Martin S. Maier to R. L. Moore on the Asbestos Textile Institute Visit to the Quebec Mines (1956)

A two-page Johns-Manville memo of June 12, 1956, to R. L. Moore reporting on the writer's trip with the Asbestos Textile Institute to the Quebec asbestos mines. At Thetford Mines the writer skipped the open-pit tour to talk about air hygiene with Dr. Paul Cartier, the mining association's medical director, and Maurice Lachance, its air hygienist. Cartier thought a limit of 1.5 million fibers per cubic foot was realistic, said post-mortem biopsies had shown fibers shorter than 5 microns in the lungs, and said he had "found no cases of asbestosis among miners, but only in persons working in the mills."

What it shows

The memo shows Johns-Manville's research staff comparing dust-counting methods with the Quebec industry in 1956. The mills were "quite dusty according to our standards," with total dust counts up to 20 million particles per cubic foot. The writer recommended that J-M consider the Quebec projection method, which could tell rock dust from asbestos fibers, and was impressed by the ventilation at J-M's own mill at Asbestos, Quebec. The Institute's minutes of the same meeting are Motley document 339.

In Johns-Manville's index

Johns-Manville's legal department indexed the Motley 1,000 in 1984. Its index describes this document as follows:

Martin S. Maier (Head of the Physics Section, Research and Product Development) memo to R.L. Moore, 6/12/56, re Maier's visit to Quebec asbestos mines sponsored by ATI. Maier reports that he had a discussion with Dr. Paul Cartier and Maurice Lachance re air hygiene and methods of measuring asbestos dust. Dr. Cartier told Maier that he found no cases of asbestosis among miners, but only in persons working in the mills. Maier mentions Hartford Insurance Co.'s method of measuring dust. Maier states that the visit to J-M's mill and mine at Asbestos was very interesting, informative, and the ventilation system utilizing 2-1/2 million CFM of air was particularly impressive.

Related documents

• Asbestos Textile Institute Air Hygiene Committee Minutes on the Taylor Case and the Proposed Lung Cancer Study (1956)

About this copy

This is document 147 of the Motley 1,000, from the set the Manville Personal Injury Settlement Trust's records facility certified as true copies, pages CRMC-Motley1000-Subj-001174 to CRMC-Motley1000-Subj-001175.