Such recognition as the history of medicine is gaining in medical schools is largely based on the educational value of historical teaching. Whereas in most disciplines the teacher is expected to engage in research, this cannot be said generally of medical history. Indifference toward couecting inconsequential data is understandable, but I believe I discern antagonism here and there to serious and critical historical study insofar as it is not ancillary to the other medical disciplines. I attempt here a theoretical discussion of the intrinsic reasons that underHe the antagonism between scientific research and historical research and a consideration of the possibility of overcoming this antagonism. A considerable amount ofHterature touches on similar problems (i, 2, 3). Without laying claim to novelty, I wish to bring into reHef those features which seem to me to promise an organic fusion between these two kinds of research. My discussion disregards the non-scientific part of medicine because I beHeve that much of the antagonism is associated with the growth of scientific medicine since the nineteenth century. The following analysis, being strictly limited to research, should not be mistaken for an appraisal ofthe general interrelationship between medicine and history, which comprise much more. On the other hand, I speak of science and the history of science rather than of medical sciences and their history. Excursions into the history of physics and, above all, the need for brevity may excuse this terminology, which I trust will not confuse the reader. Physiology, the basis of experimental medicine, has been in the forefront ofmy mind. In his Introduction to the Study ofExperimental Medicine, Claude Bernard (4) describes the true scientist: