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This 253-page monograph is a brief but scholarly review of the literature on most aspects of pneumoconiosis. Chapters include historical background, physical and chemical nature of mineral dusts capable of producing pneumoconiosis, and numerous reviews of the evidence associating various dusts with pulmonary disease in man. The author has included more than 1,000 references dating from antiquity to the present. While he devotes space under each heading to "experimental pneumoconiosis" in animals, a major portion of the text is devoted to the more immediately practical aspects of the subject.
One essential point that is reemphasized is that free crystalline or amorphous silica in particles ranging roughly from 0.05渭 to 2.0渭 in size is essential to the production of most forms of disabling pneumoconiosis. The apparent fibrogenic activity of many other dusts such as glass, fiberglass, feldspar, fuller's earth, mica, talc, kaolin, coal, granite, slate, sandstone, shale, cement, and carbon is