Borderland studies - 1908 Author:George Milbry Gould Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE LIFE-STUDY OF PATIENTS, OR THE BIOGRAPHIC AND MULTIPLE BIOGRAPHIC METHOD OF DISCOVERING MEDICAL TRUTH. Most physicians busy themselves wit... more »h the single illness of which the patient presenting himself complains, and medical practice consists almost always of such treatment of the temporary and single complaint. The repetition of the affection at a later time is treated in the same way. There may be some vague connection noted by the physician between the two or more illnesses, but, at least in cities, the rapid elimination of the old-fashioned family physician, who attended one patient and family for a lifetime, is fast making even that poor overlook impossible. Concurrent affections, and those of organs treated by specialists, were, moreover, not noticed, and a dozen symptoms of minor diseases were not thought of, or were listed as discrete, and without causal or related nexuses. If any physician rose to a philosophic gathering of the facts of his individual patient's several illnesses, he hardly succeeded in looking over the entire life, and subjecting the symptoms and diseases of the whole personality to a rigorous analysis and coordination. Lastly, none has ever thought of bringing a large number of clinical life-histories into comparison and producing a composite photograph of the complete pathologic f1ndings. And just this method, one would think, would have been early seized upon as that certain to bring to view medical truths otherwise remaining hidden from the observer. The method as applied American Medicine, Vol. VII. No. 6, February 6, 1904. to 14 patients with one disease, has yielded unexpected discoveries and demonstrated a unity of cause and of diverse symptoms that was wholly unforeseen. If one glances through the biographies o...« less