The history of mesothelioma began in the early 1900s. Mesothelioma history, just as in the discoveries of other main infections, is a combination of science, politics, medical science and courage. Mesothelioma is a deadly infection that affects the lining of a figure of organs in the body, majority normally the lungs. It is now known that asbestos exposure is the initial activate for this disease; however, for more than century of asbestos mining and presentation, the link between asbestos and mesothelioma waited obscured.

In the early 1900s employees at asbestos factories in Britain were experiencing an alarmingly high incidence rate of lung disease. The first reported shell of asbestosis in a British asbestos employee happened in 1906. By the late 1920s, the lung infection troubles related with asbestos mining and presentation were becoming familiar, so much so that the British federal commissioned a research in 1930. The research results illustrated that asbestosis was an vocational infection and was related with asbestos exposure.

The link between lung cancer and asbestos was slower to emerge. While a lot asbestos employees were dying of lung cancer in the 1930s and 1940s, there was also high growth rate of cigarette exert and a high incidence of tuberculosis. Unless an autopsy was executed, it was difficult to determine the specific breed of lung cancer that caused death. During this time term, it emerges that the asbestos industry officials prepared small exertion to deploy the link between asbestos and mesothelioma, even though substantial evidence advised this link.

After World War II, asbestos mining in South Africa was growing rapidly. South Africa had abundance of inexpensive labor, and fresh engineering was earning asbestos mining much more efficient. Although a familiar South African medical investigator recorded in 1928 that asbestos exposure could activate danger, he attributed the risks to asbestos processing, not mining.

In 1948, South Africa commissioned the first chest and infectious infection hospital in the field of the asbestos mines. The hospital's first medical superintendent, Chris Sleggs, was the first physician anywhere in the world to perceive a important figure of malignant mesothelioma cases. He recorded the presence of atypical cases of lung infection in the wards. Most cases of tuberculosis recovered with coverage, but a minority of the cases emerged to be impervious to the drugs. He originated to investigate.

Chris Wagner, a medical investigator, became aware of the atypical lung infection in the mid 1950s. He began a science venture to superior interpret the vocational dangers related with the asbestos mining. Due to the exertions of Drs. Sleggs and Wagner, along with a third investigator, Ian Webster, via the late 1950s, the bridge between mesothelioma and asbestos was well documented.

In 1959, these three scientists attended an global convention in Johannesburg, South Africa. They handed papers, founded on their science, illustrating the bridge between mesothelioma and asbestos. After the convention, they blended their information and surrendered it to a prestigious British medical journal. Their information illustrated that of the 33 cases of pleural mesothelioma analyzed via them, 32 had proven exposure to asbestos mining.