On the meaning and usefulness of History of Medicine (1895-1970)

Abstract

The knowledge of the history of Medicine does not seem to add "utility" to the activities of a physician. Nevertheless, for a doctor eager to get good intellectual information -or the spiritual perfection called "culture"- the autor gives some reasons on why being acquainted with the history of medicine has some "utility" through the following items: Intellectual dignity: by deliberately and gratefully assuming the best of those who introduced technical devices or methods, as auscultation, or intellectual elaborations, like the etiologic model of Galen. Moral clarity: to perform as if they were his own, great deeds of the personages whose discoveries built the concepts and procedures used nowadays. Intellectual clarity: assuming the reason for being and the sense of what is being done. Intellectual liberty: knowing history in a comprehensive way, frees a doctor from the temptation of considering scientific notions as unmistakably true and definite. A possible option to originality: stimulated by a will of emulation, to search for less insecure or more rewarding knowledge, tending to "complete" what is at present accepted.