医学

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医学
Marble statue of Asclephius on a pedestal, symbol of medicine in Western medicine
ギリシャ神話の医術の神アスクレーピオスの像、蛇が巻きついたアスクレピオスの杖を持つ
Specialist医学分野
Glossary医学用語

医学とは、患者をケアし、そのけが、病気、健康増進の診断、予後、予防、治療、緩和を管理する科学と実践である。医学は、病気の予防と治療によって健康を維持・回復するために発展した様々な医療行為を包含している。現代医学は、生物医学、生物医学研究、遺伝学、医療技術を応用して、傷病の診断、治療、予防を行う。一般的には医薬品の投与や外科手術を行うが、心理療法、外反、牽引、医療機器、生物製剤、電離放射線など様々な治療法がある。

医学は先史時代から行われており、そのほとんどの期間、医学は芸術（技術や知識の領域）であり、しばしばその土地の文化の宗教的・哲学的信念と結びついていた。例えば、呪術医が薬草を塗って治癒の祈りを捧げたり、古代の哲学者や医師が四体液説の理論に従って瀉血を施したりする。近代科学の出現以来、ここ数世紀、ほとんどの医学は芸術と科学（医学(medical science)の傘の下で、基礎と応用の両方）の組み合わせになっている。例えば、縫合糸を縫う技術は練習によって習得される芸術であるが、縫合される組織の細胞レベルや分子レベルで何が起こっているかという知識は科学によって生まれる。

現在では伝統医学や民間療法として知られる、科学的根拠のない医学は、代替医療と呼ばれている。安全性や有効性に懸念がある科学的医学以外の代替療法は、ヤブ医者と呼ばれる。

語源

医学(UK: /ˈmɛdsɪn/ (listen), US: /ˈmɛdɪsɪn/ (listen)) とは、病気の診断、予後、治療、予防に関する科学と実践のことである。"医学"の語源は、 ラテン語の medicusから来ており、医師を意味する。

臨床実習

植民地時代の医学を描いた油絵
ルーク・フィルデス卿作ドクター（1891年）
米国初の女性医師エリザベス・ブラックウェルはSUNYアップステートを卒業した（1847年）

文化や技術の地域差により、医薬品が入手可能な地域や臨床現場は世界各地で異なる。近代科学医学は西洋世界では高度に発達している一方、アフリカやアジアの一部のような発展途上国では、エビデンスや効能に乏しく、医療に正式な訓練を義務付けていない伝統医学に頼ることが多い。

先進国では、エビデンスに基づく医療は臨床で普遍的に用いられているわけではない、 例えば、2007年に行われた文献レビューの調査では、治療の約49％が、有益性または有害性のいずれかを裏付ける十分な証拠を欠いていた。

現代の臨床現場では、医師と医師助手は、臨床的判断を用いて病気を診断し、予後を予測し、治療し、予防するために、患者を個人的に評価する。医師と患者の関係は通常、患者の病歴とカルテの調査から始まり、問診と身体診察が続く。基本的な診断医療機器（聴診器、舌圧子など）が通常使用される。徴候を調べ、症状を問診した後、医師は医学的検査（血液検査など）を指示したり、生検を行ったり、医薬品やその他の治療法を処方したりする。鑑別診断法は、提供された情報に基づいて病態を除外するのに役立つ。診察の際、関連するすべての事実を患者に正しく伝えることは、患者との関係や信頼関係を築く上で重要なことである。この医療行為は、多くの法域で法的文書である医療記録に記録される。経過観察はより短時間で済むかもしれないが、一般的な手順は同じであり、専門医も同様のプロセスを踏む。診断と治療には、問題の複雑さに応じて、数分しかかからない場合もあれば、数週間かかる場合もある。

問診とカウンセリングは以下の通り:

