History of Silicosis and Silica Dust

Silicosis has been a recognized disease process for over 400 years. Agricola in his Treatise on Mining, written in 1556 described a pulmonary disease afflicting stonecutters and miners and later by Ramazzini in 1713.  Technological advances in the last century, have dramatically increased the dust exposure to the worker due to the high pressure power and air equipment used to in mining, sandblasting and other industrial settings.

Silicosis, as a modern occupational illness, illustrates a legacy of irresponsibility in the United States. The danger of silica has been known since antiquity. In the 1930’s silicosis and its cause “jumped from obscure, scarcely recognized disease hidden for centuries in the chests of workers in various dusty industries to front-page headlines in the daily press.”  Forbes, J., Davenport, S., “Review of Literature on Dusts,” U.S. Department of interior, Bureau of Mines, Bulletin 478, (1950).  Thousands of workers in dusty trades, including sandblasters, laid off during the Depression, brought lawsuits against employers seeking damages for exposure to silica.  Farrall, A., “Silicosis in Certain of its Legal Aspects,”1 Industrial Medicine p. 35 (1932).

The Washington Post reported on congressional efforts to investigate the rising claims from silicosis and “work out a method for ending silicosis.”  May 3, 1936.  After the Gauley Bridge disaster where 476 workers died from silicosis while blasting a tunnel in 1931, the Literary Digest reported that “silicosis is no new disease.  Formerly called ‘miners asthma,’ ‘potters rot,’ or ‘phthisis.’  It is caused by minute particles of quartz dust in the lungs...all agree that the disease can be prevented with gas masks.”  “Village of the Living Dead”  121 Literary Digest 6 (1936).  Even before the publicity, the danger of the sand was well documented.  In 1917 the United States Public Health Service called attention to the prevalence of silicosis in foundry workers.  Watkins, J., U.S. Bureau of Mines, Bulletin No. 1, Air Hygiene Foundation of America, (1917).  By 1936, silicosis had been identified as a disease with a higher mortality rate in sand and shot blasters than other foundry professions.  Merewether, E.R. 7, Tubercle 385 (1936).

Moreover, industrial journals and periodicals were filled with articles discussing hazards of silica especially as it related to sandblasting.  See e.g., Sayers & Lanza, “Pneumoconiosis”, American Public Health Association Yearbook 1932; (expressing increased incidence with sandblasters); Winslow, C.E. et al, “The Dust Hazard in the Abrasive Industry”, 34 U.S. Public Health Reports, 1171-1187 (1918); (silica hazards in the abrasive materials industry scarcely equaled in any other industry); Bloomfield, J.J. et al, “Sand and Metallic Abrasive Blasting as an Industrial Health Hazard,” 15 Journal of Industrial Hygiene, 184 (1933); (air pressured abrasive blasting caused extremely lethal exposure to airborne silica).

Consequently, in 1937, the United States Department of Labor, through its initiative in hosting the National Silicosis Conference, identified a number of occupants which exposed workers to dangerous was sandblasting.  “National Silicosis Conference, Report on Medical Control.”  U.S. Department of Labor, Bulletin 21, Part 2B (1938).  At the conference, a powerful observation was made about the necessary protections needed for sandblasters:

Protection of workmen by means of respirators is also indicated whenever the room air cannot be kept moderately free from dust, and, of course doubly indicated in operations that are unusually dusty.  In all kinds of sandblasting, workmen should be individually protected, without fail.  When possible, the form of respirator which provides for the workman and ample supply of pure, fresh air under direct pressure is certainly the best, provided every precaution is taken to see that the air is free and oily vapor and dust.

For those companies selling products to sandblasting operations, they need to look no further than the front page of the newspaper or government conferences to learn of the danger of sand.  Yet these companies chose to sell their products to businesses, representing that such products could be used for sandblasting--contrary to widely publicized reports about necessary safety measures.  Likewise, sand companies sold sand to business without ever revealing the dangers of silica-abrasives.  While these companies successfully profited in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s, the price would be devastating for thousands of American Workers.