as the Portuguese amianto and the French amiante. It had also been called "amiant" in English in the early 15th century, but this usage was superseded by "asbestos". The word is pronounced or . History People have used asbestos for thousands of years to create flexible objects that resist fire, including napkins, but, in the modern era, companies began producing consumer goods containing asbestos on an industrial scale. Today people recognize the health hazard that asbestos poses; the use of asbestos is completely banned in 55 countries and strictly regulated in many others. Early references and uses Asbestos use dates back at least 4,500 years, when the inhabitants of the Lake Juojärvi region in East Finland strengthened earthenware pots and cooking utensils with the asbestos mineral anthophyllite (see Asbestos-ceramic). One of the first descriptions of a material that may have been asbestos is in Theophrastus, On Stones, from around 300 BC, although this identification has been questioned. In both modern and ancient Greek, the usual name for the material known in English as "asbestos" is amiantos ("undefiled", "pure"), which was adapted into the French as amiante and into Spanish and Portuguese as amianto. In modern Greek, the word ἀσβεστος or ασβέστης stands consistently and solely for lime. The term asbestos is traceable to Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder's first-century manuscript Natural History and his use of the term asbestinon, meaning "unquenchable". While Pliny or his nephew Pliny the Younger is popularly credited with recognising the detrimental effects of asbestos on human beings, examination of the primary sources reveals no support for either claim. Athanasius in Alexandria, Egypt in about 318 AD wrote, "The natural property of fire is to burn. Suppose, then, that there was a substance such as the Indian asbestos is said to be, which had no fear of being burnt, but rather displayed the impotence of the fire by proving itself unburnable. If anyone doubted the truth of this, all he need do would be to wrap himself up in the substance in question and then touch the fire." Wealthy Persians amazed guests by cleaning a cloth by exposing it to fire. For example, according to Tabari, one of the curious items belonging to Khosrow II Parviz, the great Sassanian king (r. 590–628), was a napkin () that he cleaned simply by throwing it into fire. Such cloth is believed to have been made of asbestos imported