Public Health History Corner Abraham Flexner:the iconoclast

Abraham Flexner, in 1910, led an attack on the inadequacy of the medical schools in the United States. In opposition to the traditional clinical type training he proposed a new laboratory centred model, with a strong emphasis on basic sciences. These university lab experiments were one of the main driving forces in the development of medical sciences in the USA. The work of a pedagogue caused a real medical revolution, the outcomes of which were important but not all positive.