Industrial Toxicology, Third Edition (1974)

This is the asbestos section of the chapter on fibrogenic dusts in the third edition of the textbook Industrial Toxicology (1974), by Alice Hamilton and Harriet L. Hardy. It is a narrative review of published reports and of one author's clinical experience, not a new study. The authors described industrial uses of asbestos, the commercial forms (chrysotile, anthophyllite, amosite and crocidolite), and the symptoms, chest x-ray findings, lung function changes and tissue changes of asbestosis. They also covered lung cancer, pleural and peritoneal mesothelioma, asbestos bodies, treatment and exposure limits. They wrote that decreased diffusing capacity and increased alveolar-arterial oxygen difference were considered essential findings in diagnosis. They called pleural effusion with a history of asbestos exposure practically pathognomonic of malignant mesothelioma, but also cited reports of effusions without malignancy. They also wrote that finding asbestos bodies proves exposure only. The authors concluded that chrysotile could be mined and used safely with engineering control, and that crocidolite was a serious hazard even in small doses. They stated that the literature was confusing, partly because reports rarely described the character and duration of exposure.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

From J-M's medical library

This copy comes from the Johns-Manville medical library. It is a copy from J-M's medical library.

We publish pages from a book for research and commentary: it shows what the medical literature in a leading asbestos company's own library said on the subject, and when. Our summary above is our own reading of it. The copyright stays with the publisher.