  • 主訴(CC): 現在の受診の理由。これは症状である。患者自身の言葉で書かれ、それぞれの期間とともに記録される。'主訴(chief concern)'または1'主訴提示(presenting complaint)'とも呼ばれる。
  • 現病歴（History of present illness：HPI）：症状の時系列的な順序と、各症状の詳細な説明である。過去病歴（PMH）と呼ばれることもある。病歴はHPIとPMHからなる。
  • 現在の活動：職業、趣味、患者が実際に行っていること。
  • 医薬品(Rx)：処方薬、市販薬、家庭薬、代替薬や漢方薬など、患者が服用している薬物。アレルギーも記録する。
  • 過去の病歴（PMH/PMHx）：同時発生した医学的問題、過去の入院や手術、怪我、過去の感染症や予防接種、既知のアレルギー歴など。
  • 生活履歴（SH）：出生地、居住地、婚姻歴、社会的・経済的地位、習慣（食事、医薬品、タバコ、アルコールを含む）。
  • 家族歴（FH）：患者に影響を及ぼす可能性のある家族の疾患のリスト。家系図が用いられることもある。
  • システム・レビュー（ROS）またはシステム探求：質問すべき一連の追加質問、 一般的な問診（体重減少、睡眠の質の変化、発熱、しこりやこぶに気づいたか、など）に続いて、身体の主な臓器系（心臓、肺、消化管、尿路など）に関する問診を行う。

身体診察とは、客観的で観察可能な疾患の医学的徴候があるかどうかを調べることであり、患者が自発的に訴え、必ずしも客観的に観察できない症状とは対照的である。医療従事者は、視覚、聴覚、触覚、時には嗅覚（感染症、尿毒症、糖尿病性ケトアシドーシスなど）を用いる。身体診察の基本は、検査、触診（触る）、打診（叩いて共鳴特性を調べる）、聴診（聞く）の4つの行為であり、一般的にはこの順番であるが、腹部の評価では打診と触診の前に聴診が行われる。

臨床検査では以下のことを調べる：

病歴の中で強調された関心分野に焦点を当てることになると思われ、上記のすべてが含まれるとは限らない。

治療計画には、臨床検査や画像検査の追加、治療の開始、専門医への紹介、経過観察などが含まれる。経過観察が勧められることもある。健康保険制度やマネージドケア制度によっては、検査の事前承認など様々な形態の "利用審査"が、高額なサービスへのアクセスを阻むこともある。

医療上の意思決定（MDM）プロセスでは、上記のすべてのデータを分析・統合して、可能性のある診断（鑑別診断）のリストを作成し、患者の問題を説明する確定診断を得るために何をすべきかを考える。

その後の診察では、新たな病歴、症状、身体所見、検査や画像診断の結果、専門医の診察などを得るために、このプロセスを省略した形で繰り返すこともある。

施設

古代の病院を描いたフレスコ画
サンタ・マリア・デッラ・スカラ病院、ドメニコ・ディ・バルトロによるフレスコ画、1441-1442年

現代の医療は、一般的に医療制度の中で行われている。法律、資格認定、資金調達の枠組みは各国政府によって確立され、時には教会などの国際組織によって補強されることもある。どのような医療制度であっても、その医薬品が医療のあり方に大きな影響を与える。

From ancient times, Christian emphasis on practical charity gave rise to the development of systematic nursing and hospitals and the Catholic Church today remains the largest non-government provider of medical services in the world. Advanced industrial countries (with the exception of the United States) and many developing countries provide medical services through a system of universal health care that aims to guarantee care for all through a single-payer health care system, or compulsory private or co-operative health insurance. This is intended to ensure that the entire population has access to medical care on the basis of need rather than ability to pay. Delivery may be via private medical practices or by state-owned hospitals and clinics, or by charities, most commonly by a combination of all three.

Most tribal societies provide no guarantee of healthcare for the population as a whole. In such societies, healthcare is available to those that can afford to pay for it or have self-insured it (either directly or as part of an employment contract) or who may be covered by care financed by the government or tribe directly.

collection of glass bottles of different sizes
Modern drug ampoules

Transparency of information is another factor defining a delivery system. Access to information on conditions, treatments, quality, and pricing greatly affects the choice by patients/consumers and, therefore, the incentives of medical professionals. While the US healthcare system has come under fire for lack of openness, new legislation may encourage greater openness. There is a perceived tension between the need for transparency on the one hand and such issues as patient confidentiality and the possible exploitation of information for commercial gain on the other.

The health professionals who provide care in medicine comprise multiple professions such as medics, nurses, physio therapists, and psychologists. These professions will have their own ethical standards, professional education, and bodies. The medical profession have been conceptualized from a sociological perspective.

