Portal:Medicine
The Medicine Portal
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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, 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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- ...infantile pyloric stenosis is a not uncommon pediatric condition where there is a congenital narrowing of the pylorus (the opening at the lower end of the stomach)? Babies with this condition usually present within the first few weeks (usually between 2nd and 3rd) of life with poor feeding, weight loss and progressively worsening vomiting leading ultimately to projectile non-bilious vomiting.
- ...the Cotard delusion (or Cotard's syndrome, le délire de négation) is a rare disorder in which a person holds a delusional belief that he is dead, does not exist, is putrefying or has lost his blood or internal organs?
- ...the nomenclature of monoclonal antibodies is a naming scheme for assigning generic, or nonproprietary, names to a group of medicines called monoclonal antibodies. This scheme is used for both the World Health Organization’s International Nonproprietary Names and the United States Adopted Names. In general, suffixes are used to identify a class of medicines; all monoclonal antibody pharmaceuticals end with the suffix -mab. However, different infixes are used depending on the structure and function of the medicine.
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- ... 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?
- ... that the spotted lanternfly has been used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat swelling since the 1100s?
- ... that besides the fruits being edible, the roots and leaves of creeping cucumber have many uses in traditional medicine?
- ... that Elvira Bierbach has run an alternative medicine school for heilpraktiker in Bielefeld since 1992?
- ... that the proposed African Medicines Agency would regulate not just modern medicine and medical equipment, but also traditional medicine?
- ... that Geoffrey Guy's company GW Pharmaceuticals was the first to obtain regulatory approval for a medicine based on cannabis?
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