The Clinic or the Art of Diagnosis

Tracing the history of the clinic in the modern age means understanding the change in perspective on the concept of disease. This chapter attempts to highlight how the concept of disease gradually shed its mystical, even metaphysical, foundations to acquire a positive basis. From the Paracelsian disruption to the creation of hospital medicine after the Revolution of 1789, it highlights the practical and ideological disruptions that led to the birth of the concept of the clinic. Inspired by Sydenham and the botanical classification system developed by the Swedish physician Carl Linnaeus, he proposed a method for classifying diseases. During the 18th century, there was a shift from species medicine, which was the natural setting for disease, in other words, family, to class medicine, which was institutionalized medicine. In the wake of the Revolution, the combination of surgery and clinical practice brought about broad and profound clinical observations.