Rodger Pirnie Doyle

Medical scientists view the reality of health and disease in three ways. The most ancient, which was used by Egyptian physicians more than four thousand years ago, is the systematic observation of those who are sick. Through the intensive study of the course of illness in their patients, physicians through the ages have gained knowledge of disease and developed ways of treating it. This simple type of research, the case study, is the foundation of the healing arts and the inspiration for most of the new concepts in medical science. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, a second type of research, the laboratory experiment, provided a powerful means of testing the concepts that physicians derived from their observations of patients. Through the study of animals, …