Effects Of Dusts And Fumes Upon Man

Our plain-English summary of Effects Of Dusts And Fumes Upon Man, by P. Drinker, T. Hatch (1954).

The study

• Authors: P. Drinker, T. Hatch
• Published: Industrial Dust: Hygiene Significance, Measurement And Control, 2Nd Edition, New York: Mcgraw-Hill, Pp. 31-55 (1954)
• Type of article: Book excerpt
• Our copy: from Johns-Manville's own medical library, J-M no. 002594.

In plain English

This textbook chapter, not an original study, described how dusts and fumes affect people, drawing on other researchers' work. The authors named four types of dust-related disability: pneumoconioses such as silicosis and asbestosis, toxic dusts such as lead, metal-fume fever, and allergic reactions. On asbestosis, they described a diffuse fibrosis on X-ray without the nodules typical of silicosis. They also described asbestos fibers grouping about the necks of air sacs and shutting them off, a condition called atelectasis. They stated that this damage, like that of silicosis, was in general permanent. They added that prolonged exposure to these dusts greatly raised susceptibility to tuberculosis, more so from quartz than from asbestos. They wrote that asbestosis bodies in sputum were accepted as characteristic of asbestosis. A table credited to Bridge, for Great Britain through 1934, listed 41 deaths under asbestosis (average age at death 41.0, average 12.9 years of employment) and 26 under asbestosis with tuberculosis. The authors had no estimate of asbestos-exposed U.S. workers. A later footnote cited Lanza's figure of about 10,000 exposed persons and McPheeters' figure of 9237 exposed in 1929.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Textbook chapter (narrative review of the literature on dust diseases), not an original study
• Who was studied: No study population of its own; the chapter discussed workers in dusty trades in general, drawing on published data from Great Britain, South Africa, Canada and the United States
• Exposure: Industrial dusts and fumes, mainly free silica (quartz), plus asbestos, toxic dusts such as lead, manganese and cadmium, metal fumes such as zinc oxide, and organic dusts such as pollen
• Main results:
  • The authors described the X-ray of the typical asbestosis chest as a diffuse fibrosis, without the nodules characteristic of silicosis.
  • The authors described the pathology of asbestosis as unlike that of silicosis. In their description, asbestos fibers gather at the neck of an alveolus (air sac) and shut it off, causing atelectasis, and the dust does not clearly migrate to the lymph nodes.
  • The authors stated that the damage in silicosis and asbestosis is in general permanent.
  • The authors stated that prolonged exposure to these dusts greatly increases susceptibility to tuberculosis, more so from quartz than from asbestos.
  • The authors wrote that asbestosis bodies in sputum are accepted as characteristic of asbestosis, although somewhat similar bodies occur in the lungs of coal workers and of normal persons.
  • A table credited to Bridge covered Great Britain through 1934. Under the category asbestosis (without tuberculosis), it listed 41 deaths. Average age at death was 41.0, and duration of employment ranged from 1.5 to 27.0 years, with an average of 12.9 years.
  • In the same table credited to Bridge, a separate category, asbestosis with tuberculosis, listed 26 deaths. Average age at death was 35.0, and duration of employment ranged from 0.8 to 29.0 years, with an average of 9.9 years.
  • In the main text, the authors stated that they had no estimate of the number of U.S. workers exposed to asbestos dust, and they cited about 2200 asbestos workers in England. A footnote added after writing reported two figures. One was a statement by Lanza that about 10,000 persons were exposed to asbestos dust. The other was McPheeters' report that 9237 persons were exposed in 1929.
  • The authors stated that asbestosis has been produced in experimental animals.
• The authors' conclusion: The chapter offered no single formal conclusion. The authors stated that silicosis and asbestosis are today the most important forms of pneumoconiosis, and that the damage in both is in general permanent.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The authors stated that, for lack of occupational and mortality statistics on dust diseases in the United States, the number of men exposed to injurious dusts cannot be stated accurately.
  • The authors stated that dust-concentration figures from different countries are not directly comparable, because sampling instruments and methods differ.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Silicosis, Fibrosis, Atelectasis, Sputum.

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