Delivery

See also: Health care, clinic, hospital, and hospice

Provision of medical care is classified into primary, secondary, and tertiary care categories.

photograph of three nurses
Nurses in Kokopo, East New Britain, Papua New Guinea

Primary care medical services are provided by physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, or other health professionals who have first contact with a patient seeking medical treatment or care. These occur in physician offices, clinics, nursing homes, schools, home visits, and other places close to patients. About 90% of medical visits can be treated by the primary care provider. These include treatment of acute and chronic illnesses, preventive care and health education for all ages and both sexes.

Secondary care medical services are provided by medical specialists in their offices or clinics or at local community hospitals for a patient referred by a primary care provider who first diagnosed or treated the patient. Referrals are made for those patients who required the expertise or procedures performed by specialists. These include both ambulatory care and inpatient services, Emergency departments, intensive care medicine, surgery services, physical therapy, labor and delivery, endoscopy units, diagnostic laboratory and medical imaging services, hospice centers, etc. Some primary care providers may also take care of hospitalized patients and deliver babies in a secondary care setting.

Tertiary care medical services are provided by specialist hospitals or regional centers equipped with diagnostic and treatment facilities not generally available at local hospitals. These include trauma centers, burn treatment centers, advanced neonatology unit services, organ transplants, high-risk pregnancy, radiation oncology, etc.

Modern medical care also depends on information – still delivered in many health care settings on paper records, but increasingly nowadays by electronic means.

In low-income countries, modern healthcare is often too expensive for the average person. International healthcare policy researchers have advocated that "user fees" be removed in these areas to ensure access, although even after removal, significant costs and barriers remain.

Separation of prescribing and dispensing is a practice in medicine and pharmacy in which the physician who provides a medical prescription is independent from the pharmacist who provides the prescription drug. In the Western world there are centuries of tradition for separating pharmacists from physicians. In Asian countries, it is traditional for physicians to also provide drugs.

Branches

Drawing by Marguerite Martyn (1918) of a visiting nurse in St. Louis, Missouri, with medicine and babies

Working together as an interdisciplinary team, many highly trained health professionals besides medical practitioners are involved in the delivery of modern health care. Examples include: nurses, emergency medical technicians and paramedics, laboratory scientists, pharmacists, podiatrists, physiotherapists, respiratory therapists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, radiographers, dietitians, and bioengineers, medical physicists, surgeons, surgeon's assistant, surgical technologist.

The scope and sciences underpinning human medicine overlap many other fields. A patient admitted to the hospital is usually under the care of a specific team based on their main presenting problem, e.g., the cardiology team, who then may interact with other specialties, e.g., surgical, radiology, to help diagnose or treat the main problem or any subsequent complications/developments.

Physicians have many specializations and subspecializations into certain branches of medicine, which are listed below. There are variations from country to country regarding which specialties certain subspecialties are in.

The main branches of medicine are:

Basic sciences

  • Anatomy is the study of the physical structure of organisms. In contrast to macroscopic or gross anatomy, cytology and histology are concerned with microscopic structures.
  • Biochemistry is the study of the chemistry taking place in living organisms, especially the structure and function of their chemical components.
  • Biomechanics is the study of the structure and function of biological systems by means of the methods of Mechanics.
  • Biostatistics is the application of statistics to biological fields in the broadest sense. A knowledge of biostatistics is essential in the planning, evaluation, and interpretation of medical research. It is also fundamental to epidemiology and evidence-based medicine.
  • Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that uses the methods of physics and physical chemistry to study biological systems.
  • Cytology is the microscopic study of individual cells.
Louis Pasteur, as portrayed in his laboratory, 1885 by Albert Edelfelt

Specialties

Main article: Medical specialty

In the broadest meaning of "medicine", there are many different specialties. In the UK, most specialities have their own body or college, which has its own entrance examination. These are collectively known as the Royal Colleges, although not all currently use the term "Royal". The development of a speciality is often driven by new technology (such as the development of effective anaesthetics) or ways of working (such as emergency departments); the new specialty leads to the formation of a unifying body of doctors and the prestige of administering their own examination.

