Civiale, stones and statistics: the dawn of evidence-based medicine. Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • The statistical research on bladder stones conducted by Paris urologist Jean Civiale in the early 19th century provided historical roots for evidence-based medicine. Translations of original documents by Civiale describing his work on treating bladder stones, and the discussion by members of the Paris Academy of Sciences that commented on his results in 1835, were reviewed. By collecting statistical data on a wide scale throughout Europe, Civiale argued that his new transurethral procedure, called lithotripsy, was superior to the more widely used but highly morbid technique, lithotomy. The Paris Academy of Sciences commented on his research and chose the occasion to debate whether or not numerical reasoning and statistics had any place in medical and surgical practice. Civiale's insights and methods espoused similar concepts and ideas driving today's new paradigm of evidence-based medicine.

publication date

  • May 19, 2009

Research

keywords

  • Evidence-Based Medicine
  • Lithotripsy
  • Urinary Bladder Calculi

Identity

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 68049118964

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1111/j.1464-410X.2009.08529.x

PubMed ID

  • 19466952

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 104

issue

  • 3