A roentgenologic study of the effects of dust inhalation upon the lungs (1917)

This 1917 preliminary report described chest X-ray findings in 137 people from dusty jobs. The organic dust groups were tobacco, carpet, plush and silk workers. The inorganic dust groups were cement workers, potters, coal miners and marine firemen, asbestos workers and metal grinders. Each person had a clinical examination, fluoroscopy and stereoscopic X-ray plates. The scanned table is too garbled to tell how many were asbestos workers. The authors described pneumoconiosis in three X-ray stages: thickened shadows near the lung roots, then spotty 'mottling', then diffuse scarring (fibrosis). Mottling appeared somewhat later in potters and asbestos workers than in coal miners, cement workers and certain metal grinders. In cement and asbestos workers the spots were softer and less sharply defined, resembling early tubercles. Cement, asbestos and carpet mills were the dustiest buildings examined. The authors concluded that pneumoconiosis had often been mistaken for tuberculosis. They noted that details from the clinical and X-ray examinations had been compared only in a general way, and that dust volume measurements had not yet been compared.

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From J-M's medical library

This copy comes from the Johns-Manville medical library. J-M listed it in its medical library index as no. 003140. Barry Castleman cites it in chapter 1, "The Development of Knowledge About Asbestosis", of Asbestos: Medical and Legal Aspects (5th ed., 2005); see Reading Castleman.