ABSTRACT
The role of diagnosis in clinical medicine can be regarded as a preliminary phase in which an attempt is made to discover the category or type of the subsequent decision problem of patient management that next faces the clinician. Our emphasis on this diagnostic phase has been conditioned not only by its obvious importance in current medical thinking but also because it is at present the best quantified phase of most medical problems. Let us now turn our attention to the complex of less well quantified concepts and actions which are usually considered under the headings of prognosis and treatment.
