Scientific method for medical practitioners: the case method of teaching pathology in early twentieth-century Edinburgh

Abstract

The appointment of James Lorrain Smith as first full-time professor of pathology at the University of Edinburgh in 1912 led to a series of reforms in pathology teaching there. Most significant was the inception of what Lorrain Smith called the "case method of teaching pathology," which used the investigation of clinical cases as the basis for a series of exercises in clinico-pathological correlation. This paper examines the social and cognitive organization of the case method of teaching, and shows how such exercises were expected to inform the students' future medical training and practice. In so doing, it also throws light on the relationship between medical science and clinical practice that obtained in Edinburgh at that time.