Within medical circles, specialities usually fit into one of two broad categories: "Medicine" and "Surgery". "Medicine" refers to the practice of non-operative medicine, and most of its subspecialties require preliminary training in Internal Medicine. In the UK, this was traditionally evidenced by passing the examination for the Membership of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP) or the equivalent college in Scotland or Ireland. "Surgery" refers to the practice of operative medicine, and most subspecialties in this area require preliminary training in General Surgery, which in the UK leads to membership of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (MRCS). At present, some specialties of medicine do not fit easily into either of these categories, such as radiology, pathology, or anesthesia. Most of these have branched from one or other of the two camps above; for example anaesthesia developed first as a faculty of the Royal College of Surgeons (for which MRCS/FRCS would have been required) before becoming the Royal College of Anaesthetists and membership of the college is attained by sitting for the examination of the Fellowship of the Royal College of Anesthetists (FRCA).

Surgical specialty

Main article: Surgery
Surgeons in an operating room

Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, to help improve bodily function or appearance or to repair unwanted ruptured areas (for example, a perforated ear drum). Surgeons must also manage pre-operative, post-operative, and potential surgical candidates on the hospital wards. In some centers, anesthesiology is part of the division of surgery (for historical and logistical reasons), although it is not a surgical discipline. Other medical specialties may employ surgical procedures, such as ophthalmology and dermatology, but are not considered surgical sub-specialties per se.

Surgical training in the U.S. requires a minimum of five years of residency after medical school. Sub-specialties of surgery often require seven or more years. In addition, fellowships can last an additional one to three years. Because post-residency fellowships can be competitive, many trainees devote two additional years to research. Thus in some cases surgical training will not finish until more than a decade after medical school. Furthermore, surgical training can be very difficult and time-consuming.

Surgical subspecialties include those a physician may specialize in after undergoing general surgery residency training as well as several surgical fields with separate residency training. Surgical subspecialties that one may pursue following general surgery residency training:

Other surgical specialties within medicine with their own individual residency training:

Internal medicine specialty

Main article: Internal medicine

Internal medicine is the medical specialty dealing with the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of adult diseases. According to some sources, an emphasis on internal structures is implied. In North America, specialists in internal medicine are commonly called "internists". Elsewhere, especially in Commonwealth nations, such specialists are often called physicians. These terms, internist or physician (in the narrow sense, common outside North America), generally exclude practitioners of gynecology and obstetrics, pathology, psychiatry, and especially surgery and its subspecialities.

Because their patients are often seriously ill or require complex investigations, internists do much of their work in hospitals. Formerly, many internists were not subspecialized; such general physicians would see any complex nonsurgical problem; this style of practice has become much less common. In modern urban practice, most internists are subspecialists: that is, they generally limit their medical practice to problems of one organ system or to one particular area of medical knowledge. For example, gastroenterologists and nephrologists specialize respectively in diseases of the gut and the kidneys.

In the Commonwealth of Nations and some other countries, specialist pediatricians and geriatricians are also described as specialist physicians (or internists) who have subspecialized by age of patient rather than by organ system. Elsewhere, especially in North America, general pediatrics is often a form of primary care.

There are many subspecialities (or subdisciplines) of internal medicine:

Training in internal medicine (as opposed to surgical training), varies considerably across the world: see the articles on medical education and physician for more details. In North America, it requires at least three years of residency training after medical school, which can then be followed by a one- to three-year fellowship in the subspecialties listed above. In general, resident work hours in medicine are less than those in surgery, averaging about 60 hours per week in the US. This difference does not apply in the UK where all doctors are now required by law to work less than 48 hours per week on average.

Diagnostic specialties

Other major specialties

The following are some major medical specialties that do not directly fit into any of the above-mentioned groups:

  • Anesthesiology (also known as anaesthetics): concerned with the perioperative management of the surgical patient. The anesthesiologist's role during surgery is to prevent derangement in the vital organs' (i.e. brain, heart, kidneys) functions and postoperative pain. Outside of the operating room, the anesthesiology physician also serves the same function in the labor and delivery ward, and some are specialized in critical medicine.
  • Emergency medicine is concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of acute or life-threatening conditions, including trauma, surgical, medical, pediatric, and psychiatric emergencies.
  • Family medicine, family practice, general practice or primary care is, in many countries, the first port-of-call for patients with non-emergency medical problems. Family physicians often provide services across a broad range of settings including office based practices, emergency department coverage, inpatient care, and nursing home care.
Gynecologist Michel Akotionga of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

