Mine Safety Appliances Company, Pertinent Questions and Answers Concerning Dusts (c. 1945)

A 16-page booklet from the Mine Safety Appliances Company of Pittsburgh, a respirator maker, answering in plain language questions about industrial dusts, fumes and mists, silicosis and other dust diseases, dust sampling and the U.S. Bureau of Mines' approval of respirators, and ending with the company's air-sampling instruments. It says that "most dusts are harmful in some degree if breathed in sufficient concentration over a period of time," and defines asbestosis as "a disease of the lungs in which the normal lung tissue is replaced by fibrous (scar) tissue due to breathing air that contains asbestos dust."

About this copy

The booklet is undated. It cites a 1935 Public Health Service bulletin and gives the company's address as "Pittsburgh 8, Pa.," a postal-zone form used from 1943, so it was probably printed in the 1940s. A note on the copy calls it one of the "Tyler Documents (date unknown)." The same company wrote to J-M's attorney in 1935 about respirator notices.