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 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.
"If you know neither the terminology nor the concepts, you're ignorant. If you know the terminology, but you don't know the concepts, you're dangerous."
"The unbiased opinion of most medical men of sound judgment and long experience...[holds that] the amount of death and disaster in the world would be less, if all disease were left to itself."
"Cured yesterday of my disease, I died last night of my physician."
"Our diseases are so old fashioned, they can't keep up with the new medicines."
"I firmly believe that if the whole material medica, as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be better for mankind-and all the worse for the fishes."
"The college-birs are threeLaw, Physic and DivinityAnd while these three remain combined,They keep the world oppressed and blind...Now is the time to be set free,From priests' and Doctors' slavery.
"We should not encourage the medical student to while away his time in the labyrinths of Chemistry and Physiology."
"History is replete with examples of what happens when any group of authorities do not have to answer to empirical evidence but are free to define truth as they see fit. None of the examples has a happy ending. Why should it be otherwise with therapy?"