RAMAZZINI, BERNARDINO. — Born at Carpi (Modena) on 3 Nov. 1633, died at Padua on 5 Nov. 1714.
He studied under the guidance of the Jesuits, then went to Parma to complete his philosophical and medical studies, taking his degree in 1659. Moving to Rome, he practiced in the hospitals under the guidance of A. M. Rossi; subsequently, he served as a district physician at Canino and then at Marta; he later practiced medicine at Modena, where in 1682 he was elected primary professor of theoretical medicine at the University. From 1700 he taught in the second chair of practical medicine at the University of Padua. Having become nearly blind, he never interrupted his studies, aided by his nephews in reading and writing. In 1708, appointed by the Venetian Senate rector of the Medical College, he was promoted to the first chair of practical medicine.
A member of several academies, he devoted his powerful scientific activity especially to clinical medicine, epidemiology, and physics. He was the first to report on artesian wells with the treatise *De fontium Mutinensium admiranda scaturigine* (Modena 1691), later translated into English; he studied the petroleum of Montezibbo, also from a therapeutic and antiseptic standpoint, and investigated the effects of cinchona. A precursor of Borelli’s work on pressure, he invented the oblique mercury barometer; in his discourse *Antiquitatis et novitatis studio medicus perfici*, he affirmed the importance of historical-medical studies. In his fundamental work, *De morbis artificum* (1700), soon translated into German, RAMAZZINI anticipated by more than two centuries modern social hygiene for the protection of workers’ health in dangerous and arduous trades, thus foreshadowing modern provisions in the field of hygiene and social medicine.