Medical literature - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Medical literature refers to articles in journals and texts in books devoted to the field of medicine

Medicine

Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....

.

Contemporary and historic views regarding diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of medical conditions have been documented for thousands of years. The Edwin Smith papyrus

Edwin Smith papyrus

The Edwin Smith Papyrus is an Ancient Egyptian medical text and the oldest known surgical treatise on trauma. It dates to Dynasties 16-17 of the Second Intermediate Period in Ancient Egypt, ca. 1500 BCE. The Edwin Smith papyrus is unique among the four principal medical papyri in existencethat...

is the first known medical treatise

Treatise

A treatise is a formal and systematic written discourse on some subject, generally longer and treating it in greater depth than an essay, and more concerned with investigating or exposing the principles of the subject.-Noteworthy treatises:...

. Initially most described inflictions related to warfare. This was because war was the most important part of society and it was the most common way of contracting health problems.

History

Throughout history people have written about diseases, how human beings might contract them and what could be done to remedy it. Medicine ranged from folklore, witchcraft to the current Evidence-based medicine

Evidence-based medicine

Evidence-based medicine or evidence-based practice aims to apply the best available evidence gained from the scientific method to clinical decision making. It seeks to assess the strength of evidence of the risks and benefits of treatments and diagnostic tests...

. Among the most notable descriptions are texts from Egypt (Imhotep

Imhotep

Imhotep , fl. 27th century BC was an Egyptian polymath, who served under the Third Dynasty king Djoser as chancellor to the pharaoh and high priest of the sun god Ra at Heliopolis...

, Edwin Smith Papyrus
Edwin Smith papyrus
The Edwin Smith Papyrus is an Ancient Egyptian medical text and the oldest known surgical treatise on trauma. It dates to Dynasties 16-17 of the Second Intermediate Period in Ancient Egypt, ca. 1500 BCE. The Edwin Smith papyrus is unique among the four principal medical papyri in existencethat...

, Ebers Papyrus
Ebers papyrus
The Ebers Papyrus, also known as Papyrus Ebers, is an Egyptian medical papyrus dating to circa 1550 BC. Among the oldest and most important medical papyri of ancient Egypt, it was purchased at Luxor, in the winter of 1873–74 by Georg Ebers...

, Kahun Gynecological Papyrus
Kahun Gynecological Papyrus
The Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus is the oldest known medical text of any kind. Dated to about 1800 BCE, it deals with women's health—gynaecological diseases, fertility, pregnancy, contraception, etc.It was found at El-Lahun by Flinders Petrie in 1889 and first translated by F. Ll...

), Mesopotamia (Diagnostic Handbook, Alkindus

Al-Kindi

' , known as "the Philosopher of the Arabs", was a Muslim Arab philosopher, mathematician, physician, and musician. Al-Kindi was the first of the Muslim peripatetic philosophers, and is unanimously hailed as the "father of Islamic or Arabic philosophy" for his synthesis, adaptation and promotion...

, De Gradibus
De Gradibus
De Gradibus was an Arabic book published by the Arab physician Al-Kindi . De gradibus is the Latinized name of the book. An alternative name for the book was Quia Primos....

), India (Ayurveda

Ayurveda

Ayurveda or ayurvedic medicine is a system of traditional medicine native to India and a form of alternative medicine. In Sanskrit, words , meaning "longevity", and , meaning "knowledge" or "science". The earliest literature on Indian medical practice appeared during the Vedic period in India,...

, Sushruta Samhita
Sushruta Samhita
The Sushruta Samhita is a Sanskrit text, attributed to one Sushruta, foundational to Ayurvedic medicine , with innovative chapters on surgery....

, Charaka Samhita
Charaka Samhita
The ' is an early Ayurvedic text on internal medicine. It is believed to be the oldest of the three ancient treatises of Ayurveda...

), China (Yellow Emperor

Yellow Emperor

The Yellow Emperor or Huangdi1 is a legendary Chinese sovereign and culture hero, included among the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. Tradition holds that he reigned from 2697–2597 or 2696–2598 BC...

, Huangdi Neijing), Greece (Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...

and Odyssey
Odyssey
The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...

are the earliest sources of Greek medical practise; Hippocratic medicine

Hippocrates

Hippocrates of Cos or Hippokrates of Kos was an ancient Greek physician of the Age of Pericles , and is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine...

), Persia (Rhazes, Avicenna

Avicenna

Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā , commonly known as Ibn Sīnā or by his Latinized name Avicenna, was a Persian polymath, who wrote almost 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived...

, The Canon of Medicine
The Canon of Medicine
The Canon of Medicine is an encyclopedia of Galenic medicine in five books compiled by Ibn Sīnā and completed in 1025. It presents a clear and organized summary of all the medical knowledge of the time...

, The Book of Healing
The Book of Healing
The Book of Healing is a scientific and philosophical encyclopedia written by Abū Alī ibn Sīnā from Asfahana, near Bukhara in Greater Persia. Despite its English title, it is not in fact concerned with medicine...

), Spain (Abulcasis, Kitab al-Tasrif
Al-Tasrif
The Kitab al-Tasrif was an Arabic encyclopedia on medicine and surgery, written near the year 1000 by Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi...

) and Syria (Ibn al-Nafis, Commentary on Anatomy in Avicenna's Canon, Comprehensive Book on Medicine).

Following Vesalius

Vesalius

Andreas Vesalius was a Flemish anatomist, physician, and author of one of the most influential books on human anatomy, De humani corporis fabrica . Vesalius is often referred to as the founder of modern human anatomy. Vesalius is the Latinized form of Andries van Wesel...

, William Harvey

William Harvey

William Harvey was an English physician who was the first person to describe completely and in detail the systemic circulation and properties of blood being pumped to the body by the heart...

, Ignaz Semmelweis

Ignaz Semmelweis

Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis was a Hungarian physician now known as an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures. Described as the "savior of mothers", Semmelweis discovered that the incidence of puerperal fever could be drastically cut by the use of hand disinfection in obstetrical clinics...

, Louis Pasteur

Louis Pasteur

Louis Pasteur was a French chemist and microbiologist born in Dole. He is remembered for his remarkable breakthroughs in the causes and preventions of diseases. His discoveries reduced mortality from puerperal fever, and he created the first vaccine for rabies and anthrax. His experiments...

, and others, the medical community have changed the way it conducts research. After incorporating the scientific method

Scientific method

Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of...

medical literature has introduced the so-called peer review

Peer review

Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...

, and is currently divided into journals and textbooks.

Medical journal

These are publications in which the medical community shares information. The common articles are original articles, reviews and case report

Case report

In medicine, a case report is a detailed report of the symptoms, signs, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up of an individual patient. Case reports may contain a demographic profile of the patient, but usually describe an unusual or novel occurrence....

s .

Original articles describe methods
Scientific method
Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of...

, results, discussion and conclusions and a new research that conducted by the authors. Although according to the Evidence based medicine dogma the randomized controlled trials are the gold-standard for medical research, currently, they constitute only a minority of conducted research.
Reviews are an overview of one particular topic of clinical
Clinical significance
In medicine and psychology, clinical significance refers to either of two related but slightly dissimilar concepts whereby certain findings or differences, even if measurable or statistically confirmed, either may or may not have additional significance, either by being of a magnitude that conveys...

interest in order to refresh the readers' memory, to enhance an emergence concept or the summary recent publications that haven't appeared in the textbooks yet. Other type of reviews are the systematic reviews and the meta-analysis
Meta-analysis
In statistics, a meta-analysis combines the results of several studies that address a set of related research hypotheses. In its simplest form, this is normally by identification of a common measure of effect size, for which a weighted average might be the output of a meta-analyses. Here the...

in which a specific clinical dilemma is answered by collecting and summarizing all published data regarding this question.
Reports of clinical cases of special interest of rare phenomenon or a new clinical method that was employed while managing the disease. However, currently most of the top-ranked medical literature do not published case reports as not being evidence based medicine. Thus data of rare medical situations, in which large randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trials can not be conducted, may not be published and data may be lost.

When looking for specific information in any journal one can use the National Library of Medicine's PubMed

PubMed

PubMed is a free database accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health maintains the database as part of the Entrez information retrieval system...

database

Database

A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...

. Peer review

Peer review

ed journals

Medical journal

A public health journal is a scientific journal devoted to the field of public health, including epidemiology, biostatistics, and health care . Public health journals, like most scientific journals, are peer-reviewed...

are ranked higher thus are a better source for medical information than non-peer reviewed journals. Examples of journals are:

The New England Journal of Medicine
New England Journal of Medicine
The New England Journal of Medicine is an English-language peer-reviewed medical journal published by the Massachusetts Medical Society. It describes itself as the oldest continuously published medical journal in the world.-History:...
The Lancet
The Lancet
The Lancet is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal. It is one of the world's best known, oldest, and most respected general medical journals...
JAMA
Jama
Jama or JAMA may refer to:* Jama Software, a privately held company in Portland, Oregon* Journal of the American Medical Association, an international peer-reviewed general medical journal...

