Herbert B. Holleb and Alfred Angrist, "Bronchogenic Carcinoma in Association with Pulmonary Asbestosis" (1942)

A nine-page article in the American Journal of Pathology (volume 18, 1942) by two pathologists at Queens General Hospital in Jamaica, New York, reporting two men who died of lung cancer and were found at autopsy to have asbestosis. Both had worked about 25 years as pipe coverers, covering steam and water pipes with asbestos; one said that many of his co-workers had died of "silicosis." The authors counted ten such cases now "recorded in the literature" and set them out in a table.

What it shows

The two men were the first insulation workers in the table; the eight earlier cases were textile and factory workers, beginning with those reported by Lynch and Smith and by Gloyne in 1935 (Gloyne's 1935 paper). The authors noted that the German pathologist Nordmann had concluded lung cancer was an occupational disease of asbestos workers, but presented their table "merely as a summary" and not as proof of that view. They found it striking, though "of no statistical significance," that the only two cases of asbestosis seen at their hospital both had bronchogenic carcinoma. The second man's son had worked with his father for a year and quit because the air was "too dusty."

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Halleb and Angrist report on two cases of asbestosis and lung cancer in pipe coverers "Bronchogenic Carcinoma in Association with Asbestosis".

Editor's note: J-M's description spells the first author's name "Halleb" and gives the title as "Bronchogenic Carcinoma in Association with Asbestosis." The article is by Holleb and Angrist, and its title is "Bronchogenic Carcinoma in Association with Pulmonary Asbestosis."