What is Occupational and Environmental Health (Hygiene) ?
1) Preventive medicine
Occupational and Environmental Health aims to prevent diseases.
2) Social medicine
Occupational and Environmental Health aims is to provide scientific data which base social regulation for prevention of diseases.
3) Environmental medicine
The most effective and safest method for prevention of disease is to regulate the occupational and environmental factors.
History of Occupational and Environmental Health (Hygiene)
- An Italian Medical Doctor, Prof. Bernardino Ramazaini (1633-1714) in University of Padova described diseases specific to variety of occupations in De Morbis Artificum Diatriba.
- A British Surgeon Dr. Percival Pott (1714-88) reported many scrotal cancers in chimney sweepers in 1775. This is the first to describe clearly occupation-induced cancers.
- Prof. Max Josef von Pettenkofer (1818-1901), who was qualified as a pharmacist, established the first Department of Hygiene in the world, in University of Munich in 1876.
History of this Hygienics Course
- Prof. Koinuma was assigned as the first professor of Department of Hygiene, Nagoya Medical University (later Nagoya University School of Medicine) in 1935. Prof. Koinuma had investigated occupational disease and industrial intoxication as a technician of Department of Labor in Japan Government. Prof. Koinuma studied occupational disease for prevention in the process that Nagoya was becoming the center of industrialization in Japan.
- In 1964 (published in 1967 in the original article with English abstract), Prof. Shinya Yamada in Department of Hygiene in Nagoya University School of Medicine reported the first polyneuropathy cases of n-hexane intoxication in the world.
- In 1989, Dr. Ichihara began to study occupational health under supervision of Prof. Yasuhiro Takeuchi. Dr. Ichihara studied mechanism of potentiation of n-hexane-induced neurotoxicity with co-exposure to methyl ethyl ketone, reproductive toxicity of 2-bromopropane, an alternative to ozone-depleting solvents, neurotoxicity and reproductive toxicity of 1-bromopropane which has been introduced as a new alternative to ozone-depleting or global warming solvents.
- In April, 2014, Ichihara laboratory moved from Nagoya University to Tokyo University of Science.
