Although the usefulness of asbestos has been known for centuries, it was not until the late 19th century when large deposits of asbestos were discovered in parts of Canada and the northern United States that the emergence of asbestos as a common construction material occurred. The relatively inexpensive production and mass abundance of asbestos-containing materials created a widespread desire to utilize asbestos in building materials. Experimentation with the mineral revealed that asbestos was an excellent fire retardant, an exceptional component of acoustical plaster, and decorative material. The use of asbestos became increasingly widespread when its diverse applications included fire-retardant coatings, concrete, bricks, pipes and fireplace cement, heat-, fire-, and acid-resistant gaskets, pipe insulation, ceiling insulation, fireproof drywall, flooring, roofing, lawn furniture, and drywall joint compound. The use of asbestos was not, however, limited to the construction industry. Asbestos was used in the making of fire-resistant clothing for firefighters and hot pads were used in food production. Asbestos was also used by the automotive industry in such things as brake shoes and clutch fittings for cars and trucks. In fact, at one time asbestos could be found throughout the country in products ranging from thermal insulation to kitty litter. Many films shot in the early 20th century, including the likes of The Wizard of Oz, featured their actors being sprinkled with fake snow. Little do viewers realize, this effect was created by showering performers with chrysotile asbestos fibers, small snow-like particles that were once used on movie sets, in department store displays, and even in private homes. Everybody wanted to get in on the fake asbestos snow action. And why not? Asbestos was seen as a versatile and harmless substance. It’s difficult to know the hazard that was presented by asbestos-based fake snow products. Most asbestos products involved some quantity of fiber being used as part of a chemical compound that bound the fibers together, making them difficult to inhale until the material was damaged. But fake snow, often used in displays or in family homes, was simply pure white asbestos fiber piled up in drifts. Anyone who had any contact was inhaling deadly fibers in quantities normally associated with those working in asbestos mines.
In the early 1900s, researchers began to notice a large number of early deaths and lung problems in asbestos-mining towns. The first such study was conducted by Murray at the Charing Cross Hospital, London, in 1900, in which a postmortem investigation discovered asbestos traces in the lungs of a young man who had died from pulmonary fibrosis after having worked for 14 years in an asbestos textile factory. Adelaide Anderson, the Inspector of Factories in Britain, included asbestos in a list of harmful industrial substances in 1902. Similar investigations were conducted in France in 1906 and Italy in 1908.
The first diagnosis of asbestosis was made in the UK in 1924. Nellie Kershaw was employed at Turner Brothers Asbestos in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England, from 1917, spinning raw asbestos fiber into yarn. Her death in 1924 led to a formal inquest. Pathologist William Edmund Cooke testified that his examination of the lungs indicated old scarring indicative of a previous, healed tuberculosis infection, and extensive fibrosis, in which were visible “particles of mineral matter … of various shapes, but the large majority have sharp angles.” Having compared these particles with samples of asbestos dust provided by S. A. Henry, His Majesty’s Medical Inspector of Factories, Cooke concluded that they “originated from asbestos and were, beyond a reasonable doubt, the primary cause of the fibrosis of the lungs and therefore of death.” As a result of Cooke’s paper, Parliament commissioned an inquiry into the effects of asbestos dust by E. R. A. Merewether, Medical Inspector of Factories, and C. W. Price, a factory inspector and pioneer of dust monitoring and control. Their subsequent report, Occurrence of Pulmonary Fibrosis & Other Pulmonary Affections in Asbestos Workers, was presented to Parliament on 24 March 1930. It concluded that the development of asbestosis was irrefutably linked to the prolonged inhalation of asbestos dust, and included the first health study of asbestos workers, which found that 66% of those employed for 20 years or more suffered from asbestosis. The report led to the publication of the first asbestos industry regulations in 1931, which came into effect on 1 March 1932. These rules regulated ventilation and made asbestosis an excusable work-related disease. The term mesothelioma was first used in medical literature in 1931; its association with asbestos was first noted sometime in the 1940s. Similar legislation followed in the U.S. about ten years later. Approximately 100,000 people in the United States have died, or are terminally ill, from asbestos exposure related to shipbuilding. In the Hampton Roads area, a shipbuilding center, mesothelioma occurrence is seven times the national rate. Thousands of tons of asbestos were used in World War II ships to insulate piping, boilers, steam engines, and steam turbines. There were approximately 4.3 million shipyard workers in the United States during the war; for every 1,000 workers, about 14 died of mesothelioma and an unknown number died of asbestosis. The United States government and the asbestos industry have been criticized for not acting quickly enough to inform the public of dangers and to reduce public exposure. In the late 1970s, court documents proved that asbestos industry officials knew of asbestos dangers since the 1930s and had concealed them from the public. 1
(Photo credit: Tony Rich ( Asbestos Hunter) via Asbestorama in Flickr: flickr.com/photos/asbestos_pix / Pinterest / Vintage Asbestos Advertisements by Brayton Purcell LLP / Wikimedia Commons / The History of Asbestos by Scdhec.gov). Notify me of new posts by email.
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