An Interdisciplinary Approach to Measurement

Abstract

This meeting had as its theme the importance of good communications between workers in different disciplines. Papers and demonstrations were presented on a range of topics as apparently unrelated as the intraocular pressure, the tension of nitrogen in blood, and the experimental production of mesothelial tumours. In his introduction Dr J C Gilson showed how these were some recent end-products of research into pneumoconiosis. The work of the Pneumoconiosis Research Unit was centred round the properties of airborne dust and the acute and long-term effects of its inhalation. Studies ranged from the immunological responses of coal workers to surveys of men in some of the world's major asbestos fields; the latter were selected on account of the exposure to dust differing from that of workers in the UK in being confined to a single type of fibre. One link between the different studies was the features of the chest radiographs. For rounded opacities these were now read using the ILO Classification which was largely developed at the Unit; Dr Gilson demonstrated a recent extension to include the irregular opacities which are associated with exposure to asbestos.