Within 20 years of the first factory production of asbestos, the public health hazards associated with asbestos started to come to light. Between 1890 and 1895 sixteen out of seventeen workers in a French asbestos weaving factory had died and by 1899 eleven men who had worked in an asbestos spinning factory in the U.K. had died by the age of 30, having spent the whole of their working lives in this occupation ('cording'). The last of the deaths was reported by Dr. Montague Murray to the 1906 Departmental Committee for Compensation for Industrial Diseases, and this is the first recorded case of the disease which was to become known as asbestosis (HMSO, 1970). The first complete description of asbestosis appeared in 1927 (Cooke, 1927; McDonald, 1927). It is a disease resulting from the inhalation of very small particles of asbestos dust, which are deposited  in the lungs causing the formation of scar tissue (fibrosis) and resulting in fatigue and breathlessness after some years. Other diseases associated with exposure to asbestos dust are cancer and mesothelioma. About 50% of asbestosis sufferers develop lung cancer and the probability of this happening is greatly  increased if the asbestosis sufferer is also a cigarette smoker. There is also evidence that cancers in other sites of the body may occasionally be asbestos-linked. Mesothelioma is a cancer of the membrane lining of the chest or abdomen which has been identified during the past 20 years. It is almost exclusively associated with asbestos exposure (Wright, 1969) and may have a long latent period.

Reference:  Asbestos Properties Applications and Hazards Volume 1, Page 3 
                        L. Michaels & S. S. Chissick. John Wiley & Sons Ltd
                        ISBN 0 471 99698X 1979

and so it goes on and on....

Images Of Lungs

Below are some examples of images of lungs, which illustrate the effects of asbestos exposure and cancer has on the lungs. Click the images for a larger version

Normal Lung	Mestothelioma due to asbestos exposure	Heavy exposure to asbestos	Heavy smoking history	Lung cancer

Asbestos Removal
Controlled Wet Stripping using the Safestrip System vs Dry Stripping

The work was done at Lancaster Town Hall in Autumn 1995 when it was monitored using the Fibrecheck analytical equipment. The graph above shows the fibre levels during work carried out.
Image was taken from an article on asbestos removal by Arthur Mullin (former head of ACAD), published in 'The ACADemy' Issue No. 8, Spring 1996.
Again, click the image for a larger version.