There is some writers allegating Pliny the Elder never evoked slaves working in asbestos mines dying in great numbers nor the recommendation of using special bags containing purer air to protect asbestos miners' lungd.

However, asbestos was known to be a health risk since the late XIXth: the first reported British death of asbestosis ocurred on 1899; seven years later, French labor inspector Denis Auribault published a book on cases of amiantose claiming the lives of at least 50 workers at a Condé-sur-Noireau weavery near Caen.

• Asbestos and Fire: Technological Trade-offs and the Body at Risk (2005), Rachel Maines, p. 26
• "Protecting the workers: the medical board and the asbestos industry, 1930s-1960s.", *Med Hist. 1998 Oct; 42(4): 439–457. *, G Tweedale and P Hansen
• Note Denis Auribault inspecteur du travail 1906 - dangers de l'amiante (1906), D. Auribault

Asbestos wasn't widely used until modern times. Most of the illnesses from asbestos are long term and require extensive inhalation of the asbestos dust, so it would have been more difficult to become sick from exposure until its widespread use.