ABSTRACT
The Minneapolis surgical professor maintained that, “if all medicine from anatomy to zoology could be taught with special emphasis upon the historical approach, our medical students would be better prepared to cope with the problems of the future.”1 He was certainly on target and I clearly support his perspective. How can anyone eliminate or de-emphasize the value of history in the surgeons profession or in any other field of medicine or cultivated discipline ? Yet history is ignored more frequently than might be expected. Wangensteen was fully aware of this state of affairs!
