Accounting for lead poisoning
The medical politics of occupational health
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11934331 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Richard Gillespie (0000-0003-0555-2595, The University of Melbourne, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1990 |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 303-331 |
| Publication date | 1990-10-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0307-1022 • E-ISSN: 1470-1200 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/03071029008567775 |
| OpenAlex | W1976470279 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 11 |
The history of occupational health has finally broken away from celebratory accounts of the 'progress' of factory legislation and the'growth' of medical knowledge about specific industrial hazards.' A few historians have now begun to explore the complex relationship between the medical knowledge of occupational hazards and attempts by managers, workers and governments to control those hazards. Historians of medicine have started to examine the nature of medical knowledge itself, and argued that far from being an objective description of illness, medical knowledge is constructed in a social context. The definition and diagnosis of occupational illnesses such as TNT poisoning, miners' nystagmus and industrial fatigue have been highly contested and have changed over time, with doctors mediating between the conflicting interests of workers, employers and the state.2 A comparative study of miners' lung diseases in Cornwall and the Transvaal has concluded that economic, political and technological considerations determined how government and mining companies in each region responded to the changing knowledge of the hazards.3 It has been argued that the effect of factory legislation and workers' compensation was to remove occupational health from the political realm of industrial
Business · Context (archaeology · Factory (object-oriented programming · Government (linguistics · Legislation · Occupational medicine · Occupational safety and health · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Realm · Health and Conflict Studies · Historical Psychiatry and Medical Practices · History · Law · Medicine · Occupational Health and Safety Research
| Citations per year | 0.18 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1993 - 2015 (23) |
| Highly cited | No |