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Medicine is a branch of health science concerned with restoring and maintaining health and wellness. Broadly, it is the practical science of preventing and curing diseases. However, medicine often refers more specifically to matters dealt with by physicians and surgeons.
Medicine is both an area of knowledge (a science), and the application of that knowledge (the medical profession). The various specialized branches of the science of medicine correspond to equally specialized medical professions dealing with particular organs or diseases. The science of medicine is the body of knowledge about body systems and diseases, while the profession of medicine refers to the social structure of the group of people formally trained to apply that knowledge to treat disease.
There are traditional and schools of healing which are usually not considered to be part of (Western) medicine in a strict sense (see health science for an overview). The most highly developed systems of medicine outside of the Western or Hippocratic tradition are the Ayurvedic school (of India) and traditional Chinese medicine. The remainder of this article focuses on modern (Western) medicine.
See the main articles History of medicineThis article discusses the history of medicine . All human societies have medical beliefs birth, death, disease and cures are explained in some manner. Historically, throughout the world illness has often been attributed to witchcraft, demons or the will and Timeline of medicine and medical technologyTimeline of medicine and medical technology c. 2600s BC Imhotep wrote texts describing diagnosis and treatment of 200 diseases in 3rd dynasty Egypt. 1500s BC Saffron used as a medicine on the Aegean island of Thera in ancient Greece c. 500 BC¹ Sushruta wr
Medicine as it is practiced now is rooted in various traditions, but developed mainly in the late 18th17th century 18th century 19th century more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 18th century refers to the century that lasted from 1701- 1800; however, historians will sometimes specifically refer to the 18th Century as 1715- 89, and early 19th centuryAlternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical ( 18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801- 1900. Events The Little Ice Age ended in GermanyThe Federal Republic of Germany ( German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland is one of the world's leading industrialized countries, located in the middle of the European Union. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark and the Baltic Sea, to the east ( Rudolf VirchowRudolf Ludwig Karl Virchow ( October 13, 1821, in Schivelbein, Pomerania September 5, 1902, in Berlin) was a German doctor, pathologist, prehistorian, biologist, and politician. He is credited as the first to recognize leukemia. Virchow studied medicine i) and France ( Jean-Martin Charcot and others). The new, "scientific" medicine replaced more traditional views based on the " Four humours". The development of clinical medicine shifted to the United Kingdom and the USA during the early 1900s ( Sir William Osler, Harvey Cushing).
Evidence-based medicine is the recent movement to link the practice and the science of medicine more closely through the use of the scientific method and modern information science. Genomics is already having a large influence on medical practice, as most monogenic genetic disorders have now been linked to causative genes, and molecular biological techniques are influencing medical decision-making.