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In the minerals gallery at the Natural History Museum in London, amid rows of ornately carved columns and cathedral-like windows, is an oak display cabinet. Within it is a small clear plastic box, labelled with the warning "DO NOT OPEN".
The case contains what looks like a ball of the grey, fibrous fluff that you might find choking up a clothes dryer – or the kind of thing an owl might regurgitate. It looks like something that has been put on display by accident. But though this artefact is safely sealed within its box, and poses no risk to the public, inside is something deadly. It's an asbestos purse. Oddly, this pale, mangled relic once belonged to none other than American founding father Benjamin Franklin.
For millennia, asbestos was not seen as a deadly hazard – a word now uttered in hushed tones, associated with tragedy and scandal. Instead, it was an exciting, even miraculous, material with highly appealing properties. This is asbestos' past as the "magic mineral", a strange time when it was woven into textiles fit for kings, and used for party tricks. One 18th-Century philosopher even slept in a night-cap made from it.
A valuable acquisition
In 1725, Franklin was not yet the polymath and politician that he is remembered as today. At the time, he was a cash-strapped 19-year-old who had recently been left stranded in London by an unscrupulous employer. Luckily, the plucky teenager had managed to secure a new job at a printing shop, but he needed a quick way to raise some extra funds.
One day, Franklin had the idea of sending the collector and naturalist Hans Sloane a letter, alerting him to the fact that he had brought several curiosities across the Atlantic that might be of interest. Among them was the famous asbestos purse – an item which was seemingly impervious to fire. When it got dirty, it could be thrust into a flame to "purify" it.
Sloane duly summoned Franklin to his house, and the lad was paid "very handsomely" for this noxious item, which eventually ended up at the Natural History Museum.
A material marvel
In fact, the extraordinary fire-resistance of asbestos had been discovered several thousand years before – and has a long history of use in rituals and entertainment.
In the 1st Century AD, the Roman author Pliny the Elder introduced his readers to a new kind of linen, known as "live linen", which could be used to make a variety of quirky products. He had even witnessed its properties himself – napkins which when added to a blazing fire come out cleaner and fresher than before. This same substance, he explained, was also used to make the funerary shrouds for monarchs; because live linen didn't burn, it helped to keep their ashes separated from the rest of the pyre.
The material was, in fact, asbestos, and by this time, the stories of its properties had already spread across the ancient world. Other sources suggest that it was used for towels, shoes, and nets. One account from Ancient Greece describes a golden lamp made for the goddess Athena, which could reportedly burn for a whole year without going out and had a wick made from "Carpathian flax" – thought to be another name for asbestos.
Pliny believed that his special "linen" was resistant to fire because of its origins in the deserts of India. In this sun-scorched environment, where "no rain is ever known to fall", it became hardened against heat. Later theories included that it was made from the skin of salamanders, which were widely believed to be resistant to fire even in medieval times. Both of these ideas were wide of the mark.
Asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral, and can be found in rock deposits scattered across the globe, from the Italian Alps to the Australian Outback. It can take on many different appearances, depending on its origins and what is being used for, but under a microscope there is one tell-tale sign: stiff, needle-like fibres. Though they may look fragile, these tiny threads are not easily destroyed – they are impervious to heat, chemically inert, and cannot be broken down by biological agents such as bacteria.
In addition to its fire-proofing properties, the resilience of asbestos made it a useful addition to household products, even as early as 2500BC. Back in 1930, archaeologists uncovered ancient pottery buried on the shores of Lake Juojärvi, best known as the cleanest lake in Finland. A later analysis revealed that they had been strengthened with asbestos.
The popularity of asbestos did not diminish, and by the medieval era there was a flourishing trade in this deadly mineral. Charlemagne, who became the first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 800AD, was a professional banqueter – feasting his way to diplomatic success. According to legend, he had a snow-white tablecloth spun from asbestos for these occasions, which he routinely thrust into the fire as a party trick.
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Asbestos: The strange past of the 'magic mineral' 
