Ageing Cattle: The Use of Radiographic Examinations on Cattle Metapodials from Eketorp Ringfort on the Island of Öland in Sweden

In this paper conventional X-ray analysis of cattle metapodials is used to study the age structure of slaughtered cattle at Eketorp ringfort on the island of Öland, Sweden. The X-ray analyses suggest that several animals in both phases were slaughtered aged 4-8 years. More oxen/bulls than cows reached the advanced age of over 8 years, yet in phase III more oxen/bulls seem to have been slaughtered between the ages of 2 and 8 years. These differences may reflect a change in demand for meat related to the character of the site. The results also show a correlation between metapodials with a pathology connected to biomechanical stress and older animals. This suggests that male cattle were used both in meat production and as draught animals. Asymmetry in male metatarsals such as distal broadening of the lateral part of the medial trochlea was visible on the X-ray images. The bone element also indicates a denser outer cortex of the medial diaphysis in comparison to the inner medulla. This could be the result of repetitive mechanical stress. Two metatarsals from cows were documented with distal asymmetry indicating that cows were also used as working animals. Bone elements with changes in the articular surfaces were more common in metapodials from cows with an X-ray age of over 3-4 years. These results highlighted the slaughter age difference between oxen/bulls and cows, enabling a better understanding of animal husbandry and the selection of draught cattle at Eketorp ringfort.

["On professions considered as a cause of disease" (1849) by Enrico de Betta. The first Italian modern discussion on diseases and work]

The doctoral dissertation in Pavia in 1849 by Enrico de Betta is presented as a well-constructed, comprehensive and modern discussion of diseases ascribable to work. 150 years after Ramazzini's treatise, Enrico de Betta, through an updated knowledge of contemporary literature especially French and German, refreshed and renewed the knowledge inherited from Ramazzini in the light of the changes introduced with the beginnings of industrial hygiene and the first steps taken in occupational epidemiology. In the introduction to the text and accompanying notes, the authors offer an interpretation of the significance of overcoming the main Ramazzinian paradigms. This takes into account the current debate, especially in the French cultural sphere, on the meaning of autonomy and complementarity of the various disciplines that are the foundations of the protection and promotion of the health conditions of the working classes. It is suggested therefore that a simplistic view of Ramazzini as the unique 'father" of modern occupational health and safety at work needs to be abandoned. The work of de Betta does not seem to have had much success in Italy. The debate and interventions on the relationship between diseases and work still had to wait half a century to produce effects, but this took place in a very different context, that of Giolitti's era.

War’s long shadow: masculinity, medicine, and the gendered politics of trauma, 1914-1939

War is an inherently traumatizing experience, and during the First World War more than 15,000 Canadian soldiers were diagnosed with some form of war-related psychological wounds. Many more went unrecognized. Yet the very act of seeking an escape from the battlefield or applying for a postwar pension for psychological traumas transgressed masculine norms that required men to be aggressive, self-reliant, and un-emotional. Using newly available archival records, contemporary medical periodicals, doctors' notes, and patient interview transcripts, this paper examines two crises that arose from this conflict between idealized masculinity and the emotional reality of war trauma. The first came on the battlefield in 1916 when, in some cases, almost half the soldiers evacuated from the front were said to be suffering from emotional breakdowns. The second came later, during the Great Depression, when a significant number of veterans began to seek compensation for their psychological injuries. In both crises, doctors working in the service of the state constructed trauma as evidence of deviance, in order to parry a larger challenge to masculine ideals. In creating this link between war trauma and deviance, they reinforced a residual conception of welfare that used tests of morals and means to determine who was deserving or undeserving of state assistance. At a time when the Canadian welfare state was being transformed in response to the needs of veterans and their families, doctors' denial that "real men" could legitimately exhibit psychosomatic symptoms in combat meant that thousands of legitimately traumatized veterans were left uncompensated by the state and were constructed as inferior, feminized men.

The evolving role of biomechanics in prevention of overexertion injuries

This paper describes occupational biomechanics as an evolving body of knowledge that has required not only a sophisticated development of fundamental biomechanical principles and human failure data, but also has required epidemiological information to enable a more complete understanding of how certain types of musculoskeletal injuries can be caused by specific physical work requirements. It also is argued that even with adequate biomechanical and epidemiological information, the ability to change working conditions and manual task requirements in companies required management and workers to become organised into formal ergonomics teams that could be trained and empowered to reduce the known biomechanical risk factors present in various jobs. It is demonstrated that in the last 35 years occupational biomechanics research continues to provide the intellectual machine that is driving the development of important ergonomics guidelines. Despite these successes, however, some major limitations in contemporary biomechanics knowledge are discussed, particularly related to situations where high-speed motions and repetitions are involved. Finally, the evolving importance and limitations in occupational biomechanical simulation models for proactive ergonomics are presented.

