Peabody's "Care of the Patient" and the Nature of Medical Science.

Francis W. Peabody's 1927 essay "The Care of the Patient" is widely quoted, yet few appreciate the subtlety of its interweaving of medical science with its more obvious humanistic elements. Understanding the essay in context requires a recapitulation of Peabody's life story, a review of earlier work that led up to the culminating lecture in 1926, and a detailed analysis of the thread of argument Peabody wove through the lecture. A better understanding of the essay shows how Peabody anticipated several important later developments in medical thought.