The Pulmonary Effects of Inhaled Inorganic Dust

This was a textbook chapter by George W. Wright reviewing how inhaled inorganic dusts affect the lungs, not a new study. It covered lung anatomy, how particles are deposited and cleared, and the effects of inert dusts, free crystalline silica, coal dust, asbestos and fibrous glass. On asbestos, the author wrote that exposure to respirable asbestos fiber is associated with an excess risk of cancer. The author stated that the excess risk of bronchogenic (lung) cancer is virtually confined to people with a long history of cigarette smoking plus heavy asbestos exposure. The author also cited evidence suggesting that this cancer excess occurs only where there is diffuse pulmonary fibrosis or asbestosis. The author described an excess risk of pleural or peritoneal mesothelioma among workers exposed to chrysotile, crocidolite and amosite, but not anthophyllite or tremolite. That risk appeared to arise at a lower dose than other asbestos-related cancers. The author concluded that asbestos itself is a low-order carcinogen for bronchial cells, almost certainly acting as a promoter rather than an initiator. Much of the scanned text is unreadable.

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 was among the papers J-M kept in its medical library without an index entry.

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.