Measurement of asbestos dust levels in British asbestos factories in the 1930s

Our plain-English summary of Measurement of asbestos dust levels in British asbestos factories in the 1930s, by N.J. Wikeley (American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 1993).

The study

• Author: N.J. Wikeley
• Journal: American Journal of Industrial Medicine
• Published: 1993;24(5):509-20
• Type of article: Historical article
• Cited by: 5 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

Abstract

Since the early reports of the deleterious health effects of asbestos first appeared in the British literature, the paucity of information on dust levels has been decried. Research into archival material reporting various methods of assessing asbestos dust levels in British factories during the 1930s indicates that these levels were high indeed.

In plain English

This article was a historical review of archival records on asbestos dust measurements in British asbestos factories in the 1930s. It re-examined the dust data behind the 1930 Merewether-Price report, which treated the average dust level of spinners as a "dust datum." Those data came from 51 samples in eight factories, taken with an Owens Jet Counter, which could not tell asbestos fibers from other particles. Workroom counts ranged from 506 to 6,324 particles per cubic centimetre. The author then described archived 1938 reports by factory inspector Kenneth L. Goodall, who used a thermal precipitator. In a flyer spinning room in Armley, Leeds, the average was 560 particles per cubic centimetre, 280 of them definitely asbestos fibers. Roughly a minimum of 1,000 asbestos fibers per cubic centimetre passed a portable filter used while spraying asbestos onto railway wagons. The author noted weaknesses in Goodall's methods, including no definition of a fiber by its length-to-diameter ratio. The author concluded that Goodall's work seemed to confirm that exposure at the so-called dust datum was very high by today's standards.

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: Historical review of published data and archival records (Public Record Office files) on 1930s dust measurements
• Who was studied: British asbestos factories in the 1930s. The Merewether-Price data covered 51 samples from eight unidentified factories. The 1938 Goodall reports covered the J.W. Roberts flyer spinning room in Armley, Leeds, and asbestos spraying of railway wagons at the Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Co. in Smethwick.
• Exposure: Airborne dust from asbestos textile processes (opening fiber, carding, spinning, weaving, mattress making) and from sprayed asbestos cement. The December 1938 filter tests used pure crocidolite. Dust was measured as particles and asbestos fibers per cubic centimetre of air.
• Main results:
  • In the Merewether-Price data (Owens Jet Counter, all particles counted), workroom counts ranged from 506 to 6,324 particles per cubic centimetre of air.
  • In Goodall's July 1938 counts in the Armley flyer spinning room, the average for the whole workroom was 560 particles per cubic centimetre, of which 280 (50%) were definitely asbestos fibers.
  • At Smethwick, dust inside a wagon during spraying was too dense to count, of the order of 50,000 particles per cubic centimetre.
  • At Smethwick, roughly a minimum of 1,000 asbestos fibers per cubic centimetre passed from the portable filter into the workroom air during normal spraying.
  • In the December 1938 tests of a froth filter, asbestos dust leaving the filter vent pipe was in the order of 50,000 to 60,000 particles per cubic centimetre.
  • In the same tests, two counts at breathing level near the filter gave 2,020 and 1,900 particles per cubic centimetre, about half of them definitely asbestos fibers.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that Goodall's work, using a more efficient counting technique, seemed to confirm that exposure levels at the so-called dust datum were very high by today's standards.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The Owens Jet Counter used for the Merewether-Price data could not distinguish asbestos fibers from other matter such as smoke particles.
  • Goodall's estimate of asbestos content was regarded as an underestimate, because very small particles could not be identified as asbestos.
  • Goodall assumed that incineration of the samples would not affect asbestos counting, but this was apparently never tested experimentally.
  • Goodall gave no definition of a fiber by its length-to-diameter ratio.
  • The relationship between Goodall's counts and the true asbestos fiber count at the time cannot be determined.
  • The archives do not appear to contain any files on later action by the Factory Inspectorate.

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