The Medicine Portal
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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Photo credit: Kristin M Houghton; Radiograph courtesy of BC Children's Hospital. (cc-by-2.0)
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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 some medicines, such as vancomycin, may require higher doses in critically ill patients, due to augmented renal (kidney) clearance?
- ... that Dorothy Christian Hare was the first woman general physician to be elected a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians?
- ... that biologist Joni L. Rutter led the development of the All of Us research program to include more than a million participants to advance precision medicine?
- ... that the bark of Guibourtia tessmannii is much esteemed in traditional medicine and is often removed from living trees?
- ... that Ross T. McIntire was the first Physician to the President to have had a certified medical specialty?
- ... that poison devil's-pepper has been used both as rat poison and as a traditional medicine for humans?
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