Autopsy and Compensation Papers of Alexander Wisniewski, J-M Manville Worker (1958–1962)

A 26-page file on Alexander Wisniewski, a Johns-Manville worker at Manville, New Jersey, from 1922 until he retired in 1958, first in the Magnesia Department and later as a janitor at the Research Center. A confidential J-M medical department summary of September 1958 records X-ray changes over several years and some 27 years of potential exposure to diatomaceous earth and asbestos. His New Jersey workers' compensation claim for lung disease was dismissed after trial in March 1959 as filed too late. He died on February 1, 1962, and the autopsy found pulmonary asbestosis and a mesothelioma of the right lower lobe, with asbestos bodies in the lung and the tumor.

What it shows

The file shows a long-serving J-M production worker whose company medical records tracked lung changes for years, whose compensation claim was defeated on the statute of limitations, and who was found at autopsy in 1962 to have both asbestosis and mesothelioma. It is one of the earliest records in the chronology of a mesothelioma in a J-M employee, a year before Dr. Selikoff's insulator study drew wide attention to the disease (Selikoff, Churg and Hammond).

About this copy

The copy here is pages 8 to 14 of the 26-page file: the dismissal of the compensation claim, the claim petition, and J-M's medical summary of September 1958. The autopsy report (pages 1 to 7) is held back, since the Library does not publish autopsy reports on named people; pages 15 to 26 are second copies of pages 8 to 14.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

Johns-Manville's own chronology of what the company knew describes this document as follows:

J-M worker Alexander Wisniewski diagnosed with mesothelioma.