occupational disease

Any one of many conditions associated with the workplace. They range from pneumoconiosis in miners to repetitive strain injury in typists. Specialists in occupational medicine, besides looking after workers, are concerned with improving health and safety at work, through public health measures, industrial legislation, and so on.

The first recorded observation of an occupational disease – severe colic in a lead miner – appears in the writings of Hippocrates (460–370 BC). The Italian physician Bernardino Ramazzini, author of Diseases of Workers published in 1700, is regarded as the father of occupational medicine. He described no less than 54 dirty or dangerous trades, including Venetian mirror-making which was associated with mercury poisoning. Britain was the first country to introduce statutory notification of occupational diseases in 1895.