Interdisciplinary fields

Some interdisciplinary sub-specialties of medicine include:

Education and legal controls

Main articles: Medical education and Medical license
Medical students learning about stitches

Medical education and training varies around the world. It typically involves entry level education at a university medical school, followed by a period of supervised practice or internship, or residency. This can be followed by postgraduate vocational training. A variety of teaching methods have been employed in medical education, still itself a focus of active research. In Canada and the United States of America, a Doctor of Medicine degree, often abbreviated M.D., or a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree, often abbreviated as D.O. and unique to the United States, must be completed in and delivered from a recognized university.

Since knowledge, techniques, and medical technology continue to evolve at a rapid rate, many regulatory authorities require continuing medical education. Medical practitioners upgrade their knowledge in various ways, including medical journals, seminars, conferences, and online programs. A database of objectives covering medical knowledge, as suggested by national societies across the United States, can be searched at http://data.medobjectives.marian.edu/.

Headquarters of the Organización Médica Colegial de España, which regulates the medical profession in Spain

In most countries, it is a legal requirement for a medical doctor to be licensed or registered. In general, this entails a medical degree from a university and accreditation by a medical board or an equivalent national organization, which may ask the applicant to pass exams. This restricts the considerable legal authority of the medical profession to physicians that are trained and qualified by national standards. It is also intended as an assurance to patients and as a safeguard against charlatans that practice inadequate medicine for personal gain. While the laws generally require medical doctors to be trained in "evidence based", Western, or Hippocratic Medicine, they are not intended to discourage different paradigms of health.

In the European Union, the profession of doctor of medicine is regulated. A profession is said to be regulated when access and exercise is subject to the possession of a specific professional qualification. The regulated professions database contains a list of regulated professions for doctor of medicine in the EU member states, EEA countries and Switzerland. This list is covered by the Directive 2005/36/EC.

Doctors who are negligent or intentionally harmful in their care of patients can face charges of medical malpractice and be subject to civil, criminal, or professional sanctions.

Medical ethics

Main article: Medical ethics
A 12th-century Byzantine manuscript of the Hippocratic Oath

Medical ethics is a system of moral principles that apply values and judgments to the practice of medicine. As a scholarly discipline, medical ethics encompasses its practical application in clinical settings as well as work on its history, philosophy, theology, and sociology. Six of the values that commonly apply to medical ethics discussions are:

  • autonomy – the patient has the right to refuse or choose their treatment. (Voluntas aegroti suprema lex.)
  • beneficence – a practitioner should act in the best interest of the patient. (Salus aegroti suprema lex.)
  • justice – concerns the distribution of scarce health resources, and the decision of who gets what treatment (fairness and equality).
  • non-maleficence – "first, do no harm" (primum non-nocere).
  • respect for persons – the patient (and the person treating the patient) have the right to be treated with dignity.
  • truthfulness and honesty – the concept of informed consent has increased in importance since the historical events of the Doctors' Trial of the Nuremberg trials, Tuskegee syphilis experiment, and others.

Values such as these do not give answers as to how to handle a particular situation, but provide a useful framework for understanding conflicts. When moral values are in conflict, the result may be an ethical dilemma or crisis. Sometimes, no good solution to a dilemma in medical ethics exists, and occasionally, the values of the medical community (i.e., the hospital and its staff) conflict with the values of the individual patient, family, or larger non-medical community. Conflicts can also arise between health care providers, or among family members. For example, some argue that the principles of autonomy and beneficence clash when patients refuse blood transfusions, considering them life-saving; and truth-telling was not emphasized to a large extent before the HIV era.

History

Main article: History of medicine
Statuette of ancient Egyptian physician Imhotep, the first physician from antiquity known by name

Ancient world

Prehistoric medicine incorporated plants (herbalism), animal parts, and minerals. In many cases these materials were used ritually as magical substances by priests, shamans, or medicine men. Well-known spiritual systems include animism (the notion of inanimate objects having spirits), spiritualism (an appeal to gods or communion with ancestor spirits); shamanism (the vesting of an individual with mystic powers); and divination (magically obtaining the truth). The field of medical anthropology examines the ways in which culture and society are organized around or impacted by issues of health, health care and related issues.

