The article deals with some problems of the methodology of the history of medicine. The author showed a weak methodological basis of medicine history, which is most clearly anifested in the reference and bibliographic presentation of material, the use of phenomenological and ideographic methods, which, according to the author, is not history itself and ischaracterized as chronicle writing. The reasons for the refusal to use new theoretical approaches in the analysis of the historical development of medicine are analyzed. The author offers several modern theories of historical knowledge and a methodology for applying the historical principles of retrospective study of medicine, paying special attention to the civilizational and modernization concepts and social aspects of the history of medicine. One of the main conclusions of the article is the real history of medicine - the result of the joint work of physicians and historians