Towards a realistic approach to medical biography

Abstract

It is notable that the history of medicine was first taught through biographies, and mainly through hagiographical texts of ‘great doctors’ – often called the Oslerian approach. Charles Coulston Gillispie saw the history of ideas ‘as centred on “individual great men”, the thought of a few brilliant lights who bravely probe at the “edge of objectivity” in a quest to advance the collective scientific understanding of humanity’. 1 Medical biography praises the inspirational work of these great doctors and medical men, exemplars in their fields. The social history of medicine attempted to demonize the old-school biographically-centred approach in the history of medicine, executing quite a hit on this mentality. Nevertheless, recent texts have proposed reconsidering the significance of medical biography by medical historians since biographies are, after all, another form of microhistory, versions of which currently fill the pages of medical history journals. Biography is suggested to have significance for the history of medicine but how is it possible to give reliable descriptions of facts, a necessary facet of history, if we tend to sanitize every action of the subject? A realistic approach depicts the subject in a more human dimension, under personal or social constraints and boundaries. Before we re-accept the role of medical biography in the history of medicine, we should reflect on the definition of biography and the purpose it serves. Nye 2 explains that it maintains a great public appeal and offers historians of science an opportunity to reach a