Perspective

Author Berton Roueche was not a physician; rather, he was a journalist who had an abiding interest in medical mysteries and the process by which doctors and researchers diagnosed and treated illness and disease in America. As a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, Roueche created articles which were later compiled in the book, The Medical Detectives. While the work is largely written from the perspective of an investigative journalist, including detailed interviews with a vast array of medical professionals and intricate story-telling, Roueche's perspective clearly leans toward investigative techniques, in a successful attempt to demonstrate the comparison between medical and criminal investigation. He clearly and successfully demonstrates that, even in the field of medicine, solutions to mysteries eventually involve the traditional legwork often associated with that of police detectives. These include exhaustive interviews with a wide variety of individuals, investigation of homes, businesses and environments, as...