[The conditions of labor, hygiene and safety at a large shipyard for marine engineering in the northern Basque country at the end of the eighteenth century].

The emergence, at the end of the XVIIIth century, of a tendency towards the prevention of accidents and disease at work is confirmed by the archive documents of this royal dockyard. Vauban had formulated the essential principles at the end of the previous century, but the chaos caused by Revolution stopped them being brought into effect. It was necessary to wait for the 'social' politics of Napoleon III before these principles were rediscovered.