Gestalt theory and morbid anatomy.

Abstract

Contact with medical students as a university teacher has shown that there are different types of aptitude: 5/9 of German medical students possess a visual faculty, 3/9 are kinaesthetic and only about 1/9 have the gift of the auditive faculty. Apart from this, there is a general quality which may be termed gestalt perception or gestalt blindness. The fact that for decades the attempt was made to relate qualitative differences in the characteristics of medical observations and pathological and anatomical findings to quantitative changes was the reason for the development of the concept of Relationspathologie . Intellectual pre-occupation with the perception of "gestalt qualities" has resulted in pathology in general being seen as the expression of the biophysics of open systems and making an organismic evaluation of its phenomena. The aim of all natural science is the recognition of order. Theoretical biology seeks an order free from hypotheses. Theoretical pathology involves the application of gestalt philosophy to the detection and evaluation of all potentially dangerous disturbances. Theoretical pathology has nothing to do with "natural philosophy", the "natural history viewpoint", the " vitalism " of the turn of the century or the "holism" of the 1930s . Gestalt qualities can be characterized by means of the " Ehrenfels criteria". In most cases this means distinguishing between "space gestalt", "time gestalt", "tone gestalt", and "sentence gestalt". As defined by gestalt theory, mental and physical processes correspond. Gestalt can always be defined and understood in concrete terms. In the gestalt the conceptual contradiction between "external" and "internal" is overcome. External phenomena are the manifestations of internal nature. In the fields of pathological anatomy, gestalt theory has direct methodological relevance with regard to the following: a) the concept of homology b) the conceptual idea of what is known as "specific inflammation" c) the theory of stages in minor organ diseases d) the characterization of the various forms of pathomorphosis e) patho-anatomical diagnostics according to the laws of mathematical logic. The relationship between individual sciences and philosophy has always been critical. The individual science and philosophy are mutually obscured from one another. Research into facts and research into essence come together, as in a "gestalt circle", to form a single process of understanding. All lawfulness and order originates from a principle of the mind. The visible manifestation of this principle is the innermost nature of the gestalten .