? Models in Medicine ?

The major goals of medicine include predicting disease, controlling disease, and explaining disease. The main way of achieving these goals proceeds by modelling. In this chapter, we provide an introduction to the use of models in achieving the goals of medicine. To begin with, we introduce the notion of a model in medicine, and distinguish experimental models from theoretical models. Then we provide an overview of the extensive array of these models by giving an account of animal models, which are a kind of experimental model, as well as association models, causal models, and mechanistic models, which are kinds of theoretical model. Next, we argue that in order to achieve the goals of medicine we need all of the latter three kinds of theoretical model—none are redundant. We go on to provide a framework for systematising the production of theoretical models. Lastly, we present an example involving benzene and leukemia to illustrate the approach of this chapter.