Herodotus, the ancient Greek historian, tells the story of how the Babylonians in 500 B.C. diagnosed and treated their illnesses. The Babylonians did not have physicians. When they became ill, they went to the city square where they would tell anyone who came to the square about their symptoms. Their fellow citizen would then explain that they once had similar symptoms or that they knew someone who had similar symptoms. They would then offer advice about the remedy that they used to cure the illness. There were wild tales of miracle cures. Herodotus does not comment on how effective the treatments were, but the Babylonians believed in them and used the system for many years.

Modern-day medicine is based on scientific method which was developed in the eighteenth century during the Age of Reason. This method relies on the principle of proposing a hypothesis of how something works and then testing that hypothesis. Medicine is classified as a science because it is based on scientific principles, but medicine is as much an art as it is a science. One of my medical school professors taught me that the most effective way to learn medicine is to go from the textbook to the bedside and back to the textbook. In other words, the student physician should learn the basic science of medicine and then go to the patient with this textbook knowledge and then return to the textbook to learn more about the patient’s diagnosis and treatment. Physicians do not just plug in a list of symptoms into an algorithm and come up with a diagnosis. They use their knowledge and experience to create the art of medicine.

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