Dr.
Bernardino Ramazzini
Class of 1995
Background:
Bernardino Ramazzini was born November 3, 1633, in Carpi,
Italy. He died November 5, 1714, at Padua. He is recognized
as the founder of the discipline of occupational medicine.
He left behind a newly-organized field of medical inquiry
and social action. He also gave his own profession an extraordinary
example of responsible concern for the day-to-day problems
of working people. Ramazzini advanced the study of epidemiology
and was the first to shift initial inquiry of patients from
questions such as "Where does it hurt?" or "Where
do you feel ill?" to "What is your occupation?"
or "What type of work do you do?"
Professional
Experience:
Ramazzini received his philosophical and medical training
at the University of Padua, and went on to take postgraduate
medical training in Rome. After practicing medicine in Rome
and Carpi, the place of his birth, he returned to Modena.
A professor of medicine at the University of Modena (1682-1700),
and an early student of the emerging discipline of epidemiology,
he was also a pioneer in the field of ergonomics and is credited
with founding the discipline of what is now referred to as
industrial toxicology. In his treatise The Diseases of Workers,
the first comprehensive work on occupational diseases, he
outlined the health risks of irritating chemicals, dusts,
metals, and other abrasive agents encountered by workers in
55 different occupations. He served as professor of medicine
at the University of Padua from 1700 until his death in 1714.
Career
Highlights:
During a time when medical theory was a matter of consulting
ancient medical and theological texts, Ramazzini showed a
keen interest in practical problems. It is this wide-ranging
curiosity and this unwillingness to confine himself to expounding
ancient theories that made him famous and is considered his
greatest contribution to medicine and to humanity.
The method
used in his research involved examining 43 different occupations
for the diseases or afflictions they produce and then offering
some practical advice to prevent or mitigate them. The 1703
edition of The Diseases of Workers adds 12 chapters covering
additional occupations he had investigated, despite the fact
that he was going blind when the work was accomplished. Ramazzini
observed that diseases among workers arose from two causes.
First, the harmful character of the materials handled, for
these emitted noxious vapors and fine particles inimical to
the human, and induced particular diseases; second, were what
he termed "violent or irregular motions and unnatural
postures of the body," by reason of which the natural
structure of the body is so impaired that serious diseases
gradually develop. Following this general division, he went
on to give highly accurate descriptions of the afflictions
common to metal workers and to those who used minerals in
their work -- such as miners, goldsmiths, alchemists, distillers
of corrosive solvents, potters, mirror makers, founders, tinsmiths,
painters, printers, and others.
The pioneering
and imaginative work done by Ramazzini some 300 years ago
continues to be felt strongly today. The number of occupations
which have been profiled in terms of the physical, health,
and environmental risks they present to the worker has increased
from the 55 in Ramazzini's time to more than 5,000 today in
the United States alone, while the methodology for such profiling
continues to be refined. Further, the discipline of industrial
medicine founded by Ramazzini long ago is robust in America
and elsewhere. In the United States alone, more than 7,000
physicians specialize in occupational and environmental medicine,
of whom some 1,800 have been "Board Certified" in
occupational medicine.
