Content area
Full Text
Bernardino Ramazzini was born in Carpi, Italy, in 1633. While he was still a medical student at Parma University, his attention was drawn to diseases suffered by workers. In 1682, when he was appointed chair of theory of medicine at the University of Modena, Ramazzini focused on workers' health problems in a systematic and scholarly way1 He visited workplaces, observed workers' activities, and discussed their illnesses with them. The medicine courses he taught were dedicated to the diseases of workers.2
Ramazzini systematized the existing knowledge and made a large personal contribution to the field by collecting his observations in De Morbis Artificum Diatriba [Diseases of Workers]; the first edition was printed in Modena in 1700 and the second...