ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the conventional analysis of the history of medicine and offers the view that, just as the intellectual basis for medical thinking can be challenged, so too can the historical basis for clinical practice. It is during the last 200 years of the present millennium that one sees the real triumph of rationalism and scientific thinking in medicine. The nineteenth century saw the dawn of hospital medicine in Paris. Foucault identifies the Parisian clinician Bichat's work in anatomy as pivotal at this time. The passing of the Medical Act in 1858, with its establishment of the GMC, can be seen as the crowning glory of the Asclepian tradition for medicine in the UK. The American College of Psychiatrists regarded homosexuality as a disease up until 1974, and in contemporary medicine confusion still exists about whether conditions like alcoholism or chronic fatigue syndrome are real disease entities.
