Ramazzini, Bernardin

, an Italian physician, was born of a citizen’s family at Carpi near Modena, Nov. 5, 1633. When he had laid a foundation in grammar and classical literature in his own country, he went to Parma to study philosophy; and, afterwards applying himself to physic, took a doctor’s degree there in 1659. Then he went to Rome, for the sake of penetrating still further into his art; and afterwards settled as a practitioner in the duchy of Castro. After some time, ill health obliged him to return to Carpi for his native air, where he married, and followed the business of his profession; but in 1671, at the advice of some friends, he removed to Modena. His brethren of the faculty there conceived at first but meanly of his learning and abilities; but, when he had undeceived them by his publications, their contempt is said to have been changed into jealousy. In 1682, he was made professor of physic in the university of Modena, which was just founded by duke Francis II.; and he filled this office for eighteen years, attending in the mean time to practice, and not neglecting polite literature, to which he was always partial, and wrote a very elegant Latin style. In 1700, he went to Padua upon invitation, to be a professor there: but the infirmities of age began now to come upon him. He lost his sight, and was forced to read and write with other people’s eyes and hands. The senate, however, of Venice made him rector of the college in 1708, and also raised him from the second professorship in physic to the first. He would have refused these honourable posts; but, being overruled, performed all the functions of them very diligently to the time of his death, He died Nov. 5, his | birthday, 1714, aged eighty-one. Ramazzini was a member of several of the academies of science established in Germany, Berlin, &c., and left several works the principal of which, and one which will ever be held in estimation, is his treatise on the diseases of artists and manufacturers, entitled “De Morbis Artificum Diatriba,” first published in 1700, and frequently reprinted, and published in English. He also published some tracts relative to certain epidemics, both among men and cattle; some “Ephemerides Barometrical;” a work on the abuse of Peruvian bark; and several orations delivered in his professorial capacity. All his works have been collected and published together at Padua, Geneva, London, and Naples; the edition of London, 1716, 4to, is the most correct. ¹