 It was in the late 1800s and early 1900s that medical professionals started to notice health issues connected to asbestos. In 1897, a doctor in Austria attributed a patient's breathing problems to breathing asbestos, and an 1898 report by the British government cited widespread damage and injury of the lungs due to the dusty surrounding of the asbestos mill. The first confirmed death from asbestosis was reported in England in 1906 by Dr. Montague Murray.