Scientific progress - or just another day at the office.
Harvey is generally accepted as the patron saint of cardiology. Some shading is not amiss because a medical history canon is by definition an instantaneous photograph. Therefore De Motu Cordis is set in a historic perspective and portrayed as the result of genuine scientific progress. Nevertheless Harvey symbolises the watershed between ancient medicine and modern medicine based on observational and experimental research. We too seem to witness a transitional zone between modern medicine and a new customised medicine, individualised and integrative, firmly based on a further expanding technology. (Neth Heart J 2008;16:143-6.).
van Tellingen
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Department of Cardiology, St Franciscus Hospital, Roosendaal, the Netherlands.