Leroy Gardner to Sumner Simpson on Dr. Lynch's Comments and His Asbestosis Cases (1938)

A one-page letter of May 19, 1938, from Dr. Leroy U. Gardner, director of Saranac Laboratory, to Sumner Simpson, president of Raybestos-Manhattan, thanking him for a copy of Dr. Lynch's comments on Gardner's report. Gardner wrote that tissue sections Lynch had sent him from some of his asbestosis cases "indicated a silicotic rather than an asbestotic type of fibrosis," and that he had "always been suspicious" that the men Lynch autopsied had some exposure to free silica. On the lack of progression in his animals, he wrote that "after a fibre becomes coated to produce an asbestosis body, the mechanical irritation is minimized."

What it shows

Dr. Kenneth M. Lynch, a Charleston, South Carolina, pathologist who had reported asbestosis in workers he autopsied, had written in his letter of May 6 that Gardner's experiments did not settle whether asbestosis existed or whether it progressed. Simpson sent Gardner a copy on May 17 (Simpson to Gardner). Leroy Gardner answered that this was "a matter of opinion," questioned whether Lynch's cases were asbestosis at all, and offered the coating of fibers into asbestos bodies as a reason the animals' disease had not progressed. He closed: "I am well acquainted with the fact that Dr. Lynch has some very positive ideas but feel that I am justified in differing from him from time to time."

In Johns-Manville's index

Johns-Manville's attorneys indexed the Sumner Simpson Papers. Their index describes this document as follows:

Informs that Dr. Lynch's letter of 5/6/38 has been received and reviewed. Gardner informs that he has also been interested in cases of asbestosis which look like silicosis. Thinks men studied may have previous exposure to silica. On asbestosis as a progressive disease; fiber becomes coated to produce an asbestosis body and so mechanical irritation is minimized.

Related documents

• Sumner Simpson to Leroy U. Gardner Enclosing Dr. Lynch's Letter (1938)
• Dr. Kenneth Lynch to Julian Mitchell on Gardner's Fine-Dust Findings (1938)
• Leroy U. Gardner, Second Progress Report on Experimental Asbestosis (1938)
• Vandiver Brown to Sumner Simpson on Dr. Lynch's Comments on Gardner's Second Progress Report (1938)

About this copy

This is document 03482-03484 of the Sumner Simpson Papers, as numbered in the collection's index.