Internal medicine as science – scientific approaches of clinical medicine, 1945-1965

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The project sets out to contribute to the history and philosophy of clinical medicine in the 20th century. We are aiming for a systematic analysis of the development of postwar internal medicine in East and West Germany, Austria and Switzerland between 1945 and 1965 – with main emphasis on leading theories and programmatic positions, but even more on fundamental epistemic fields and research practices (“Wissenschaftlichkeiten/scientificities”). We include (1) clinically oriented basic science and research, (2) clinical-evaluative research on diagnostic and treatment methods, (3) anthropological-psychosomatic research and theory building, 4) population-related research in the field of health care, social hygiene and social medicine. Our research design aims to uncover and reconstruct the diversity and variance of clinical-scientific activities in internal medicine while taking into account concomitant political, technical-economic, and demographic-epidemiological developments. In doing so, we make a suggestion how clinical-internal medicine in the postwar decades can be described, analyzed, and understood from the perspective of the history of science and medicine. Furthermore, the project aims to contribute to a historically informed and theoretically sound understanding of current initiatives to strengthen clinical research and promote the use of scientific methods in medical practice and medical training.