Occupational Health

Module 1 – History of Occupational Health

Overview

What is occupational health? Historical figures in occupational health

What is it?

Occupational health is:Part of public healthAssuring people are safe at workPreserving and protecting human resourcesMultidisciplinary approach to recognition,

diagnosis, treatment and prevention and control of work-related diseases, injuries and other conditions

What is it?

The bottom line – making sure people go home from work will all their fingers and toes, and that they have not been exposed to anything that will adversely affect their health

Your job should NOT make you sick!

Historical Figures in Occupational Health History

Dangerous Professions as Punishment

"In that direction," the Cat said, waving its right paw round, "lives a Hatter: and in that direction," waving the other paw, "lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad." "But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll.

History

Code of Hammurabi 2000 B.C. ancient Babylonians Contains clauses for dealing with injuries, and

monetary damages for those who injured others “If a man has caused the loss of a gentleman’s eye,

his own eye shall be caused to be lost.” LaDou, J. (1986). Introduction to Occupational safety and

Health. Chicago: National Safety Council, p.28.

Hippocrates (470 to 410 B.C.)

Greek physician Father of Medicine

(Hippocratic oath) Believed in rest, good

diet, exercise and cleanliness

Observed lead poisoning among miners

Pliny the Elder (23 – 79 A.D.)

Roman senator, writer and scientist

Dangers related to zinc and sulfur

First to recommend respiratory protection Miners should cover

their mouths with an animal bladder

Georgius Agricola (1494-1555) Wrote De Re Metallica – mining,

smelting and refining Need for ventilation and fresh air in

mines Environmental contamination Management techniques (shift work) Ergonomics, mechanical lift processes Butter is antidote for lead toxicity Goat’s bladder is used as respiratory

protection

Georgius Agricola

Described the following symptoms of arsenic and cadmium “…there is found in the mines black pompholyx, which eats wounds and ulcers to the bone; this also corrodes iron…these is a certain kind of cadmia which eats away at the feet of workmen when they have become wet, and similarly their hands, and injures their lungs and eyes.”

Paracelsus (1493-1591) "All substances are

poisons; there is none which is not a poison. The right dose differentiates a poison and a remedy."

Von der Besucht, Paracelsus, 1567

Father of Toxicology Established concepts of

acute and chronic toxicity

Bernardino Ramazzini (1633-1714)

Wrote Diseases of Workers Urged physicians to ask “Of

what trade are you?” as part of medical evaluation Related occupational diseases

to handling of harmful materials or unnatural movements of the body

Father of Occupational Medicine

Percival Pott (1713-1788)

Identified relationship between an occupation (chimney sweep), a toxin (poly-aromatic hydrocarbons) and malignancy (testicular cancer).

Chimney Sweeps

Alice Hamilton Champion of social responsibility Investigated the cause and effect of

worker illness Interviewed workers in their homes

and at their dangerous jobs Reviewed the evaluation and control

of industrial hazards such as lead and silica

Founder of Industrial Hygiene Wrote Exploring the Dangerous

Trades First woman named to Harvard

Medical School staff