The below asbestos historical discussion contained in the July 1997 edition of Scientific American in “Asbestos Revisited” by James Alleman and Brooks Mossman discusses the ancient mineral background in much more detail than typical similar discourses and is worthy of a blog. That being said, the article contains one significant mistake: Pages 74-75 at the…
Read more
The oldest United States National Electric Code in my collection is from 1896. It begins on page 373 of the 1896 book authored by N. Hawkins entitled New Catechism of Electricity: A Practical Treatise by stating that the National Code is the “wiremen’s Bible.” I have four original hard copies of this book should anyone…
Read more
History requires a lot of digging and working through old documents. Early in my career, I was curious and interested in how the use of asbestos fibers in automobile brake friction material came about. To support this research, I purchased a number of automobile manuals and instructions. These are but a few of the manuals…
Read more
Let us start of today with a scientific formula. The risk of bad or incomplete asbestos history = increasing the risk of mistakes, which leads to > than necessary bad science, law, and errors. I think that we have all been in the room when an otherwise knowledgeable person says something that sounds a bit…
Read more
When it comes to asbestos related historical science, we have a number of failures that confuse rather than clarify. Just look at my blog from March 5, 2021 entitled “The Disappearing Blog on Chrysotile Asbestos” posted at https://theasbestosblog.com/?p=2052 for a discussion on some of these issues. The scientific literature on whether asbestos related cancers arising…
Read more
As many of you have figured out, I have an extensive repository of historical asbestos related documents. The large number of diverse documents provides me the opportunity to help broaden our collective knowledge. Let’s go English this week with a 1985 publication by Sir Richard Doll which is a great primer for people trying to…
Read more
I am taking this week off to be with family. I looked through my 70 plus blogs over the last year and one-half, and decided to re-post the one which I believe is the most thought provoking: my Challenger tragedy research. You can find it at https://theasbestosblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Space-Shuttle-Challenger-Thesis-1282022.pdf. This is my first of three such research…
Read more
Fritz Cirkel followed up his 1905 book (see my blog from last week) with an amazingly expanded and comprehensive book in 1910 entitled Chrysotile Asbestos: Its Occurrence, Exploitation, Milling, and Uses. If the 1905 book was a Master’s Thesis in asbestos, the 1910 book is the full blown PhD in asbestos and drafted to cover…
Read more
One of my favorite asbestos history books was written by Fritz Cirkel in 1905 entitled Canadian Government Report on Asbestos: Asbestos, its Occurrence, Exploitation and Uses. This book goes all the way back in terms of commercial use and is filled with pictures and facts rarely seen elsewhere, including many involving England. Let’s start at…
Read more
The primary purpose of a civil court system is generally to provide access to the public, with the goal of searching for fairness, justice, and the truth while at the same time providing finality. At least, that is the way that most people generally view the nature and purpose of civil courts. These courts are…
Read more
Recent Comments