Electronic Journal of Sociology

This paper applies Max Weber�s proposition regarding the differences between the �sciences� to the �historicist controversy�: the problems emerging from opposing approaches to understanding the past. The historiography in question is the development of the �biomedical model� of health and disease, and the rise of �medicine� in the course of 19th century Europe and Britain.While Weber�s theoretical framework does not answer the questions posed by present-day scholars about specific historical events, it enables a critique of the process through which history is �constructed�, and offers an alternative approach to the �transformation� of 19th century medicine.