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:
“No medicine in the world can do thee good;
In thee there is not half an hour’s life.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“As there is a use in medicine for poisons, so the world cannot move without rogues.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“We have to ask ourselves whether medicine is to remain a humanitarian and respected profession or a new but depersonalized science in the service of prolonging life rather than diminishing human suffering.”
—Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (b. 1926)