The plight of chimney sweeps in England two centuries ago led to some of the first occupational health laws in that country. As mentioned in the article, small

The plight of chimney sweeps in England two centuries ago led to some of the first occupational health laws in that country. As mentioned in the article, small boys from poor families were “employed” (purchased) by sweeps, and forced to climb naked up flues with only a brush to scrape the soot off. Obviously, when they grew too big to fit, they were made redundant. The big problem was that this was unbelievably filthy work, and every day would end with the kids covered in a black veneer of sweat and filth, which would run down their skin and lodge in every crevice in their body…in a time when frequent bathing was an unaffordable luxury. Creosote’s VOC components are highly carcinogenic, so that long-term skin contact inexorably led to cancers of the scrotum, genitalia and perianal area, usually right around puberty and progressing until the ex-sweep was sterile and then dead, often before the age of twenty-five. It got so bad that doctors in regency England fought for and had passed a law regulating the age and conditions under which sweeps could work-impressive in a time when you were thought eccentric for complaining about raw sewage or hydrochloric acid being dumped into your drinking water. Kinda lends a new perspective on the Dick van Dyke scenes in ‘Mary Poppins’, now doesn’t it?