The De Morbis Artificum Diatriba (Dissertation on Workers' Diseases) is the first book exploring working environments with the aim to identify the hazards that could harm health and cause specific disorders in individuals and in groups of workers who carried out the same activity (occupational diseases)(Di Pietro P 1999, Carnevale F et al. 2009).

For this work Ramazzini is the acknowledged father of occupational medicine (Pagel JL 1891; Garrison FH 1934) and the Diatriba has been cited by Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and Cotton Mather.

The book describes Ramazzini’s observations made as a doctor and as an investigator of the territory, combining clinical remarks of the patient-worker with the description of working conditions and techniques, and related risks to health (Di Pietro P 1999).

Whereas some clinical pictures deserve only a historical interest, several disorders represent even today a health problem for specific groups of workers.

Ramazzini proposed several precautions for the prevention of diseases whose basic idea, mostly based on common sense, was correctly conceived.

Ramazzini understood that different morbid pictures were associated with postures, movement repetition, weight lifting, muscular load, which today define the ergonomic factors (Franco G & Fusetti L 2004).

The Diatriba lists 26 different occupations, from brick-makers to sailors and from printers to writers and notaries, affected by all kinds of musculoskeletal disorders (Franco G 2010).

In addition to the continuous sitting responsible for sedentariness issues, he detected in accounting clerks the psychological stress to avoid mistakes or cause loss to their employers and keenly noted that an intense application of the mind harmed those workers (Franco G 2020a).

The Diatriba reports morbid forms such as dust-related lung problems and serious neurological disorders associated with lead and mercury exposure (Riva MA et al 2018).

The book describes risks from excessive exposure to heat and sunlight and night work health troubles (Galimberti E et al 2014) and it was the first to report headaches from chemical substances.

Women were usually employed in different occupations entailing exposure to dangerous materials and ergonomically challenging works, in agriculture and transport of stones and bricks, although they were committed to the production of commodities such as pasta, bread and clothing items (Franco G 2012).

Occup Environ Med 2015;72:2-3 Carnevale F. Annotazioni al Trattato delle malattie dei lavoratori di Bernardino Ramazzini.

Lancet 1999;354:858-861 Franco G, Fusetti L. Bernardino Ramazzini’s early observations of the link between musculoskeletal disorders and ergonomic factors.

Am J Clin Pathol 2011; 135:170-1 Franco G. Bernardino Ramazzini and women workers’ health in the second half of the seventeenth century.

2020;181:180-1 (b) Franco G. Bernardino Ramazzini's De Morbis Artificum Diatriba on Workers' Health-the Birth of a New Discipline.