ABSTRACT
The clinical method practiced by physicians is always the practical expression of a theory of medicine, even though it is not made explicit. The theory embraces such concepts as the nature of health and disease, the relation of mind and body, the meaning of diagnosis, the role of the physician, and the conduct of the patient-doctor relationship. In recent times, medicine has not paid much attention to philosophy. Thomas Sydenham described the symptoms and course of disease, setting aside all speculative hypotheses based on unsupported theories. Clinical medicine took a long time to fall under the domination of the Enlightenment paradigm of knowledge. The patient-centered clinical method is the most recent version of the historic struggle to reconcile two often competing notions of the nature of disease and the role of the physician.
