The text examines the sense of medical skepticism, showing its association with philosophical skepticism during the Hellenic period and its recurrence during modern and contemporary periods. Medical skepticism means, during Hellenic period, a fight against dogmatisms, prejudices and a priori concepts, but in thel9th century this sense became a distrust of any kind of non-scientific-based knowledge, in a way to become a new form of dogmatism. ln this context, the Evidence-based Medicine Working Group introduces the methodic doubt and asks tradition scientificism, defining its own work as a new paradigm in health. Nevertheless, it is more a phenomenon of recurrence of the medi cal skepticism, asking the traditional clinical knowledge, scientific or not. So Evidence-based Medicine brings to the contemporary scene the ancient themes of dogmatism and skepticism, rationality and empirism.
Evidence-based Medicine; history of medicine; skepticism