An 18th-century doctor linked mercury miners’ illnesses to their work

A study of Giovanni Antonio Scopoli’s 1761 account shows how he connected mercury exposure, working conditions and prevention at Slovenia’s Idrija mines.

Editorial illustration — not from the study.

Giovanni Antonio Scopoli spent 15 years as a physician at the Idrija mercury mines and described disorders among miners and smelter workers in his 1761 work, De hydrargyro Idriensi Tentamina physico-chymico-medica. His account included tremor, excessive salivation, mouth inflammation, respiratory disorders and other conditions associated with mining labor.

The article places Scopoli’s work within the history of occupational medicine, comparing its detailed focus on one mining site with the broader disease classification of Bernardino Ramazzini and later reform-oriented industrial medicine. Rather than calling Scopoli a neglected founder of the field, the authors describe his work as a distinctive example of 18th-century occupational-medical inquiry.

What Scopoli recorded

The analysis finds that Scopoli’s third section, De morbis fossorum hydrargyri, offered a detailed clinical account of illness among mercury miners and smelter workers. It connected workers’ symptoms and diseases with mercury exposure and the conditions of mining labor, while also considering prevention. The authors characterize this as a monographic, workplace-based approach that came before modern industrial toxicology.

Why the account matters

Scopoli’s work shows that some elements of occupational medicine—linking workplace exposure, working conditions, clinical illness and prevention—were being developed in a specific industrial setting during the 18th century. The study also brings attention to a medical text that remains substantially unknown in English-language histories of medicine, without presenting it as the single origin of the discipline.

Evidence and limits

This is a historical analysis of Scopoli’s 1761 medical work, supported by comparison with Ramazzini and the later history of industrial medicine. It is not a new clinical study of mercury workers, and the abstract provides no modern measurements of exposure, patient counts or tests of the historical claims. Its conclusions therefore concern the character and significance of Scopoli’s account rather than the size or modern medical effects of mercury exposure.

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