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The Medicine Portal

Marble statue of Asclephius on a pedestal, symbol of medicine in Western medicine

Medicine is the science and practice of establishing the diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, and prevention of 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 around for thousands of years, 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 and folk medicine, though they do not fall within the modern definition of “medicine” which is based in medical science. Traditional medicine and folk medicine remain commonly used with, or instead of, scientific medicine and are thus called alternative medicine (meaning “[something] other than medicine”, from Latin alter, “other”). For example, evidence on the effectiveness of acupuncture is "variable and inconsistent" for any condition, but is generally safe when done by an appropriately trained practitioner. In contrast, alternative treatments outside the bounds not just of scientific medicine, but also outside the bounds of safety and efficacy are termed quackery. Quackery can encompass an array of practices and practitioners, irrespective of whether they are prescientific (traditional medicine and folk medicine) or modern pseudo-scientific, including chiropractic which rejects modern scientific germ theory of disease (instead believing without evidence that human diseases are caused by invisible subluxation of the bones, predominately of the spine and less so of other bones), with just over half of chiropractors also rejecting the science of immunization. Read more...

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Helicobacter pylori is a bacterium that infects the mucus lining of the human stomach. Many peptic ulcers and some types of gastritis are caused by H. pylori infection, although most humans who are infected will never develop symptoms. This bacterium lives in the human stomach exclusively and is the only known organism that can thrive in that highly acidic environment. It is helix-shaped (hence the name helicobacter) and can literally screw itself into the stomach lining to colonize.

The bacterium was rediscovered in 1982 by two Australian scientists Robin Warren and Barry Marshall; they isolated the organisms from mucosal specimens from human stomachs and were the first to successfully culture them. In their original paper, Warren and Marshall contended that most stomach ulcers and gastritis were caused by colonization with this bacterium, not by stress or spicy food as had been assumed before.

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Sequence alignment of 27 H9N2 avian influenza hemagglutinin protein sequences. The top section is colored by residue conservation and the bottom by residue chemical properties. Alignment produced with ClustalW.

Photo credit: Opabinia regalis

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Get involved by joining WikiProject Medicine. We discuss collaborations and all manner of issues on our talk page.

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... that the most common cause of acute coronary syndrome is disruption of atherosclerotic plaque in a coronary artery?

... that the polymeal is a diet-based approach to combating heart disease, proposed in December 2004 by Oscar Franco?
... that a mammotome is a device that uses a computer-guided probe to perform breast biopsies, and that it can be conducted on an outpatient basis under local anaesthetic?

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

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.
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.
Curandera performing a limpieza in Cuenca, Ecuador
The Hippocratic Corpus
A collection of early medical works may be associated with Hippocrates
Smallpox vaccination in Niger, 1969. A decade later, this was the first infectious disease to be eradicated.
The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, written in the 17th century BC, contains the earliest recorded reference to the brain. New York Academy of Medicine.
Mandrake (written 'ΜΑΝΔΡΑΓΟΡΑ' in Greek capitals). Naples Dioscurides, 7th century
Florence Nightingale triggered the professionalization of nursing. Photograph c. 1860
Traditional medicine in a market in Antananarivo, Madagascar
18th-century medical remedies collected by a British Gentry family
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
Sometimes traditional medicines include parts of endangered species, such as the slow loris in Southeast Asia.
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).
The oldest Polish Collegium Medicum at Jagiellonian University founded in 1364
Louis Pasteur experimenting on bacteria, c. 1870
American combat surgery during the Pacific War, 1943. Major wars showed the need for effective hygiene and medical treatment.
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
Replica of Antonie van Leeuwenhoek's microscope of the 1670s
A cochlear implant is a common kind of neural prosthesis, a device replacing part of the human nervous system.
Ayurvedic herbal medicines
Guy's Hospital in 1820
Andreas Vesalius's 1543 De humani corporis fabrica contained intricately detailed drawings of human dissections, often in allegorical poses.
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.
American Civil War hospital at Gettysburg, 1863
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
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.
Medical recipe concerning poisoning. Terracotta tablet, from Nippur, Iraq, 18th century BCE. Ancient Orient Museum, Istanbul
"Diagram of the causes of mortality in the army in the East" by Florence Nightingale.

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