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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
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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


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