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Period: 1556 to
THE EARLY MEDICAL PIONEERS
Publication of Georgius Agricola’s ‘De Re Metallica’ (‘On the Nature of Metals’), which talks about metals
and mining techniques and makes reference to the need to look after the miners (e.g. sufficient ventilation,
respiratory protection)
Bernardino Ramazzini, an Italian physician known as the father of occupational medicine, publishes ‘De
Morbis Artificum Diatriba’ (‘Diseases of Workers’) about occupational diseases. -
Period: to
THE BRITISH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
Occupational health can trace its roots back as far as Ancient Greece when Hippocrates, a Greek physician and the
father of medicine (the Hippocratic oath) observed lead poisoning among miners. Pliny the Elder, a Roman Senator, was
the first to recommend that miners should use respiratory protection (using an animal bladder). -
Percivall Pott
A surgeon, finds an association between exposure to soot and a high incidence of scrotal
cancer in chimney sweeps, the first occupational link to cancer
