re: #151 stpaulbear

I remember we had a hair dryer that looked a lot like that one in our house in the early 60, only ours was painted kind of an off-white and was a little smaller. I used to like to play with it.

You’re probably right that it was an asbestos delivery system. No one knew how awful asbestos was yet. I’ve got a catalog of architectural products (anybody remember getting the encyclopedic-sized Sweet’s Catalogs?) from 1917 (a one-volume Sweet’s). One of the pictures in the catalog is for the wonder-product asbestos, and the picture shows a nice fluffy pile of the stuff that looks like a pyramid of cotton candy. I always wonder how young everyone involved with that photo shoot was before they got sick and died.

Long-term exposure to asbestos can lead to death. I’m not sure exposure during a photo shoot would be as lethal. Mercury exposure works the same way. I can play with a drop of mercury in my hand (which I did back in grade school) without much risk. Doing it every day over decades would not be very smart, however.