Some Minor Ailments—Their Importance in the Medical Curriculum *

For many years I have brought to the attention of the members of succeeding fourth-year dasses the subject of minor or common ailments. We senior practitioners know that in the training we received in medical school, patients suffering from major maladies were repeatedly demonstrated to us. But many minor ailments familiar to us by name or through personal experience failed to find their way into the amphitheater, were not seen at bedside rounds, and received scant or no systematic attention in the dispensary clinics. To illustrate the situation, let me say that recently I inquired of several members of a graduating class what croup was. One assured me that the name was familiar but he could not describe the disorder; another remarked that he was told he had suffered from it as a child but he could not recall the symptoms that it engendered, a third regarded croup as a form of bronchitis! Yet, minor ailments like croup were among the early experiences which