CHAPTER V. 
Medical Inspectors. 
The case of medical officers stands on an entirely different 
footing. The medical officer, like the regular inspector, is technically 
qualified. Further, he has qualifications which the regular inspector 
lacks, but which are necessary to complete the proper inspection of 
factories. Many of the questions which arise in connection with factory 
administration require medical knowledge, and with the growing com- 
plexity of Indian industry, the need for this knowledge increases. It is 
in the larger factories that the need for inspection from a medical point 
of view is greatest ; but there are few factories where some medical super- 
vision is quite unnecessary. Werecommend that in every province there 
should be one officer with medical qualifications appointed as an Inspector 
of Factories, who should be primarily responsible for inspection from the 
medical standpoint. In the less important industrial provinces, where 
there may not be work for a full-time officer, an assistant of the Director 
of Public Health could undertake these duties. In the chief industrial 
provinces there is ample work to justify the appointment of more than one 
such medical inspector. There are, for example, two medical officers 
already employed as certifying surgeons in the Hooghly area, and the 
duties of certifying surgeons might be combined with those of medical 
inspection. While the medical inspectors might exercise the full powers 
of an inspector, and need not be precluded from giving attention to points 
lying outside their particular sphere, they would ordinarily be responsible 
only for the health of operatives. Where the medical inspectors and 
certifying surgeons are separate officers, the latter should also be em- 
powered as inspectors. The delimitation of the duties of the medical 
inspector would be a matter for the Chief Inspector of Factories and the 
Director of Public Health to arrange ; such matters as sanitation, ventila- 
bion and the purity of the atmosphere would naturally receive their 
special attention, and there is great need for systematic investigation into 
a number of questions related to the health of factory operatives, including 
industrial disease. 
Recruitment of Inspectors. 
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The possession of good engineering qualifications has generally 
been regarded as a sine qua non for appointment as factory inspector, 
and, owing to the paucity of Indian candidates with the qualifications 
required, the majority of factory inspectors have hitherto been British. 
The number of Indian students taking up engineering is increasing 
steadily, and it should not be difficult to attract suitable candidates at 
ceasonable rates of pay. We would observe, however, that factory 
inspectors are made chiefly by experience in that capacity. The highest 
initial qualifications do not make an officer a competent factory inspec- 
bor from the start ; on the other hand a candidate of character and energy, 
even if his technical qualifications are not of a high order, can generally 
become competent after training. The recent tendency in Great Britain, 
which has always led the way in factory inspection, has been to rely more 
on character and training and less on technical, i.e., engineering, quali- 
fications than in the past. A move in this direction nm India world