Skip Navigation

Social History of Medicine 1995 8(2):271-283; doi:10.1093/shm/8.2.271
© 1995 by Society for the Social History of Medicine
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by RIHA, O.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

Documents and Sources

Surgical Case Records as an Historical Source: Limits and Perspectives

ORTRUN RIHA*

* Prof. Dr.med. Dr.phil. Ortrun Riha, Institut für Medizin- und wissenschaftsgeschichte Königstraße 42, D-23552 Lübeck, Germany.

SUMMARY Historical case records are a valuable source of medical history, especially concerning everyday clinical practice. In this context, the files of the Göttingen University Hospital are a valuable contribution. Detailed examination shows that with this material, statistical analysis would lead only to very general statements—and this as a result of troublesome re-coding. This paper pleads for using the diagnostic code as a device that makes access casier rather than as a category of evaluation, and for selecting ‘typical’ examples, not blurring singularity. Thus, historical knowledge is based more on prosopography than on statistics, so preserving historical authenticity and methodological rigour.

Keywords: Göttingen; hospital records; history of surgery (twentieth century); diagnostic code; statistics; clinical epidemiology; Nazi medicine; medical ethics


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.