Early records on medicine have been discovered from ancient Egyptian medicine, Babylonian Medicine, Ayurvedic medicine (in the Indian subcontinent), classical Chinese medicine (predecessor to the modern traditional Chinese medicine), and ancient Greek medicine and Roman medicine.

In Egypt, Imhotep (3rd millennium BCE) is the first physician in history known by name. The oldest Egyptian medical text is the Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus from around 2000 BCE, which describes gynaecological diseases. The Edwin Smith Papyrus dating back to 1600 BCE is an early work on surgery, while the Ebers Papyrus dating back to 1500 BCE is akin to a textbook on medicine.

In China, archaeological evidence of medicine in Chinese dates back to the Bronze Age Shang Dynasty, based on seeds for herbalism and tools presumed to have been used for surgery. The Huangdi Neijing, the progenitor of Chinese medicine, is a medical text written beginning in the 2nd century BCE and compiled in the 3rd century.

In India, the surgeon Sushruta described numerous surgical operations, including the earliest forms of plastic surgery. Earliest records of dedicated hospitals come from Mihintale in Sri Lanka where evidence of dedicated medicinal treatment facilities for patients are found.

Mosaic on the floor of the Asclepieion of Kos, depicting Hippocrates, with Asklepius in the middle (2nd–3rd century)

In Greece, the Greek physician Hippocrates, the "father of modern medicine", laid the foundation for a rational approach to medicine. Hippocrates introduced the Hippocratic Oath for physicians, which is still relevant and in use today, and was the first to categorize illnesses as acute, chronic, endemic and epidemic, and use terms such as, "exacerbation, relapse, resolution, crisis, paroxysm, peak, and convalescence". The Greek physician Galen was also one of the greatest surgeons of the ancient world and performed many audacious operations, including brain and eye surgeries. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the onset of the Early Middle Ages, the Greek tradition of medicine went into decline in Western Europe, although it continued uninterrupted in the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire.

Most of our knowledge of ancient Hebrew medicine during the 1st millennium BC comes from the Torah, i.e. the Five Books of Moses, which contain various health related laws and rituals. The Hebrew contribution to the development of modern medicine started in the Byzantine Era, with the physician Asaph the Jew.

Middle Ages

A manuscript of Al-Risalah al-Dhahabiah by Ali al-Ridha, the eighth Imam of Shia Muslims. The text says: "Golden dissertation in medicine which is sent by Imam Ali ibn Musa al-Ridha, peace be upon him, to al-Ma'mun."

The concept of hospital as institution to offer medical care and possibility of a cure for the patients due to the ideals of Christian charity, rather than just merely a place to die, appeared in the Byzantine Empire.

Although the concept of uroscopy was known to Galen, he did not see the importance of using it to localize the disease. It was under the Byzantines with physicians such of Theophilus Protospatharius that they realized the potential in uroscopy to determine disease in a time when no microscope or stethoscope existed. That practice eventually spread to the rest of Europe.

After 750 CE, the Muslim world had the works of Hippocrates, Galen and Sushruta translated into Arabic, and Islamic physicians engaged in some significant medical research. Notable Islamic medical pioneers include the Persian polymath, Avicenna, who, along with Imhotep and Hippocrates, has also been called the "father of medicine". He wrote The Canon of Medicine which became a standard medical text at many medieval European universities, considered one of the most famous books in the history of medicine. Others include Abulcasis, Avenzoar|Ibn Zuhr|Avenzoar, Ibn al-Nafis, and Averroes. Persian physician Rhazes was one of the first to question the Greek theory of humorism, which nevertheless remained influential in both medieval Western and medieval Islamic medicine. Some volumes of Rhazes's work Al-Mansuri, namely "On Surgery" and "A General Book on Therapy", became part of the medical curriculum in European universities. Additionally, he has been described as a doctor's doctor, the father of pediatrics, and a pioneer of ophthalmology. For example, he was the first to recognize the reaction of the eye's pupil to light. The Persian Bimaristan hospitals were an early example of public hospitals.

