Surgical Case Records as an Historical Source: Limits and Perspectives

SUMMARY

Historical case records are a valuable source of medical history, especially concerning everyday clinical practice. In this context, the files of the Göttingen University Hospital are a valuable contribution. Detailed examination shows that with this material, statistical analysis would lead only to very general statements—and this as a result of troublesome re-coding. This paper pleads for using the diagnostic code as a device that makes access casier rather than as a category of evaluation, and for selecting ‘typical’ examples, not blurring singularity. Thus, historical knowledge is based more on prosopography than on statistics, so preserving historical authenticity and methodological rigour.

Göttingen, hospital records, history of surgery (twentieth century), diagnostic code, statistics, clinical epidemiology, Nazi medicine, medical ethics