Portal:Medicine
The Medicine Portal
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Medicine is the science and practice of caring for patients, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness. Contemporary medicine applies biomedical sciences, biomedical research, genetics, and medical technology to diagnose, treat, and prevent injury and disease, typically through pharmaceuticals or surgery, but also through therapies as diverse as psychotherapy, external splints and traction, medical devices, biologics, and ionizing radiation, amongst others.
Medicine has been practiced since prehistoric times, and for most of this time it was an art (an area of creativity and skill), frequently having connections to the religious and philosophical beliefs of local culture. For example, a medicine man would apply herbs and say prayers for healing, or an ancient philosopher and physician would apply bloodletting according to the theories of humorism. In recent centuries, since the advent of modern science, most medicine has become a combination of art and science (both basic and applied, under the umbrella of medical science). For example, while stitching technique for sutures is an art learned through practice, knowledge of what happens at the cellular and molecular level in the tissues being stitched arises through science.
Prescientific forms of medicine, now known as traditional medicine or folk medicine, remain commonly used in the absence of scientific medicine and are thus called alternative medicine. Alternative treatments outside of scientific medicine with ethical, safety and efficacy concerns are termed quackery. (Full article...)
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Photo credit: Civil War glass negative collection (Library of Congress)
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Did you know –
- ...that the 47,XXY karyotype produces Klinefelter's syndrome, while 45,X causes Turner syndrome?
- ...that during the "Age of Heroic Medicine" (1780-1850), educated professional physicians aggressively practiced "heroic medicine", including bloodletting (venesection), intestinal purging (calomel), vomiting (tartar emetic), profuse sweating (diaphoretics) and blistering? These medical treatments were well-intentioned, and often well-accepted by the medical community, but were actually harmful to the patient.
- ...thalidomide is a drug that was sold during the late 1950s and 1960s to pregnant women as an antiemetic? It was later found to be teratogenic, causing amelia and phocomelia. However, it is still used for other indications such as for leprosy and multiple myeloma, with close regulation through the System for Thalidomide Education and Prescribing Safety (STEPS) program.
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- ... that fourteenth-century Buddhist monk Tuệ Tĩnh is referred to as a founding father of traditional Vietnamese medicine?
- ... that Tang Zonghai was one of the first advocates for the integration of Chinese and Western medicine?
- ... that the Anglo-Saxons may have used a mixture of garlic, another Allium, wine, and bovine bile as an eye medicine?
- ... that Margaret C. Roberts was encouraged to study medicine by LDS Church leader Brigham Young to reduce mortality rates during childbirth?
- ... that a lack of screening for pregnant women with syphilis in sub-Saharan Africa is associated with increased infant mortality?
- ... that James A. Merriman was the only Black graduate from Rush Medical College in 1902 and the first African-American physician to practice medicine in Portland?
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