"Pulmonary Disease Caused by Asbestos Dust," Monthly Labor Review (1930)

An unsigned one-page item, "Pulmonary Disease Caused by Asbestos Dust," from the February 1930 Monthly Labor Review (volume 30, number 2, page 82), published by the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, copied with the issue's cover. It opens by saying that asbestos mining and manufacture involve "the constant exposure of the workers to asbestos dust," and that because all processes "involve a considerable hazard," efficient exhaust systems and other safety measures were essential. It then summarizes a London digest of an article in the journal Tubercle on 15 cases of pulmonary asbestosis among workers in an asbestos factory.

What it shows

The item describes the disease as a form of pneumonoconiosis whose main symptom is shortness of breath, with scarring of both lungs at the bases, sometimes complicated by tuberculosis, and it quotes the X-ray and autopsy findings that set it apart from other dust diseases. By early 1930 a U.S. government labor periodical was telling American readers that asbestos work was hazardous to the lungs and called for dust control. This copy was in Johns-Manville's files.