The physician: From certainty to complexity
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12775/ths.2002.029Keywords
medicine, physician, Baroque, socio-cultural revolution, nineteenth centuryAbstract
There is no doubt that during the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century physicians were considered less as simple prescribers of medicaments and a source of ready cash, and more as the bearers of a precious patrimony of science and wisdom destined to be passed on to others and further enriched over time. Such figures are becoming extinct. Their epigones (by now considered old-fashioned) are going through a profound crisis which reflects the status of the medical world as a whole. The rapid growth of social needs seems to parallel the disappearance of the very foundations onwhich this kind of doctor based his existence, but the intricate and intriguing historical regression of clinical medicine, and the disordered rhythm of its scientific revolutions, can also be identified as significant epistemiological and ethical elements.
An analysis exploring the decline of this typology of physician is not easy because the number of intelligible real facts exceeds the cognitive and organisational capacities of a single human mind. This obliges us to gather causes and connections, and bring different events together into ad hoc historical units. A criterion for ordering the set of events concerning the evolution of the physician figure can be the concept of complexity,
which has shaken the certainties of the logical bases of traditional medicine. In the light of this concept, the course of the development of medicine can be divided into three epochs:
- the first epoch is characterised by the episteme of the certainty derived from transcendental faith;
- the second, which began in the Baroque age, by an episteme based on the certainties deriving from faith in scientific research;
Paper partially sponsorized by: Fondazione Michele Rodriguez - Scientific Foundation for Quantitative Measurements in Medicine, Milan Italy and Quantitative Measurements Centre, Scientific Department, Istituto Clinico Humanitas, Rozzano Milan Italy.
- the third and present epoch is increasingly characterised by an episteme whose essence lies in uncertainty due to the complexity highlighted by technology.
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