Bernardino Ramazzini's De morbis artificum diatriba or three hundred years from the beginning of modern occupational medicine.

This review opens with the most important examples from the history of medicine until the end of the 17th century, which anticipated the affirmation of occupational medicine as separate medical discipline. The article remembers the famous Italian physician Bernardino Ramazzini (1633-1714) and his book De morbis artificum diatriba (Diseases of Workers) published in Modena in 1700 in which he described the effects of work on health for some fifty professions. By doing that, Ramazzini had laid scientific foundation to modern industrial hygiene, that is, today's occupational medicine. The authors conclude that even 300 years after the first publication of Diatriba, Ramazzini is still relevant, and that it deserves much greater attention than it is given on occasions such as this year's anniversary.