LUDWIG TELEKY WAS A MAJOR international figure in early twentieth century social and occupational medicine, admired for his scientific accomplishments, legislative and regulatory achievements, and progressive political views.1 He published some 350 papers, monographs, and books and cofounded an important journal, Archiv fur Gewerbepathologie und Gewerbehygiene (Archive of Industrial Pathology and Hygiene), yet at the same time held notable administrative positions. He was active in the German Social Democratic Party and played a significant role in international organizations as a founding member of the Permanent International Committee on Industrial Medicine in 1906 and as editor of the Encyclopedia of Industrial Diseases published by the International Labor Organization (founded in 1919).2 Teleky was born in Vienna, Austria, on July 12, 1872, and graduated in medicine from the University of Vienna in 1896.2 He was appointed lecturer in social medicine at Vienna in 1909, a position he held for 10 years.3 In that role he inspired future leaders of social medicine and international health such as the Croatian Andrija Stampar, who went on to play important roles in Yugoslavian public health, the League of Nations Health Organization, and the World Health Organization.4 In 1921 Teleky became medical inspector for factories for the Rhineland and, simultaneously, director of the Postgraduate Academy of Social Hygiene and Industrial Medicine at Dusseldorf.5 During his years in Austria, Teleky was respected for his broad views on social medicine and industrial hygiene.6 During his years in Germany, he was noteworthy for courageously keeping his distance from racial hygiene and eugenics.7 In 1932, because of Nazi persecution, Teleky was deprived of his German appointments and returned to Vienna. By 1938, it was necessary for him to leave Europe for the United States, where in 1939 he obtained a lectureship at the University of Chicago. In 1944 he took a position with the Labor Division of the New York State Department of Industrial Hygiene. While in New York City, Teleky devoted much of his time to writing and, among other works, published his History of Factory and Mine Hygiene (1948), from which this excerpt is taken. Near the end of his life, the Federal German Republic tried to make amends to him for having been victimized by the Nazis and conferred the Grand Cross of Merit on Dr. Teleky, and the Town of Hamm named a street after him.8