Ramazzini's Diseases of Workers

Bernardino Ramazzini went to see the work for himself. The Collegium Ramazzini, the occupational health body that bears his name, credits him with showing by his own example why a physician should talk directly with working people and visit their workplaces to find out what was making them ill.

He was born in Carpi, in the province of Modena, on 4 October 1633, and took his doctorate in philosophy and medicine at Parma in 1659. In 1682 he was given the chair of medicine at the reopened University of Modena, where he taught for 18 years. In 1700 he moved to the chair of practical medicine at Padua, and the same year his treatise on the diseases of workers was printed at Modena by A. Capponi.

De morbis artificum diatriba described in detail the diseases of workers in 40 occupations, and the Collegium calls it the first comprehensive work on occupational disease. Ramazzini stressed that workers needed proper information about the hazards they faced, and he proposed practical measures to protect them from illness and injury. He also noticed patterns outside the workshop. The Royal Society of Chemistry notes his observation that nuns seemed to be spared cancer of the cervix but had more breast cancer than average, which he put down to their celibate life.

An English translation, A Treatise of the Diseases of Tradesmen, appeared in 1705. The Collegium regards Ramazzini as the father of occupational medicine and credits him with anticipating modern methods of following changes in health and detecting unusual events. He died in 1714, at the age of 81.