Demonstration of the peculiar bodies of pulmonary asbestosis ("asbestosis bodies") in material obtained by lung puncture and in the sputum (1929)

This short preliminary communication reported attempts to find asbestosis bodies, the golden-yellow bodies seen in the scarred lungs of asbestos workers, in living patients. At the suggestion of Dr S. A. Henry of the Home Office, the authors explored the lung with a hollow needle in two cases. The first was a married woman with five children who had worked in an asbestos factory from age 16 until a year earlier, with breaks totalling about six years, and who had a dry irritating cough. The small amount of blood-stained material withdrawn contained considerable numbers of unmistakable asbestosis bodies. These gave a rather feeble Prussian blue (iron) reaction, and no tubercle bacilli were found. In a second, very similar case the result was negative. The authors also examined about half an ounce of sputum from each of two other patients. After prolonged search, two typical asbestosis bodies were found in one specimen and none in the other. The authors noted that these patients usually have little sputum. They said the work was continuing and hoped their methods would be useful to others.

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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. 003105.