Dr. Paul Gross, Report on Edgar A. Gervais for Johns-Manville (1968)

An eight-page report of January 29, 1968, by Dr. Paul Gross, director of the Industrial Hygiene Research Unit of the Industrial Hygiene Foundation of America, for Johns-Manville on lung tissue from Edgar A. Gervais, received from Dr. Benjamin Castleman of Massachusetts General Hospital. Gross diagnosed an undifferentiated carcinoma of the bronchus with honeycombing and chronic pneumonitis. Finding "only one ferruginous body," which he judged too atypical to count as an asbestos body, he concluded that the fibrosis should not be classed as asbestotic. He added that in a recent study of 100 random Pittsburgh lungs, ferruginous bodies "indistinguishable from asbestos bodies were found in 97% of the cases," and that Gervais, an industrial relations manager, had had only "casual and minimal" exposure.