The Living History of Medicine

The history of medicine is a living one and involves much more than reflecting on the battles that have been won or lost in the ever-changing struggle against disease. The living history really lies within man himself and too often the human side of this story is neglected. As doctors, we have been trained to focus on the signs of disease and consequently, we pay little attention to the people who discovered them. When we read in our pathology texts about the interesting triad of defects in an illness such as Hand-Schuller-Christian disease, we tend to forget about the doctors who faced great personal hardships to bring us the information we now use to treat the disorder.