Strabo to Shuttle - Asbestosis in history

If you mention asbestos today, most people will think of its downside - releasing fibres into the air that can lead to asbestosis, mesothelioma and asbestos-related lung cancer - before its remarkable properties that led to it being so valued as an insulator. But through history, the substance has had its qualities valued.

Charlemagne, the 8th century king, had a tablecloth woven from asbestos that he is supposed to have used to impress 'barbarian visitors' - not something you'd call them to their face, I'm sure - by throwing the dirty tablecloth in the fire and pulling it out clean. The idea was that this would convince the 'barbarians' to submit to Frankish rule, helping Charlemagne become yet more powerful without exercising his admittedly strong army.

But it goes back further than this. In the first century AD, Pliny the Elder noted that the material is "quite indestructible by fire," and - even better - "affords protection against all spells, especially those of the Magi." To think Charlemagne went on to use it to present magical ability!

Strabo, a Greek contemporary of Pliny, was also aware of the material, and may have been the source of Charlemagne's idea for cleaning the tablecloth in the fire, as he recorded the same idea with regard to towels. The word 'asbestos', in fact, is from the Greek, meaning 'inextinguishable'; the Romans called it 'amiantus', meaning 'unpolluted', as it could always be cleaned by fire. The modern French word for asbestos, 'amiente', is from the same root.

What is perhaps more surprising is that the Ancient Greeks also knew about asbestosis. It is possible to find advice in Greek literature that it is unwise to buy a slave who had worked in asbestos mines, as their value for money would be reduced by the chances of an early death. It's not the most caring of responses, as far as those slaves are concerned, but it does show awareness.

Much later, the Industrial Revolution led to a great demand for asbestos, which naturally led to a greater amount of mining, and therefore to a greater level of lung diseases among asbestos miners. A Viennese doctor linked the fibres to the death of a young man in 1897, and what can now be seen to be an asbestos-related death was recorded in a 1906 autopsy, but it was 1924 before asbestosis was given as a medical diagnosis.

Since 1924, there has been ongoing wrangling in the law courts about how far employers and employees - and the government - should be held responsible for the diseases that have grown from the asbestos industry. The research of the 1970s that showed an incontrovertible link between the fibres and the diseases that would lurk in the lungs of the miners reduced the argument in most cases, but there are still voices who call for a return to the use of the material even now.

From the point of view of a contemporary sufferer of asbestosis or mesothelioma, this wrangling is somewhat academic; indeed, for most personal injury lawyers who work in the field of asbestos law, these apologists for asbestos are consigned to history.

Intriguingly, though, it is the supposed transport of the future - space shuttles and rockets - that still use the material for insulation. Perhaps one day we'll see a Martian personal injury lawyer placing an asbestosis claim...