History, dermatology, and medicine: another outlook

The History of Medicine and of Dermatology tends to analyze what happened in these disciplines in a given time and place. Contributions of relevant leaders are studied carefully, and their appropriate value to knowledge is determined. This is fundamental to understanding present knowledge and what might be expected in the future. There is, yet, an additional perspective, namely, the relationships between the above and historical phenomena in their wider sense; particularly, the correlation between politics, economy, psychohistory, and medicine. Evolution of medical knowledge does not occur in a vacuum. This contribution provides examples of this viewpoint and how knowledge of history makes clearer the development of medicine and vice versa. Emphasis is also made on the history and development of dermatology, but rather as an illustration of the overall philosophical point of view of the writer than as an analysis of the history of dermatology in itself. One may summarize metaphorically this viewpoint by stating that while the microscope and the dermatoscope are very important, the telescope is vital for integral knowledge.