Scientific medicine in Miettinen's conception of it is very different from the two ideas about it that come to eminence in the 20^th century. To him, medicine is scientific to the extent that it has a rational theoretical framework and a knowledge-base from medical science. He delineates the nature of that theoretical framework and of the research to develop the requisite knowledge for application in such a framework. The knowledge ultimately needed is about diagnostic, etiognostic, and prognostic probabilities, and it necessarily is to be codified in the form of probability...

Clinical epidemiology is now widely promoted and taught as a basic science of Evidence-Based Medicine, of clinical EBM to be specific. This book, however, is mostly about that which Miettinen takes to be the necessary substitute for this now-so-fashionable subject namely, Theory of Clinical Medicine together with its subordinate Theory of Clinical Research.

The leit motif in all of this is Miettinen s perception of the need, and opportunity, to bring major improvements into clinical medicine in this Information Age, now that theoretical progress has made feasible the development of...

This book exposes, and fills, a notable void in the educational content generally covered in modern schools of medicine. It provides an introduction to the field at large in terms of content that is relevant for each of the specialties and subspecialties of medicine; and to this end, it addresses the modern counterpart of the Hippocratic philosophy that was at the root of the genesis of modern medicine.

The much-needed but still-missing introductory content for the interdisciplinary 'medical common, ' provided in this book, addresses mainly the most elementary concepts and...