M. J. Stewart and A. C. Haddow, Asbestosis Bodies in Lung Puncture Material and Sputum, Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology (1929)

A complete issue of the Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology, the journal of the Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland, for January 1929, kept for a one-page communication in its proceedings by Drs. M. J. Stewart and A. C. Haddow of Leeds. They noted that the golden-yellow bodies had been found "in every fatal case of the disease in which they have been looked for." Using a hollow needle on a living patient, a 38-year-old woman who had worked in an asbestos factory, they found the bodies in material drawn from her lung, and they found two in the sputum of another patient.

What it shows

This was a step toward diagnosing asbestosis in living workers rather than only after death. The authors offered their methods in the hope that they "might prove of use to other workers." The bodies are what are now called asbestos bodies.

In Johns-Manville's index

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

Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology. Relevant abstract "Demonstration of the Peculiar Bodies of Pulmonary Asbestosis ("Asbestosis Bodies") in Material Obtained by Lung Puncture and in the Sputum" by Stewart & Haddow. Abstract states "the occurrence of golden-yellow bodies in fibrosed lungs of asbestos workers has been demonstrated by a number of observers." The authors performed a lung puncture on an asbestos worker who was ill and found many "golden-yellow" bodies.

About this copy

This is document 00599-00800 of the Sumner Simpson Papers, as numbered in the collection's index.