[History of the history of medicine and its significance. Trends in a discipline in transformation].

This paper gives an account of the new orientations in history of Medicine, of its opening up, and of the new pluridisciplinary approach it intrinsically requires. It examines the past of the history of Medicine. This discipline, born during the 18th century, was at the beginning indistinguishable from Medicine in itself. This first period, that of the myth of the founder, was followed, during the 19th century, by a positivist historiography, inspired by the myth of the precursor. Now, released from this double historiographical myth, present history of Medicine attempts to understand the past of Medicine, considering a set of factors that are together scientific, social and cultural.