Ramazzini: father of environmental health?

On 3 November 1995, an international symposium sponsored by the Collegium Ramazzini is being held in Washington, DC. The title of the symposium is "Preventive Strategies for Living in a Chemical World" and is the second international symposium on this subject sponsored by the collegium; the first was held in Bologna, Italy, 10 years ago. Problems concerning the control of dangerous chemicals in the workplace and the environment have not decreased over these last 10 years but have instead become more urgent and, thanks to organizations like the Collegium Ramazzini, the attention of the scientific community is brought to bear on these important issues. The Collegium Ramazzini is an international community of scholars that was founded in 1982 by the late Irving J. Selikoff of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. Selikoff was one of the foremost authorities on environmental medicine and was recognized for his pioneering work on the relationship between asbestos and lung cancer. The Collegium Ramazzini is named for the Italian physician Bernadino Ramazzini (1633-1714), who studied diseases that he identified with specific occupations, thereby earning himself the title of "father of occupational medicine." In honor of the Collegium and in recognition of its service to environmental science , our cover features its spiritual patron, Bernadino Ramazzini. Insofar as environmental issues may arise from a general spillover of hazards from the workplace into the outside world, environmental health might be considered a subset of the issues facing occupational medicine. The work of Ramazzini founded the science of occupational medicine, although today the focus of its practioners has broadened into the field of environmental health. "Environmental health" is a vague term that is used primarily in two ways. First, it is used to mean the effects of environmental agents on human health. Second, it is used with regard to the health status of the environment. The NIEHS was initiated to study the effects of the environment on human health. The assumption is that through understanding the mechanisms by which toxic agents influence living systems, we will come to an understanding of how toxic chemicals influence human health and disease. The term "environmental health" used in an ecological sense refers to the pollution status of the environment and how ecological systems are withstanding the onslaught. Environmental Health Perspectives uses the term in both senses. We are interested in the effects of toxic agents on human health …