During the last decades, medical historiography has undergone considerable changes. This review attempts an outline of the developments since 1945. The first section sketches the institutional background of the discipline focusing on the characteristic features which emerged in different national traditions. The following sections—essentially restricted to the German speaking context—describe the development of the fields in research and teaching, ranging from the history of ideas to the social history of medicine, from philogical and editorial work to the philosophy and sociology (...) of medical knowledge. (shrink)