Doctors do have to be historians; any diagnosis they make (unless it's a disease that's never been seen before) will be in terms of other diseases. I was diagno

Doctors do have to be historians; any diagnosis they make (unless it's a disease that's never been seen before) will be in terms of other diseases. I was diagnosed with a fairly rare disease, and my specialist knew a bit about the history of the disease. Knowing the history of a set of symptoms is exactly what helps doctors figure things out. If it so happens that a famous person once had the disease, well, that's an interesting fact and I'd probably tend to remember that/bring it up too.