Effect of Asbestos Dust on Workers' Health in Asbestos Mines and Factories (1912)

This 1912 Labour Gazette article reported a January 1912 inquiry by a Department of Labour officer into how dusty asbestos processes affected workers' health. It was descriptive, with no dust measurements or illness counts. It described the only Canadian asbestos goods factory, at Lachine, Quebec (about 150 employees), where no dust complaints had been received, and the Bell Asbestos Mines and Mills in Quebec's Eastern Townships (about 425 employees). In the mills, 16 women and girls and about 20 boys aged 14 to 20 hand-picked asbestos. The officer reported that aspirators removed dust, the women looked healthy, and the mills had less dust than flour mills, cotton mills or bakeries. Workers had been given respirators but objected to them after fans and dust conveyors were installed. A long-practising Thetford doctor said cobbing-room dust weakened workers' lungs and several tuberculosis cases were under treatment, but recognized that mill conditions had been declared greatly improved since dust-control apparatus was introduced. Another doctor stated generally that records of lung-disease deaths were no higher in asbestos centres than elsewhere; the article gave no figures.

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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. 003142. 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.