Aph 84 - Organon 6

[Soroush Ebrahimi]

§ 84
The patient details the history of his sufferings; those about him tell what they heard him complain
of, how he has behaved and what they have noticed in him; the physician sees, hears, and remarks by
his other senses what there is of an altered or unusual character about him. He writes down
accurately all that the patient and his friends have told him in the very expressions used by them.
Keeping silence himself he allows them to say all they have to say, and refrains from interrupting
them1 unless they wander off to other matters. The physician advises them at the beginning of the
examination to speak slowly, in order that he may take down in writing the important parts of what
the speakers say.
1 Every interruption breaks the train of thought of the narrators, and all they would have said at
first does not again occur to them in precisely the same manner after that.