Portal:Medicine
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Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, 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, the 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 safety and efficacy concerns are termed quackery. (Full article...)
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- ... that in Prehistoric medicine, a hole was cut into the skull to release evil spirits (Trepanning) and that there is evidence that many people survived the operation?
- ...Empty nose syndrome is caused by excess surgical removal of turbinate tissue, e.g. because of severe chronic congestion, and may severely impact quality of life?
- ...hair transplantation is a surgical baldness treatment?
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- ... that Paul Rolan has been the principal investigator in more than 700 clinical research studies of new medicines?
- ... that confectionery in the English Renaissance marks the transition of sugar from a medicine to a sweetener?
- ... that Geoffrey Guy's company GW Pharmaceuticals was the first to obtain regulatory approval for a medicine based on cannabis?
- ... that Elvira Bierbach has run an alternative medicine school for heilpraktiker in Bielefeld since 1992?
- ... that fourteenth-century Buddhist monk Tuệ Tĩnh is referred to as a founding father of traditional Vietnamese medicine?
- ... 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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