|
Sponsored Links
Medicine is the art and science of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness. Contemporary medicine applies health science, biomedical research, and medical technology to diagnose and treat injury and disease, typically through medication, surgery, or some other form of therapy. The word medicine is derived from the Latin ars medicina, meaning the art of healing.[1][2] Though medical technology and clinical expertise are pivotal to contemporary medicine, successful face-to-face relief of actual suffering continues to require the application of ordinary human feeling and compassion, known in English as bedside manner. [3] Early records on medicine have been discovered from early Ayurvedic medicine in the Indian subcontinent, ancient Egyptian medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, the Americas, and ancient Greek medicine. Early Grecian doctors Hippocrates, who is also called the Father of Modern Medicine,[4][5] and Galen laid a foundation for later developments in a rational approach to medicine. After the fall of Rome and the onset of the Dark Ages, Islamic physicians made major medical breakthroughs, supported by the translation of Hippocrates' and Galen's works into Arabic. Notable Islamic medical pioneers include polymath Avicenna, who is also called the Father of Modern Medicine,[6][7] Abulcasis, the father of surgery, Avenzoar, the father of experimental surgery, Ibn al-Nafis, the father of circulatory physiology, and Averroes.[8] Rhazes, who is called the father of pediatrics, first disproved the Grecian theory of humorism, which nevertheless remained influential in Western medieval medicine. While major developments in medicine were occurring in the Islamic world during the medieval period, the Western world remained dependent upon the Greco-Roman theory of humorism, which led to questionable treatments such as bloodletting. Islamic medicine and medieval medicine collided during the crusades, with Islamic doctors receiving mixed impressions.[9] As the medieval ages ended, important early figures in medicine emerged in Europe, including Gabriele Falloppio and William Harvey. The focal points of development of clinical medicine shifted to the United Kingdom and the USA by the early 1900s. The major shift in medical thinking was the gradual rejection, especially during the Black Death in the 14th and 15th centuries, of what may be called the 'traditional authority' approach to science and medicine. This was the notion that because some prominent person in the past said something must be so, then that was the way it was, and anything one observed to the contrary was an anomaly (which was paralleled by a similar shift in European society in general - see Copernicus's rejection of Ptolemy's theories on astronomy). Physicians like Ibn al-Nafis and Vesalius led the way in improving upon or indeed rejecting the theories of great authorities from the past (such as Hippocrates, and Galen), many of whose theories were in time discredited. The modern scientific biomedical research (where results are testable and reproducible) began to replace early Western traditions of medicine, based on herbalism, the Greek "four humours" and other premodern theories. The modern era began with Robert Koch's discoveries around 1880 of the transmission of disease by bacteria, and then the discovery of antibiotics shortly thereafter around 1900. The post-18th century modernity period brought more groundbreaking researchers from Europe. From Germany and Austrian doctors such as Rudolf Virchow, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Karl Landsteiner, and Otto Loewi) made contributions. In the United Kingdom Alexander Fleming, Joseph Lister, Francis Crick, and Florence Nightingale are considered important. From New Zealand and Australia came Maurice Wilkins, Howard Floery, and Frank Macfarlane Burnet). In the United States William Williams Keen, Harvey Cushing, William Coley, James D. Watson, Italy (Salvador Luria), Switzerland (Alexandre Yersin), Japan (Kitasato Shibasaburo), and France (Jean-Martin Charcot, Claude Bernard, Paul Broca and others did significant work. Russian (Nikolai Korotkov also did significant work, as did Sir William Osler and Harvey Cushing.
|
Medicine Subcategories
Medicine Articles
|
|
