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Nature 414, 21 (1 November 2001) | doi:10.1038/35102123

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Nature's helping hand

W. F. Bynum1

Six centuries ago, the Italian humanist and poet Petrarch remarked that if a hundred, or a thousand, people of the same constitution and illness were divided into two groups, one under medical care and one entrusted to nature, the latter would show more cases of recovery. For many years, popular wisdom held that "there is much difference between a good and a bad physician, but not any between a good physician and none at all".