Fibrous Dust Particles and Ferruginous Bodies

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Abstract
Reproducible methods are described for quantitating inhaled fibrous dust particles and ferruginous bodies found in lungs. The size of the fibers, their volume, and weight are estimated by first photographing an aliquot of the fibers and then tabulating their dimensions as obtained from scaled enlargements. These dimensions serve as the basis for estimating the volume and weights of all the fibrous dust isolated from a given pair of lungs. The lungs of seven city dwellers, two long-time employees of a fiber glass factory and one of an asbestos products factory were studied. These lungs were found to contain 15,000 to 66,000 fibrous particles and 300 to 3,900 ferruginous bodies per gram of dry lung. The mean dimensions of the fibers in all lungs were within a surprisingly narrow range.

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