The methodology of the history of medicine forms the foundations of historical knowledge and helps develop a substantiated system of historical ideas to explain the circumstances surrounding the origin, formation and development of fundamental and clinical disciplines. The history of any medical field (including medical specialties) can be examined from two viewpoints: as a reconstruction of the development of disease treatment methods, implying the understanding of the evolution of the ideas of their etiology and pathogenesis, or as a chronicle of technical manipulations that is determined by procedures and priorities. In the opinion of the author of the article, it is methodologically correct to concentrate on the history of approaches to curing the various diseases and disease groups and not on the history of the specific therapeutic or diagnostic methods. Historians must aspire to identify the rules of the ontology of the development of the various fields in clinical medicine