A relatively new concern that dates roughly to the post-Industrial Revolution era, occupation health and safety is a field that involves measures to prevent or minimize dangers to people in their places of work, i.e., the office, farm, building site, factory, or store. These hazards generally fall into two categories: those presented by toxic chemicals and those presented by physical factors.

Perhaps the first recognition of an occupational disease was made by Sir Percival Potts in the 1700's, when he identified cancer of the scrotum as an occupational hazard afflicting chimney sweeps.

In industrialized countries, job-related accidents kill more people every year than any diseases except cancer and heart disease. The National Safety Council (NSC) estimated in 1990 that some 100,000 new work-related illnesses occur every year in the United States and that people who work in the mining, agriculture, construction, and quarrying...