Medicine is the applied science or practice of the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness in human beings.
Contemporary medicine applies health science, biomedical research, and medical technology to diagnose and treat injury and disease, typically through medication or surgery, but also through therapies as diverse as psychotherapy, external splints & traction, prostheses, biologics, ionizing radiation and others.
The word medicine is derived from the Latin ars medicina, meaning the art of healing.
Read more about Medicine: History, Clinical Practice, Institutions, Branches, Education, Medical Ethics, Legal Controls, Criticism of Modern Medicine, Honors and Awards, Patron Saints
Famous quotes containing the word medicine:
“Good medicine is bitter to the taste.”
—Chinese proverb.
“The only medicine for suffering, crime, and all the other woes of mankind, is wisdom.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“Authority, though it err like others,
Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself,
That skins the vice o’ the top.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)