THE MEDICO-LEGAL SIGNIFICANCE OF ANAMNESIS IN CONTEMPORARY MEDICAL PRACTICE

Abstract

Throughout the history of mankind, in all climes and all creeds, it is a universally acclaimed fact that from him to whom much is given, much is expected. So, it is with the medical practitioner. The responsibilities on the shoulders of the medical practitioners are enormous, but so also is the degree of trust and reference vested in them. The medical practitioner historically had been revered and maybe, a little feared too. The hands of the healer were seen as extensions of some supernatural power. In fact, it has been said in some quarters that very early medicine was of course a matter of mystery; there being no apparent natural reason why disease struck one person rather than another; the answer had to be found in the supernatural, and supernatural powers being sparingly distributed, healing became a prerogative of a few whose power depended largely on the ignorance of the others.1The above being the case, each encounter on health grounds with a medical doctor right from antiquity till date has always been expected with awe, to some extent freight, and also with trust. It therefore behooves the medical doctor to understand that there is no margin for error and/or misbehaviour particularly on the first encounter in course of which the anamnesis is taken. This work has been a humble attempt to remind both medical doctors and lawyers of this important responsibility, since observation has shown that same has steadily been on the decline.