Asbestos

Our plain-English summary of Asbestos, by S. R. Gloyne, E. R. A. Merewether (1938).

The study

• Authors: S. R. Gloyne, E. R. A. Merewether
• Published: International Labour Office, Geneva (supplement to the Encyclopaedia on Occupation and Health); abstracted in J. Ind. Hyg. Toxicol., vol. 20, no. 7, Sept. 1938, pp. 150-151
• Type of article: Abstract
• Our copy: from Johns-Manville's own medical library. The article is still under copyright, so we describe it here rather than post it.

In plain English

This item is not a research study. It is a short abstract, written by W. J. McConnell and printed among other abstracts in the Journal of Industrial Hygiene and Toxicology (dated September 1938 in the text). It summarizes a brochure titled "Asbestos" by S. R. Gloyne and E. R. A. Merewether, issued by the International Labour Office in Geneva in 1938 as a supplement to its encyclopedia on occupation and health. According to the abstract, the brochure covered the silicate minerals commercially known as asbestos, their uses, extraction and manufacturing, health risks, asbestosis and its diagnosis, prevention and compensation. It included forty-one free-hand drawings of asbestosis bodies. The brochure named, as the most important single clinical sign of asbestosis, a slight, diffuse impairment of the percussion note on both sides of the chest. It named chest X-ray as the other key diagnostic feature. It stressed that asbestosis cannot be diagnosed with absolute certainty from either X-ray or physical examination alone. Its preventive measures were based largely on Great Britain's Code of Regulations. The abstract describes no group of workers or patients and gives no statistical results.

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.

What the study did and found

• Design: Published abstract (by W. J. McConnell) of an International Labour Office encyclopedia brochure on asbestos; not original research
• Exposure: Asbestos in general (the silicate minerals commercially known as asbestos) and asbestos dust; no specific fiber types, jobs or doses are given
• Main results:
  • The brochure stated that the most important single clinical sign of asbestosis is a diffuse bilateral impairment of the percussion note, slight in degree, best found by very light and rapid percussion of the back of the chest
  • The other important diagnostic feature was radiographic (X-ray) examination of the chest; differences between the X-ray pictures of asbestosis and silicosis were listed
  • With both X-ray and physical examination, the brochure stated, asbestosis can be diagnosed with certainty if present in some degree, though not necessarily to an extent causing symptoms or disablement
  • In difficult cases where tuberculous lesions obscure the picture, careful investigation of the person's exposure to asbestos dust (dustiness of the processes and length of exposure) was said to allow the correct decision
  • The brochure discussed the formation of asbestosis bodies, illustrated with forty-one free-hand drawings
  • Preventive measures were based largely on the Code of Regulations adopted in Great Britain to reach the British standard of threshold dustiness
• The authors' conclusion: According to the abstract, the brochure emphasized that asbestosis cannot be diagnosed with absolute certainty on either radiographic or physical examination alone

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Industrial Hygiene, Silicate, Chest X-Ray.

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