Internal medicine: Difference between revisions

[[File:Robert Koch.jpg|thumb|206x206px|[[Robert Koch]], 19th century German physician and microbiologist<ref name="Robert Koch" />]]The term ''internal medicine'' in English has its [[etymology]] in the 19th-century German term ''{{Lang|de|Innere Medizin}}''. Originally,<ref name="Echenberg"/> internal medicine focused on determining the underlying "internal" or [[pathological]] causes of [[symptoms]] and [[syndrome]]s through a combination of medical tests and bedside [[clinical examination]] of patients. This approach differed from earlier generations of physicians, such as the 17th-century English physician [[Thomas Sydenham]], known as the father of English medicine or "the English [[Hippocrates]]." Sydenham developed the field of [[nosology]] (the study of diseases) through a clinical approach that involved diagnosing and managing diseases based on careful bedside observation of the [[natural history of disease]] and their treatment.<ref name="Meynell">{{cite journal |last = Meynell |first = G.G. |title = John Locke and the preface to Thomas Sydenham's Observationes medicae |journal = Medical History |year = 2006 |volume = 50 |issue = 1 |pages = 93–110 |doi = 10.1017/s0025727300009467 |pmid = 16502873 |pmc = 1369015 }}</ref> Sydenham emphasized understanding the internal mechanisms and causes of symptoms rather than dissecting [[cadaver]]s and scrutinizing the internal workings of the body.<ref name="Brought to Life">{{cite web |title = Brought to Life: Exploring the History of Medicine: Thomas Sydenham (1624-89) |url = http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/people/thomassydenham |website = Science Museum, London |access-date = 17 May 2017 |archive-date = 14 August 2017 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170814213637/http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/people/thomassydenham |url-status = dead }}</ref>