problems of production and sales promotion, he was nevertheless confronted with the acts of state legislators, who had created industrial liability laws saddling him, the employer, with much increased financial responsibility for industrial injuries, and in some states for occupational diseases.
Prior to 1910 some small amount of industrial medicine was applied, and today four states still have no compulsory employer liability acts; but the decade specified saw the majority of our states enact laws of this character. These laws vary from state to state as to the extent of provision for medical and surgical relief, moneys for lost time from work, moneys for permanent disability, and so on. The general trend of all this