Bernardino Ramazzini and the Linkage of Clinical Pictures with Ergonomic Factors

Although as a formal branch ergonomics has a historyof about 50 years (Wilson 2000), observations on the interactionbetween working individuals and working environmentdates back to several centuries ago (Marmaras et al. 1999).Among the authors who foresaw the role of ergonomicfactors in workers’ health, the contribution of BernardinoRamazzini is worthy to be remembered because he wentbeyond the usual doctor’s practice of his time. It was ratherodd for clinicians of that time to devote themselves to theinvestigation of the relation between health and workingconditions. In fact, as stressed by Franco (2000), the majorityof the population faced health problems much more basic(such as typhoid, smallpox and plague) than work-relatedones and doctors’ attention was attracted mainly by therichest people illnesses. The originality of BernardinoRamazzini is particularly evident in this context: as a XVIIthcentury doctor he investigated the role of working conditionsin determining diseases, anticipating the epidemiologicalmethod for detecting health changes caused by ergonomicfactors and focussing on the need to investigate the workingenvironment in order to improve it.