Document KJ9r3QN3g10z0956bkJwRrZBx

e ASBESTOSIS T>y A. J. m* Pt Assistant Medical Director Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Asbestosis Is a pneuaoconlosis caused by the inhalation of asbestos dust. It is distinct froa silicosis in its pathology and clinically. Tihether asbestosis will remain a distinct fora of pulaonary dust disease or will- provery to be of a type common to a number of dusts remains to be seen. So far, It is .. the only pneumoconiosis, other than silicosis, which has received any considerable amount of study froa pathologists, clinicians, and industrial hygienists. Iihere&s silicosis has been recognised for cany centuries, asbestosis is a newcomer. Asbestos (Canadian) is a hydrated magnesium silicate containing no free silica, but about 11$ of combined silica, 43, magnesium, nearly 13> of rater, and traces of iron and nickel. TTnile asbestos was known to the ancients, the fabricating of asbestos on a large scale is comparitively new and received a tremendous innetus from its use in connection' rith automobiles and as an insul ating material and a heat resistant for a great variety of mech&pical purposes. TThile Hoffman, in his celebrated Bulletin on Mortality from P.esoiratory (1) Diseases in Dusty Trades, called attention to the possible harmfulness of asbes tos dust in 1913, it was not until February, 1927 that asbestosis was, so to speak, officially recognised in this country' b7 the filing of a disability claim for workman's compensation in Massachusetts. The claimant was a foreman in the weaving department of an asbestos plant and the claim was upheld by the Massachusctts/^dustrial Accident Board. This was twenty-seven years after the first fatal case v.-as reported in England by Dr. Montague Murray. In 1910 and again in 1934, a fatal case was reported in England, and in 1923, the British Factory , 800? 0441 SCF-FA-0040 LAN?' wnniii'cn nv cr>Dn