Portal:Medicine

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The Medicine Portal

Medicine is the art, science, and practice of caring for a patient and managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment or palliation of their injury or disease. 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, during most of which it was an art (an area of skill and knowledge) 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). While stitching technique for sutures is an art learned through practice, the knowledge of what happens at the cellular and molecular level in the tissues being stitched arises through science.

Prescientific forms of medicine are now known as traditional medicine or folk medicine, which remains commonly used in the absence of scientific medicine, and are thus called alternative medicine. Alternative treatments outside of scientific medicine having safety and efficacy concerns are termed quackery. (Full article...)

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The 2007 Bernard Matthews H5N1 outbreak was an occurrence of avian flu in England that began on January 30, 2007. The infection was caused by the H5N1 subtype of the Influenza A virus and occurred at one of Bernard Matthews' farms in Holton in Suffolk. A range of precautions were instituted including a large cull of turkeys, the imposition of segregation zones, and a disinfection programme for the plant. Though the cause of the outbreak was not determined, Bernard Matthews regularly transports turkeys and turkey products between the UK and its plant in Hungary, and the H5N1 bird flu strains found in Hungary and Britain are effectively genetically identical. (More...)

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American Zouave ambulance crew demonstrating removal of wounded soldiers from the field, during the American Civil War.

Photo credit: Civil War glass negative collection (Library of Congress)

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Snoezelen or "controlled multisensory stimulation" might be beneficial to people with autism and other developmental disabilities, dementia, and brain injury?
The therapeutic index of a medication is a comparison of the amount that causes the therapeutic effect to the amount that causes toxic effects. Quantitatively, it is the ratio of the dose required to produce the desired therapeutic effect and the toxic dose. A commonly used measure of therapeutic index is the effective dose of a drug for 50% of the population (ED₅₀) divided by the lethal dose for 50% of the population (LD₅₀).
...that a toddler with a syndrome of rash (pictured), arthralgia/arthritis, abdominal pain and renal disease, preceded by a viral upper respiratory tract infection, is likely to have Henoch-Schönlein purpura?

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The following are images from various Medicine-related articles on Wikipedia.

Florence Nightingale triggered the professionalization of nursing. Photograph c. 1860
The plinthios brochos as described by Greek physician Heraklas, a sling for binding a fractured jaw. These writings were preserved in one of Oribasius' collections.
The Hippocratic Corpus
A collection of early medical works may be associated with Hippocrates
Assorted dried plant and animal parts used in traditional Chinese medicines, clockwise from top left corner: dried Lingzhi (lit. "spirit mushrooms"), ginseng, Luo Han Guo, turtle shell underbelly (plastron), and dried curled snakes
"Diagram of the causes of mortality in the army in the East" by Florence Nightingale.
Depiction of smallpox in Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún's history of the conquest of Mexico, Book XII of the Florentine Codex, from the defeated Aztecs' point of view
Botánicas such as this one in Jamaica Plain, Boston, cater to the Latino community and sell folk medicine alongside statues of saints, candles decorated with prayers, lucky bamboo, and other items.
Smallpox vaccination in Niger, 1969. A decade later, this was the first infectious disease to be eradicated.
Most countries have seen a tremendous increase in life expectancy since 1945. However, in southern Africa, the HIV epidemic beginning around 1990 has eroded national health.
Replica of Antonie van Leeuwenhoek's microscope of the 1670s
Mandrake (written 'ΜΑΝΔΡΑΓΟΡΑ' in Greek capitals). Naples Dioscurides, 7th century
Traditional medicine in a market in Antananarivo, Madagascar
American Civil War hospital at Gettysburg, 1863
Medical recipe concerning poisoning. Terracotta tablet, from Nippur, Iraq, 18th century BCE. Ancient Orient Museum, Istanbul
The Quaker-run York Retreat, founded in 1796, gained international prominence as a centre for moral treatment and a model of asylum reform following the publication of Samuel Tuke's Description of the Retreat (1813).
Curandera performing a limpieza in Cuenca, Ecuador
Mexico City epidemic of 1737, with elites calling on the Virgin of Guadalupe
Patient, Surrey County Lunatic Asylum, c. 1850–58. The asylum population in England and Wales rose from 1,027 in 1827 to 74,004 in 1900.
Sometimes traditional medicines include parts of endangered species, such as the slow loris in Southeast Asia.
Monumental stone relief of a fish-garbed figure from the Temple of Ninurta in the Assyrian city of Kalhu, believed by some experts to be a representation of an āšipu, or exorcist-priest, who functioned as a kind of healer and primitive doctor
The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, written in the 17th century BC, contains the earliest recorded reference to the brain. New York Academy of Medicine.
Guy's Hospital in 1820
18th-century medical remedies collected by a British Gentry family
A cochlear implant is a common kind of neural prosthesis, a device replacing part of the human nervous system.
Louis Pasteur experimenting on bacteria, c. 1870
Andreas Vesalius's 1543 De humani corporis fabrica contained intricately detailed drawings of human dissections, often in allegorical poses.
Ayurvedic herbal medicines
The oldest Polish Collegium Medicum at Jagiellonian University founded in 1364
American combat surgery during the Pacific War, 1943. Major wars showed the need for effective hygiene and medical treatment.

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