Viewpoint
Why Study Medical History?
William K. Beatty, Professor of Medical Bibliography, Northwestern University Medical School
What does the history of medicine have to offer the contemporary, science-oriented, often research-bound medical student? In seeking answers to this question, consider that medicine carries its past with it. The study of history shows the why and where of the present. The relationship between physician and patient, the names of things and procedures, the emphasis on cure rather than prevention—all are part of the Western tradition.
The language of medicine is filled with words such as carcinoma, herpes, syndrome, and ureter, which come from the everyday Greek used by Hippocrates; abdomen, scabies, and many other anatomical terms from the Latin of Celsus; alcohol, camphor, syrup, and tartar from Arabic; and bilingual hybrids such as cranium and elixir that suggest either ignorance or imagination on the part of those who coined them.
The study
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