The Ramazzini Institute
for Occupational and Environmental Health Research   

Who Are We?

     Three hundred years ago, a teacher of physicians, Bernardino Ramazzini, published the first edition of De morbis artificum, in Modena, Italy. He initiated a special way of practicing medicine among workers and in communities of workers. He began his book by advising the physician to “condescend to sit down …if not on a gilded chair… be it on a three-legged stool… .” If he was to judge, and to treat, he must first listen.

     Since Hippocrates, the physician has been enjoined to ask about symptoms and diet, to know the quality of the air and water of the town. Now another set of questions were to be asked, about occupation. And all these were answered best by asking the worker. In that respect, nothing has changed.

     In the new century before us, some moral questions Ramazzini would have had in the back of his mind are asked again, and while he would have had to answer them for himself, or after consultation with his colleagues, today the worker, the family and the people of the town are no longer passive patients. They have been empowered to answer them for and with him.

     In the new century, the physician will have new tools to detect, prevent and treat disease Ramazzini could never have imagined. But there will also be a new set of hazards created by how these new tools are used.

     In the new century, the abuse of the unraveled double helix casts old moral questions in a new mold, but the answers will still have to come only after we sit on the three-legged stool and listen. But if the patient is to use the new found powers of participation effectively, then the patient, too will have to listen.

     Helping patients and physicians listen to each other, in facing together both the promises and the fears of using the new tools – promises and fears that each day assault us and those who act for us – this is the purpose of Genes, Ethics & Environment!