James McHenry,MD: physician,patriot, politician and poet

James McHenry emigrated from Ireland to the American colonies in 1771. He studied medicine with Dr. Benjamin Rush in Philadelphia and immediately volunteered as an Army surgeon when the Revolutionary War began. After serving in the medical department in Massachusetts, New York and at Valley Forge in Pennsylvania, he became an aide to General George Washington and subsequently an aide to the Marquis de Lafayette. President Washington appointed McHenry Secretary of War and he continued in that post under president John Adams. While Secretary, he revised military regulations, established a professional standing Army, pacified the Indians, enlarged the naval forces, organized the armed forces under civilian authority and initiated plans for a military academy. Baltimore's Fort Whetstone was renamed Fort McHenry in his honor. During the War of 1812, Fort McHenry gained fame as the birthplace of the national anthem of the United States.     

The Ayurvedic physician as scientist

This paper is written in response to an article by Robin Horton in which Horton argues that 'traditional' systems of thought are relatively less open to external challenges than is modern scientific thought. Traditional systems of thought are (by definition) past-oriented; they consider truth to have been handed down from past sources and they are consensual rather than competitive in their attitude towards knowledge, Horton claims. Modern scientific thought is future-oriented; it is based upon an ideal of progress, and progress is attained through competition among rival theories or paradigms. According to Horton, the relatively greater openness of modern scientific epistemology accounts for the superior quality of the knowledge that modern science has acquired. In this paper it is argued that past-orientation is consistent with intellectual struggle and open competition among rival theories, as well as with openness to challenges from nature. Overall progress-orientation is not a necessary correlate of these approaches to the acquisition of knowledge. The first part of the paper described the thought and practice of a South Indian Ayurvedic physician. Although this physician employed a mode of gathering knowledge which was based upon a belief that full truth could be found only in the past, he recognized the provisionality of the knowledge he had acquired, and he struggled to adjust his own body of medical theory to the battery of counter-theories which constantly challenged it. He did not ignore external challenges, nor was he unconscious of their effect upon his thought. The second part of the paper illustrates this physician's process of theory-development through analysis of the texts of two interviews that took place between the physician and patients who visited him.     

Behavioral scientist meets the practicing physician

The difficulty of integrating behavioral science into family practice programs is discussed by identifying (1) the problems arising from behavioral scientists, and (2) the problems arising from physicians. Some of the behavioral science issues discussed are miscommunications regarding the difficulty of understanding human behavior and empathy, and "sets" that affect diagnostic procedures and physician-patient interactions. Contributory issues, discussed which arise from physicians include the post-Flexnerian model of medical practice and the question of values in the physician role.