Focusing Bernardino Ramazzini's preventive view in health protection

This paper aims to focus Bernardino Ramazzini's concern with the protection of workers' health and the prevention of working risks. This has been achi eved by using a concept mapping approach which highlighted some aspects of the "De Morbis Artificum Diatriba". This approach shows that the author arr anged the collected information according to a well-defined project of inte gration including the already existing knowledge. He investigated the subje ct in depth, observing workers' activities and discussing with workers illn esses they were affected by. However, it emerged that Ramazzini's aim was n ot only to describe the pathological events and to clarify whether they rec ognized an occupational cause, but also to provide workers with care and pr eventive measures. To directly obtain the indications for preventing diseas es caused by work, he collected most of the information by visiting the wor kplaces. Although the preventive measures are not extensively described thr oughout the work when compared to the clinical ones, they are consistent wi th the preventive measures adopted to comply with the present workers' heal th exigencies. In foreseeing the importance of instruments aimed at the pre vention of injuries, Ramazzini's attitude towards prevention is remarkable for its up-to-dateness.