The use of the computer for medical information processing was introduced about a decade ago. Considerable inroads have now been made toward its applications to problems in medicine. Present uses of the computer, both as a computational and noncomputational device include the following: automated search of patients' files; on-line clinical data processing; fetal heart rate and fetal electrocardiogram data acquisition; heart auscultation by computer; metabolism data acquisition; pattern recognition by computer; medical diagnosis using the logic of the propositional calculus; computer simulation of diagnostic problem solving; and computer-based medical instruction. (Author/JY)