[Gastroenterology yesterday and today].

In the 40 years since the foundation of the "Schweizerische Gesellschaft fur Gastroenterologie", medicine - and with it gastroenterology - have markedly changed. New diseases and syndromes have been discovered and others have disappeared. New knowledge in basic sciences influences progress in diagnosis and therapy. In diagnostic methods the most evident advances are fiberendoscopy, endophotography and biopsy, and progress in roentgenology and immunology. New drugs, new surgical methods and controlled trials have improved treatment. However, each advance has its drawbacks: the growing incidence of iatrogenic diseases, the overwhelming literature, the flood of congresses, the record-breaking mentality of many clinicians and the hunting and collecting instinct for "interesting cases". "Medical art", a notion difficult to define, is in danger of disappearing. It means a harmony of knowledge, skill experience, intuition and the predominant desire to help the patient. This means individualized medicine, which is only possible by sympathetic dialogue with the patient - not only by specialists in psychiatry or psychosomatics, but by every doctor. will be able to preserve medicine from inhumanity in spite of technology, rationalization and the computer?