The notion that medical history can and should serve modern medicine as a humanizing force has been a recurring theme in American medicine from the end of the 19th century to the present. This research investigates the origin of this notion at precisely the time when contemporary Western biomedicine became dominant, with a focus on the United States. Some professional leaders started to warn that the same adherence to science that was fueling professional technical and cultural success was also endangering humanistic values that were essential to professionalism, the art of medicine, and cultural cohesion in the same institutions where the new version of scientific medicine was most enthusiastically embraced. They recognised in history a way to re-humanize contemporary medicine and forestall the threat of a cultural upheaval.
Keywords: Medical History, Medical Humanities, Medical Humanization, Medical de- humanization, Medical Professionalism
Published Date: 2022-11-30; Received Date: 2022-11-01