(Journal of the American Medical Association)
Annals of Internal Medicine
Annals of Internal Medicine
Annals of Internal Medicine is an academic medical journal published by the American College of Physicians . It publishes research articles and reviews in the area of internal medicine. Its current editor is Christine Laine...
Nature Medicine
Nature Medicine
Nature Medicine is an academic journal publishing research articles, reviews, news and commentaries in the biomedical area, including both basic research and early-phase clinical research. Topics covered include cancer, cardiovascular disease, gene therapy, immunology, vaccines, and neuroscience...
BMJ
BMJ
BMJ is a partially open-access peer-reviewed medical journal. Originally called the British Medical Journal, the title was officially shortened to BMJ in 1988. The journal is published by the BMJ Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Medical Association...

(British Medical Journal)
CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal)
Archives of Internal Medicine
Archives of Internal Medicine
The Archives of Internal Medicine is a peer-reviewed medical journal published twice a month by the American Medical Association. The Archives of Internal Medicine was established in 1908 and covers all aspects of internal medicine, including cardiovascular disease, geriatrics, infectious disease,...

Medical textbooks

After consensus

Consensus (medical)

Medical consensus is a public statement on a particular aspect of medical knowledge available at the time it was written, and that is generally agreed upon as the evidence-based, state-of-the-art knowledge by a representative group of experts in that area...

has been reached it is incorporated in textbook

Textbook

A textbook or coursebook is a manual of instruction in any branch of study. Textbooks are produced according to the demands of educational institutions...

s. There are textbooks on every medical specialty and they contain comprehensive discussion on all diseases and their diagnosis

Diagnosis

Diagnosis is the identification of the nature and cause of anything. Diagnosis is used in many different disciplines with variations in the use of logics, analytics, and experience to determine the cause and effect relationships...

, therapy and prognosis

Prognosis

Prognosis is a medical term to describe the likely outcome of an illness.When applied to large statistical populations, prognostic estimates can be very accurate: for example the statement "45% of patients with severe septic shock will die within 28 days" can be made with some confidence, because...

. The first textbook to utilize experts to write specific chapters within the book was the Cecil Textbook of Medicine edited by Russell Cecil, MD in 1927. The book was an immediate international success because of the idea that single or double author medical books was outmoded, "since the scope of medical knowledge was far surpassing the capacity of any single individual to encompass." Since that time, this has been the standard. Examples are:

Cecil Textbook of Medicine
Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine
Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine
Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine is an American textbook of internal medicine. First published in 1950, it is presently in its eighteenth edition...
The Oxford Textbook of Medicine

Medical journalism

Health-related information is often disseminated to the public via mainstream media outlets; these reports influence doctors, the general public, and the government. Most news articles fail to discuss important issues such as evidence quality, costs, and risks versus benefits. Although medical news articles often deliver public health messages effectively, they often convey wrong or misleading information about health care, partly when reporters do not know or cannot convey the results of clinical studies, and partly when they fail to supply reasonable context. Several web sites review medical journalism; examples include Health News Review

Health News Review

Health News Review is a website that rates the completeness, accuracy, and balance of U.S. news stories about health care. It builds on other similar initiatives, such as the Media Doctor website in Australia and the Behind the Headlines project in the UK...

in the U.S. and Media Doctor in Australia.

Internet

Most prominent journals and textbooks are currently available on-line or via CD-Rom

CD-ROM

A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....

. Certain online services including Medscape

Medscape

Medscape is a web resource for physicians and other health professionals. It features peer-reviewed original medical journal articles, CME , a customized version of the National Library of Medicine's MEDLINE database, daily medical news, major conference coverage, and drug information—including a...

and MDLinx

MDLinx

MDLinx is an internet-based service that offers physicians and other healthcare professionals a quick means of staying current with academic literature. The typical medical specialist would have to read 30 to 80 journal articles every day to keep up with the flow of information in his/her specialty...

offer aggregated digests of new articles from prominent medical journals.

History

Medical journal

Medical textbooks

Medical journalism

Internet

See also