Gourevitch D
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, IV Section, Paris.
Med Secoli. 1998;10(2):227-39.
The day before yesterday: the physician-philologist. The times of the first appearance of printed books and of the re-discovery of ancient texts are also the times of syphilis. The physician, more than a philosopher as Galen suggested, is also a philologist. A very interesting example is fournished by Antonio Benivieni (+1502) and by his book De causis abditis (1506). Yesterday: the philologist-physician. Charles Daremberg (1816-1872) is our example. In 1841, he wrote his medical thesis Exposition des connaissances de Galien sur l'anatomie, la physiologie et la pathologie du systeme nerveux (faculte de medecine de Paris, n 222). Today: a necessary couple, the physician and the philologist. Greek and Latin are no more subjects of teaching in school, and the philologists seem to be strange, dusty and dirty people. Is the physician-philologist still alive or not? To be useful to the daily practice of medicine, history of medicine will be also a philological matter, as philology is the complete study of ancient, modern and contemporary texts. It teaches to read well, to understand all that has been written and, as a consequence, all that the patients tell today to their physicians. The problem is not teaching something more (new facts, new notions...) but teaching to know well; in a word, teaching the famous continuous learning, which is still a difficult reality.
医师 - 语文学家。印刷书籍首次出现以及古代文本重新被发现的时代，也是梅毒出现的时代。医师，正如盖伦所暗示的，不仅仅是一位哲学家，也是一位语文学家。安东尼奥·贝尼维尼（+1502）及其著作《隐匿病因》（1506年）提供了一个非常有趣的例子。昨天：语文学家 - 医师。夏尔·达伦贝格（1816 - 1872）是我们的例子。1841年，他撰写了医学论文《盖伦关于神经系统解剖学、生理学和病理学知识的阐述》（巴黎医学院，第222号）。今天：医师和语文学家这一必要组合。希腊语和拉丁语不再是学校的教学科目，语文学家似乎成了奇怪、满身灰尘且脏兮兮的人。医师 - 语文学家这一角色还存在吗？为了对医学日常实践有用，医学史也将是一个语文学问题，因为语文学是对古代、现代和当代文本的全面研究。它教导人们好好阅读，理解所有已写的内容，进而理解患者如今告诉医师的一切。问题不在于教授更多内容（新事实、新观念……），而在于教导人们精通；简而言之，教导著名的持续学习，而这仍然是一个艰难的现实。
