RAMAZZINI, BERNARDINO. — Born at Carpi (Modena) on 3 November 1633, died at Padua on 5 November 1714.
He studied under the guidance of the Jesuits, then went to Parma to complete his philosophical and medical studies, receiving his doctorate in 1659. After moving to Rome, he worked in the hospitals under the guidance of A. M. Rossi; subsequently, he was a public physician at Canino and then at Marta. He later practised medicine at Modena, where in 1682 he was appointed senior professor of theoretical medicine at the University. From 1700 he taught in the second chair of practical medicine at the University of Padua. Although he became almost blind, he never interrupted his studies, assisted by his nephews in reading and writing. In 1708, having been appointed rector of the Medical College by the Venetian Senate, he was promoted to the first chair of practical medicine.
A member of several academies, he devoted his vigorous scientific activity chiefly to clinical medicine, epidemiology, and physics. He was the first to report on artesian wells, in the memoir De fontium Mutiensium admiranda scaturigine (Modena 1691), later translated into English; he studied the petroleum of Montezibio, including its therapeutic and antiseptic properties, and investigated the effects of cinchona. A forerunner 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 artificium (1700), promptly translated into German, R. anticipated modern social hygiene by more than two centuries, advocating the protection of the health of workers in dangerous and arduous occupations and thus anticipating modern measures in the fields of hygiene and social medicine.
Gustavo Maria Apolloni