Bernardino Ramazzini: the father of occupational medicine

Bernardino Ramazzini was born on October 4, 1633, in the small town of Capri located in the duchy of Modula, Italy. He is credited with establishing the field of occupational medicine during his lifetime. His major contributions came after 1682, when Duke Francesco II of Modena assigned him to establish a medical department at the University of Modena. He was installed in the title of professor "Medicinae Theoricae." In 1700, Ramazzini was appointed chair of practical medicine in Padua, Republic of Venice, the premier medical faculty in Italy. In 1700, he wrote the seminal book on occupational diseases and industrial hygiene, De Morbis Artificum Diatriba (Diseases of Workers). Although Ramazzini is perhaps most well known for his work on exposure to toxic materials, he wrote extensively about diseases of the musculoskeletal system. In particular, he warned of the problems of inactivity and poor postures inherent in some jobs.

A privileged and exemplar resource: traumatic avoidance learning and the early triumph of mathematical psychology

The relationship between a classic 1953 study by R. L. Solomon and L.C. Wynne on traumatic avoidance learning adn the pioneering efforts by Robert Bush and Frederick Mosteller and others to develop mathematical models of learning is analyzed. The main purpose is to explore how Bush and Mosteller disembedded a carefully selected set of Solomon and Wynne's data from its original context, which allowed something as seemingly humble as a set of numbers to become a widely available and valuable resource for the newly emerging field of mathematical learning theory (MLT). The creative use that the MLT community made of these data once Bush and Mosteller had systematically reduced the empirical and conceptual uncertainties within Solomon and Wynne's study is also discussed.

[The construction of the "sick-subject" in RSI]

There is a running debate over the relationship between work and disease, namely the disease known as repetitive strain injury (RSI), or else work-related osteomuscular disturbances (in Portuguese DORT), as it was renamed in 1997 by the Instituto Nacional de Seguridade Social (INSS) in accordance with the Disability Assessment Norms. Standing out among the signs brought about by this new infirmity process is its restricted focus on the subjective aspects in the analysis of the disease. Underlying the INSS stance is the view of a sickness-prone subject and the notion of health as capacity for work. This paper analyzes the historical context which characterizes these health/work and body/disease notions. It also discusses the construction of the 'sick-subject' and the way in which such a subjectivizing process entraps the subject itself. Finally, we show the way in which the INSS in Rio de Janeiro has managed to stop this disease of its work-related characteristics, fighting and reducing the occurrences of RSI as well as the costs with work compensation claims.

[RSI--repetitive strain injury. A questionable and harmful concept]

The hypothesis that repetitive movements and postures cause musculoskeletal injury is not supported by scientific data. The sensory and pain symptoms are better explained as of psychological and psychosocial nature, such as job dissatisfaction or disajustment, with financial gains objectives. The repetitive strain injury concept is iatrogenic and costly to society, and must be abandoned.

RSI: a perspective from its birthplace

The Australian experience is a tale of two RSIs--an endemic condition and an epidemic condition.

The changing nature of office work: effects on repetitive strain injuries

This historical perspective underscores that there is rarely a simple connection between the demands of a particular technology and the risk of occupational disease.

Cumulative trauma disorders and repetitive strain injuries. The future

Cumulative trauma disorders account for 56% of all occupational injuries. Currently, occupational injuries affect 15% to 20% of all Americans. The United States government predicts that by the year 2000, 50% of the American workforce will have occupational injuries annually and 50 cents of every dollar will be spent on cumulative trauma disorders. There is common agreement on the need for reduction of cumulative trauma disorders in the workplace. However, there is little agreement on the appropriate definition for musculoskeletal pain that occurs in the workplace, or the ergonomic and epidemiologic model for cumulative trauma disorders, or on the specific exposure relationships of the individual, by the job, and occurring in the workplace. The previous treatments for, and the natural history of, cumulative trauma disorders in other countries gives some insight into the possible future of cumulative trauma disorders for the United States. Until research can provide specific dose and exposure relationships for the individual, prevention remains the best treatment for cumulative trauma disorders in the workplace.

The RSI syndrome in historical perspective

The pain syndrome repetition strain injury (RSI) has been variously interpreted as a psychogenic disorder, an overuse injury of upper limb musculature, and a state of peripheral neural irritability. A review of the history of work-related upper limb disorders was undertaken to ascertain whether RSI is a new medical phenomenon or an older syndrome in a new guise. In the mid-nineteenth century these disorders were known as either craft palsies or writer's and other occupational cramps. Not withstanding clinical evidence suggesting that most were associated with peripheral neural or muscular dysfunction, a body of influential medical opinion considered them all to be disorders of the central nervous system, appropriately termed the occupation(al) neuroses. During the twentieth century, as discrete occupational upper limb nerve lesions were delineated and the spasmodic form of writer's cramp was recognized as a torsion dystonia, a unifying concept of aetiology for the occupational neuroses of the nineteenth century became untenable. The RSI syndrome of the 1980s can be identified from early case descriptions of both scrivener's palsy and the neuralgic variety of writer's cramp. Contemporary hypotheses proposed to explain RSI are remarkably similar to those proposed for the occupation(al) neuroses.

The pain of 'RSI'. A historical perspective

The author explains that the arm pain syndrome known in Australia as repetition strain injury (RSI) has also been described in the medical literature of other countries. Different nomenclatures describing this syndrome have been used by authors over the past 120 years. Occupation Neurosis became the generally accepted term during the last century.