Medical History in general
In the history of medicine is not the writing of history was at the forefront, but rather the diagnoses and their treatments, the historical authority of medicine have been assigned. End of the 19th Century scientists and doctors were concerned with the history of medicine. Through the intervention, by Karl Sudhoff, could be the beginning of the 20th Century, the history of medicine established as a subject at medical schools. Just at this time, they kept very strictly to the teachings of Hippocrates.
The development of medical history
In the era of National Socialism 1933 - 1945, the history of medicine lost a lot of quality, since many medical historian who emigrated to the United States. Only in the 70's, the discussion of the history of medicine has been reignited. In Germany, the importance of medical history is very low. Many medical institutions have been closed, the scientific staff, it chose to work in the U.S. or England, as the history of medicine is becoming increasingly important. That's why more and more medical institutions are closed.
The medical history is located at the medical schools and is part of medical education. Also of facilities and institutions outside the university, the history of medicine is being processed. As a layman, you can do in science museums, or specific medical history museums, the best a picture of the history of medicine.
In the 19th Century there was tremendous progress, thanks to research in the diagnosis and treatment of many diseases. The doctrine of the pathologist, Rudolf Virchow brought the breakthrough in the cell theory. Experience in the field of inheritance were the beginning of human genetics. The fight against puerperal fever, hygiene practices was a major discovery in bacteriology. The discovery of the agent of many diseases that were previously difficult or poorly treatable, such as anthrax, diphtheria, tuberculosis, leprosy, plague, syphilis, gonorrhea were found, thus an antidote could be made against these diseases. The surgery had her big breakthrough with the discovery of antisepsis (wound disinfection) and the anesthesia. This also made new surgical techniques are invented. The mortality rate after surgery was negligible thereafter.
New discoveries of physics and chemistry provided new evidence of the nervous system, digestive, heart and circulatory system and other metabolic functions. The X-rays and radioactivity in the 19th Century discovered that was the beginning of today's X-rays.