ABSTRACT
Attitudes towards disease and its management have been moulded by various systems of thought operating through the ages. The present age is characterised by: a preoccupation with information and its rapid and wide dissemination by electronic media, genetic research, with its ramifying social and ethical implications, and the relentless march of economic rationalisation. In the past, the coupling of anatomical and experimental pathology generated large departmental empires within university-based medical schools that served as central powerhouses for both teaching and medical research. One feature of pathology is a relative ignorance of its role (on the part of both health professionals and the public) as compared with those of the more therapeutic activities of the clinical disciplines. At the same time, laboratories have well-developed information systems allowing tests to be costed out accurately.
