Professor Matthew Stewart: asbestosis research 1929-1934

Matthew Stewart, Professor of Pathology at Leeds University, developed an interest in asbestosis during the late 1920s. In 1929, the Medical Research Council (MRC), encouraged by an advisory committee, funded research into asbestosis at Leeds University. Stewart supported by physicians designed a program of clinical, radiological and physiological studies to follow up Merewether's affected asbestos workers. Unfortunately, this met with opposition from industry, and the Home Office Factory Department was reluctant to assist, so it was abandoned. Industry did, however, cooperate with Stewart's studies on the effects of exposing guinea pigs in the factory environment, but this led to little in the way of publication. The failure of the Leeds School to realize its potential in investigating the effects of asbestos in humans, results in part from the discouragement it received and in part from the limited time and energies available to persons with a wide range of active interests. Some 45 years were to elapse before the MRC were enabled to carry out an analysis of the clinical, radiological and physiological data of a population of asbestos workers.