author
J. T. (John Thomas) Arlidge
1822–1899
A Victorian physician who moved from asylum medicine into the study of workers’ health, he became an important early voice in occupational medicine. His writing linked everyday labor conditions with disease and mortality, especially in the pottery industry of North Staffordshire.
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About the author
Born in Chatham, Kent, on 17 July 1822, John Thomas Arlidge was the son of a doctor and trained in medicine at King’s College London. Early in his career he worked in London hospitals and in asylum practice, including at St Luke’s Hospital, and wrote on the treatment of mental illness at a time when psychiatry was still taking shape.
Arlidge later settled in North Staffordshire, where he served for many years at the North Staffordshire Infirmary and became closely associated with the public health problems of an industrial region. His studies of mortality and disease among potters helped draw attention to the dangers of dust and harsh working conditions.
He is best remembered for The Hygiene, Diseases and Mortality of Occupations (1892), a major survey of how different kinds of work affected health. That book helped establish his reputation as an expert on occupational disease and makes him a notable figure in the history of industrial medicine.