Death Certificate of Henry Ward Johns (1898)

A one-page copy of the City of Yonkers certificate of death for Henry Ward Johns, a businessman aged 60, who died at Park Hill, Yonkers, New York, on February 8, 1898. The attending physician gave the chief cause of death as "Phthisis Pulmonalis," an old term for a wasting disease of the lungs, with a second, contributing cause that is hard to read. The death was reported by Henry W. Johns Jr. of Brooklyn.

What it shows

H. W. Johns founded one of the two asbestos businesses that later became Johns-Manville. His certificate does not mention asbestos or dust: in 1898 phthisis was the usual word for lung wasting, most often tuberculosis. That he died of asbestos disease is a later reading of the record, not something the certificate says; the word asbestosis did not exist until 1927 (Cooke, 1927).

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

H.W. Johns, founder of J-M predecessor, dies on February 8, 1898, supposedly of asbestosis.

Editor's note: J-M's description says Johns died "supposedly of asbestosis." The death certificate gives the chief cause as "Phthisis Pulmonalis" and does not mention asbestosis.

Related documents

• W. E. Cooke, "Pulmonary Asbestosis," with Papers by Stuart McDonald and Sir Thomas Oliver (1927)