Historical descriptions of physicians' personal pathologies

摘要

There were many instances in the history of medicine when doctors reported on their suffering from diseases or injuries and how they were managed. Orthopaedic surgery saw many examples of such self-reports. Do surgeons describe their own pathologies in the same way they do those of their patients? Also what did such self reports change in the orthopaedic practice of their times and thereafter? The aim of this paper is to review some historical self-reports in which eminent general and orthopaedic surgeons reported their own orthopaedic ailments. Many such reports broke prevalent myths and made significant changes in the orthopaedic thought and methodology.