Investigation into the hazardous use of asbestos. Northern Ireland 1960-76.

During the 1950's Dr. Elliott McCaugheyt collected in Belfast some 15 cases of what appeared to be primary pleural tumours and described thcm-l as a pathological entity "Primary Diffuse Mesothelioma of the Pleura". His findings in the form of a thesis and subsequently published (McCaughey, 1958) were not universally accepted. Primary localised pleural tumours had been described in the past (Stout, A. P., 1952) but both clinically and pathologically these were not the same as those described by McCaughey. Isolated cases had been described elsewhere, but the Belfast cases had been collected over a number of years and derived from a population of only 1 million. It was considered a rare tumour, but not so rare in Belfast as elsewhere. The curious discovery of 16 cases within one year in a Kimberley sanatorium forced Wagner and his colleagues (Wagner, Sleggs and Marchand, 1960), to look for an environmental cause. Asbestos bodies were seen in the lungs and further investigation revealed that these patients had been exposed to blue asbestos from the mines, tips and dirt roads along the crocidolite bearing hills of the N.W. Cape Province.