Abstract

In the late 1960s, social history developed into an imperative approach in general historiography in Germany. Since the mid‐1970s, also social history of medicine has been developed into a comprehensive research approach. But in the 1990s, all of a sudden, social history of medicine vanished. The constructivist history of science, the linguistic‐ constructivist theories in humanities and micro‐historiographical approaches from general history prevailed. After the firstdecade of the 21st century, the innovative highlights of these developments exceeded. Just at this point, it is appropriate to ask for the genuine and permanent role of a social history of medicine. Seen from the peculiarity of medicine the social history of medicine has a genuine field of topics in the social environment of disease and health. These topics have to be treated with their own approaches and methods, derived from its reference disciplines sociology and economics.