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PLEURAL PLAQUES AND ASBESTOS: FURTHER OBSERVATIONS ON ENDEMIC AND OTHER NONOCCUPATIONAL ASBESTOSIS
Author(s) -
Kiviluoto Raimo
Publication year - 1965
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1965.tb41104.x
Subject(s) - asbestosis , asbestos , citation , medicine , library science , lung , computer science , materials science , metallurgy
Association between exposure to asbestos and neoplasia, increasing world production of asbestos and the possibility of environmental and other nonoccupational exposure to asbestos, have caused an increased interest of medicine in this mineral. In this connection, asbestos may gain considerable fame as a new discovery. However, it had tha t thousands of years ago. About 4500 years ago, asbestos was generally used in Finland as a cementing agent in the preparation of clay pottery. Asbestos ceramics, according to archeologic finds a Finnish invention, was used during a period of 3000 years. Approximately 500 A.D. the use of asbestos ceramics in Finland and its neighboring countries slowly ceased to be reused first about 1,000 years later.’ Thousands of years ago, asbestos was in everyday use by families and consequently the Stone Age men “geologically” well knew where asbestos could be obtained. Anthophyllite-asbestos is a fairly common mineral in Finland and tremolite-asbestos is especially characteristic of the Karelian formations in Northern Karelia. Anthophyllite has been mined since 1918, the annual output being around 15,000 metric tons. Near two open asbestos mines several hundred cases of pleural calcification were found in people not employed in the mining industry.’ Corresponding observations have been reported in Eas t Germany.:L,’ Pleural plaques, as described in these reports, were similar to those characteristically seen in asbestos workers. Regardless of the type or degree of pulmonary reaction or fibrosis, these cases may be called cases of endemic asbestosis, until a better specification is found (pleural asbestosis?).