Particles and Health

Cloistered away in the depths of my laboratory or moving carefully and quietly, collecting samples at the “scene of the crime” I have been analyzing environmental particles for nearly forty years. The wonder I experienced in the beginning as I learned about the significance that a particle could have is solving a mystery has never left me. This text is a distillation of what I have learned as it applies to indoor environments. It is necessarily brief and is intended to be practical. The intimate behavior of particles, the physics of particle interaction with surfaces and fluids, is presented only to demonstrate the importance of sample location, sample type, and sampling technique. Much of what is presented here may be contrary to accepted practice but that, I suppose, should be expected.