Arthur Elsenbast to Dr. Kenneth W. Smith on an Industrial Hygiene Literature File (1953)

A one-page memorandum of January 12, 1953, from Arthur Elsenbast, head of Johns-Manville's Celite Division, to Dr. Kenneth W. Smith, J-M's medical director, headed "Industrial Hygiene Literature File." Replying to Smith's note about an article in the American Medical Association's industrial hygiene journal, Elsenbast said that he, Mr. Jackson and Dr. Cummins each kept files on occupational articles, and hoped Smith would set up a system so that medical and chemical literature "will be combed regularly" and indexed. He gave an example: after J-M's laboratory at Manville finished work on how its materials reacted with the aluminum powder used in Saranac's aluminum therapy program, Dr. Cummins found that the same work had been done at a university about 1939 on a selection of J-M's own materials.

What it shows

"Had any of us here in the Celite Division seen that particular article," Elsenbast wrote, "it would have stimulated our interest in this subject some 10 years earlier." He asked that Smith's office build "a complete indexed reference library for all items pertaining to occupational hazards incident to our various industries." The memo shows that, as of 1953, J-M had no central collection of the medical literature on the hazards of its own products. Aluminum therapy for diatomaceous earth workers had come up in Elsenbast's July 1951 memo.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Memorandum from Elsenbast to K.W. Smith, 1/12/53, urging creation of a complete medical reference library concerning occupational hazards incident to J-M manufacturing. Elsenbast related that he had come upon a medical article that was already 10 years old only by chance and had in this manner received information concerning the hazard of diatomite of which he was previously unaware.

Editor's note: J-M's description says the overlooked article told Elsenbast of a hazard of diatomite he had not known. The memo says the article concerned the solubility of J-M's diatomite and its reactions with aluminum powder; it does not describe a hazard.