In the early years, the study of health in the rubber industry was hampered by lack of information in three fields. Epidemiology was just beginning, industrial hygiene had hardly begun, and little or no work had been done on the ways in which rubber chemicals affect the human body. The difficulties this created can clearly be seen in the problems of bladder cancer discovered in the industry in 1949. Since that time epidemiologic studies have become very detailed, more results are available on concentrations of material in factory atmospheres, and the effects of different chemicals on the body are being better understood. This review considers the historical problems of beta-naphthylamine exposure, summarizes the epidemiologic results on the industry to date, and considers the potential problems posed by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and nitrosamines.