Gesnerus
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Biography Historical Article
[The "shoeleather epidemiology" or the reinvention of medical survey. Alice Hamilton and industrial medicine in early 20th century America].
Dr. Alice Hamilton (1869-1970) was a pioneer in industrial medicine, a new discipline that emerged with a new interest in working conditions and occupational hazards within an era of unprecedented industrial growth. ⋯ She went to the source of information in workshops, plants and construction sites, observed the very concrete part of industrial work, interviewed many stakeholders in and around the workplace, making a methodological toolbox for industrial surveys. Her method combined an old medical practice (the medical inquiry) and a new clinical field (the plant) and placed the worker as a patient in the core of the issue of occupational health and safety.