You can coincide the beginning of human work, in the Prehistoric era, during which, man acquired and manifested amazing technical skills, superior to those of all other animals populating our planet, with which were contextually associated also special psycho-physical aptitudes, resulting from an increasing coordination between brain, hands, eyes and language.
Karl Marx (1818-1883) German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, argued that: "labor is what distinguishes man from other animals because it makes him a being capable of producing his own means of subsistence."
Therefore, it is not possible to analyze the history and evolution of human civilizations without also taking into consideration the evolution of the many work activities carried out by man and the meaning attached to them, which has also delineated the related social condition over the years.
In fact, in all the most ancient and evolved civilizations, work was despised by free men and men of high lineage, being exclusively entrusted to slaves, so much so that the original meaning of this word, highlighted by the different etymologies, focuses on aspects with strong negative connotations; the Latin term "labor" from which the word "work" is derived, can be translated as: toil, effort, pain, discomfort, travail, misfort.
The turning point for the working man, can be traced back to the Medieval era during which, in addition to the unchanging presence of the social class of "Serfs of the Glebe" whose existence was tied, for life, to the lands of the Lord of the Feud, other important figures also emerged, represented mainly by artisans and mercants.
With the emergence of such activities, belonging to the nascent Borghese society, a reorganization of the work structure became necessary, changing, consequently also the concept attributed to work itself, which was no longer understood exclusively as physical effort for the cultivation of the land but, as the acquisition of high manual skills, correlated with as many entrepreneurial skills and competencies.
Work, therefore, is no longer synonymous with slavery and the working man acquires his dignity as a free individual.
A few years later, between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, we will witness, capitalist development, which, in turn, will be characterized by the figure of the subordinate worker, that is, an individual who, while retaining his own singularity, personality and freedom, will be in the employ of a merchant or artisan.
Subsequently, with the Industrial Revolution, the model of the Subordinate Worker will gradually expand and consolidate, until it takes on the specific characteristics of the "Worker," that is, the salaried worker who carries out his activity in the emerging factories; this will necessarily entail the performance of activity in common physical environments and a revolution marked by differentiation in specific tasks as well as the organization of work in shifts.
Between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in fact, the figure of the Salaried Subordinate Worker, read Worker, acquires an increasingly specific and defined trait and characterization, so much so as to bring about an irreversible change in the concept of "work" which, to use a quotation from prof. Vegetti, a historian of philosophy, begins to be understood as, "erogation by man of a productive force that, at the same time is transformative and creative, this idea of labor as force and as energy, clearly connects to the style of nineteenth-century epistemology, centered on the great concepts of force and energy that dominate physics, thermodynamics, electromagnetism, and all the tractive sciences..."
These are the two main concepts of labor as force and energy.
In the following decades, the concept of work becomes, therefore, synonymous with high socialization thanks, both to an ever-increasing aggregation in communal environments, and to the strong and unstoppable urbanization, involving the emergence and spread of residential structures contiguous to factories, determining a near fusion between work environments and places of extra-work life.
A new work culture is also emerging that sees paid activity as the measure of social differentiation and the means that guarantees the security of survival.
At this point, it should be clear that the organization of work represents the way in which, since time immemorial, man has been able to maintain himself and advance different societies, thereby fostering their technological development and the spread of the same.
To relate to the present day, since the new millennium, as a result of the globalization of the economy, there has been a radical change in the organization of work that has given rise to the emergence of a multitude of specific tasks, that is, a plurality of actions related to the peculiar and concrete productive activity. It is precisely in light of this differentiation of work cycles that was based the birth of the discipline: "Medicine from Work", whose function and protagonists will be the subject of subsequent accurate and detailed descriptions.
For now, suffice it to say that the European Legislation provides, for any work cycle, the presence of a Medico del Lavoro of reference, this figure is called in common jargon "Medico Competente" whose activity, over the years has gradually intensified and perfected to the point of necessitating the computerization of all processes in which he is active and of which I will speak in detail in future articles.
Bibliography
- Sartorelli E. (1981): Trattato Di Medicina Del Lavoro Ed: Piccin
- Penso G. (1991):Medieval Medicine Ed: Ciba Geigy
- Vegetti M (1981): Ergastulum: the place where one works. In work=freedom from work or freedom from work? supplement to no. 24 of "Il Manifesto" 24/2/1981.
- Marx K. (1886): Il Capitale Ed. Feltrinelli
