The Rise of Causal Concepts of Disease

Much of contemporary medical theory and practice focuses on the identification of specific causes of disease. However, this has not always been the case: until the early nineteenth century physicians thought of diseases in quite different terms. The modern quest for causes of disease can be seen as a single Lakatosian research programme. One can track the rise and elaboration of this programme by a series of case histories. The success of work on bacterial diseases such as cholera and tuberculos