Inhaled Dust and Disease

The casual relationship between the regular inhalation of various kinds of dust and disease is well known. The dusts involved covered a wide range, including china clay, talc, cotton, coal dust and asbestos. Here Professor Holt surveys the properties of these hazardous materials.

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The causal relationship between the regular inhalation of various kinds of dust and disease is well known. The dusts involved covered a wide range, including china clay, talc, cotton, coal dust and asbestos. Here, Professor Holt surveys the properties of these hazardous materials, describing the diseases they cause and outlining the epidemiological evidence which indicates the size of the problem. The book is unusual in that it is written for health and safety workers rather than for clinicians, so that emphasis is placed upon the nature of the substances which cause disease, rather than on the diseases themselves. The aim of the book is to give an overview of work in the field, and Professor Holt is excellently qualified to undertake this task. He first started work on industrial lung disease fifty years ago, and has been closely involved with the subject ever since.