Arthur Vorwald, Thomas Durkan and Philip Pratt, "Experimental Studies of Asbestosis" (1951)

A 43-page article from the January 1951 issue of the A.M.A. Archives of Industrial Hygiene and Occupational Medicine by Dr. Arthur J. Vorwald, Thomas M. Durkan and Dr. Philip C. Pratt of the Saranac Laboratory. It reported the animal experiments on asbestos dust that Dr. Leroy Gardner began more than 20 years earlier and had nearly finished when he died in October 1946. The authors concluded that asbestosis is caused by long fibers, between 20 and 50 microns, and that the fiber's action is "primarily mechanical rather than chemical in nature."

What it shows

The article closes by noting that the work "was made possible by the generous financial support of a group of companies of the asbestos industry." It is the published account of the experiments the asbestos companies paid for in the 1930s and 1940s (see Motley document 16). The authors also wrote that typical asbestosis was produced in guinea pigs by air containing less than 1 million fibers longer than 10 microns per cubic foot, and that inhaled asbestos had only "a mildly unfavorable effect" on tuberculosis.

In Johns-Manville's index

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

Article entitled "Experimental Studies of Asbestosis," by A.J. Vorwald, T.M. Durkan and P.C. Pratt, published in the AMA Archives of Ind. Hyg., 1/51.

Related documents

• Vandiver Brown to Sumner Simpson on Dr. Gardner's Asbestos Dust Experiments (1937–1940)

About this copy

This is document 139 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-001013 to CRMC-Motley1000-Subj-001053.