Saranac Laboratory, Asbestosis: Experimental Studies, Report to Johns-Manville (1948)

A report by the Saranac Laboratory of Saranac Lake, New York, to the Johns-Manville Corporation, dated September 30, 1948 and stamped "CONFIDENTIAL." It set out the laboratory's animal experiments with asbestos dust since 1928: inhalation and injection studies in guinea pigs, rats, cats, rabbits, mice and dogs using several kinds of fiber. Its summary found that asbestos causes lung scarring by "primarily mechanical" action and that long fibers are essential to it. This copy runs 48 pages.

What it shows

The report said a second report on "Human Asbestosis" in exposed workers would follow. Its contents page lists a section 92, "Neoplasm," on page 39, followed by "XCIII. Conclusions" on page 40. In this copy, page 39 ends with section 91 on infection, and page 40 begins a "Summary" numbered XCII, whose points cover fibrosis, fiber length, dust levels and tuberculosis but not cancer. The "Complications" section says some attention was given to the "occurrence of malignancy," but no discussion of it appears in these pages.

In Johns-Manville's index

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

Document entitled "Asbestosis: Experimental Studies by the Saranac Laboratory, Saranac Lake, New York. Report to the Johns-Manville Corporation, New York, New York." 9/30/48.

Related documents

• Industrial Hygiene Foundation, Proposed Epidemiological Study of Lung Cancer in Asbestos Workers for the Asbestos Textile Institute (1956)

About this copy

This is document 98 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-000803 to CRMC-Motley1000-Subj-000850.