In Europe, Charlemagne decreed that a hospital should be attached to each cathedral and monastery and the historian Geoffrey Blainey likened the activities of the Catholic Church in health care during the Middle Ages to an early version of a welfare state: "It conducted hospitals for the old and orphanages for the young; hospices for the sick of all ages; places for the lepers; and hostels or inns where pilgrims could buy a cheap bed and meal". It supplied food to the population during famine and distributed food to the poor. This welfare system the church funded through collecting taxes on a large scale and possessing large farmlands and estates. The Benedictine order was noted for setting up hospitals and infirmaries in their monasteries, growing medical herbs and becoming the chief medical care givers of their districts, as at the great Abbey of Cluny. The Church also established a network of cathedral schools and universities where medicine was studied. The Schola Medica Salernitana in Salerno, looking to the learning of Greek and Arab physicians, grew to be the finest medical school in Medieval Europe.

Siena's Santa Maria della Scala Hospital, one of Europe's oldest hospitals. During the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church established universities to revive the study of sciences, drawing on the learning of Greek and Arab physicians in the study of medicine.

However, the fourteenth and fifteenth century Black Death devastated both the Middle East and Europe, and it has even been argued that Western Europe was generally more effective in recovering from the pandemic than the Middle East. In the early modern period, important early figures in medicine and anatomy emerged in Europe, including Gabriele Falloppio and William Harvey.

The major shift in medical thinking was the gradual rejection, especially during the Black Death in the 14th and 15th centuries, of what may be called the "traditional authority" approach to science and medicine. This was the notion that because some prominent person in the past said something must be so, then that was the way it was, and anything one observed to the contrary was an anomaly (which was paralleled by a similar shift in European society in general – see Copernicus's rejection of Ptolemy's theories on astronomy). Physicians like Vesalius improved upon or disproved some of the theories from the past. The main tomes used both by medicine students and expert physicians were Materia Medica and Pharmacopoeia.

Andreas Vesalius was the author of De humani corporis fabrica, an important book on human anatomy. Bacteria and microorganisms were first observed with a microscope by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek in 1676, initiating the scientific field microbiology. Independently from Ibn al-Nafis, Michael Servetus rediscovered the pulmonary circulation, but this discovery did not reach the public because it was written down for the first time in the "Manuscript of Paris" in 1546, and later published in the theological work for which he paid with his life in 1553. Later this was described by Renaldus Columbus and Andrea Cesalpino. Herman Boerhaave is sometimes referred to as a "father of physiology" due to his exemplary teaching in Leiden and textbook 'Institutiones medicae' (1708). Pierre Fauchard has been called "the father of modern dentistry".

Modern

Paul-Louis Simond injecting a plague vaccine in Karachi, 1898

Veterinary medicine was, for the first time, truly separated from human medicine in 1761, when the French veterinarian Claude Bourgelat founded the world's first veterinary school in Lyon, France. Before this, medical doctors treated both humans and other animals.

Modern scientific biomedical research (where results are testable and reproducible) began to replace early Western traditions based on herbalism, the Greek "four humours|humorism|four humours" and other such pre-modern notions. The modern era really began with Edward Jenner's discovery of the smallpox vaccine at the end of the 18th century (inspired by the method of inoculation earlier practiced in Asia), Robert Koch's discoveries around 1880 of the transmission of disease by bacteria, and then the discovery of antibiotics around 1900.

The post-18th century modernity period brought more groundbreaking researchers from Europe. From Germany and Austria, doctors Rudolf Virchow, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Karl Landsteiner and Otto Loewi made notable contributions. In the United Kingdom, Alexander Fleming, Joseph Lister, Francis Crick and Florence Nightingale are considered important. Spanish doctor Santiago Ramón y Cajal is considered the father of modern neuroscience.

From New Zealand and Australia came Maurice Wilkins, Howard Florey, and Frank Macfarlane Burnet.

Others that did significant work include William Williams Keen, William Coley, James D. Watson (United States); Salvador Luria (Italy); Alexandre Yersin (Switzerland); Kitasato Shibasaburō (Japan); Jean-Martin Charcot, Claude Bernard, Paul Broca (France); Adolfo Lutz (Brazil); Nikolai Korotkov (Russia); Sir William Osler (Canada); and Harvey Cushing (United States).

As science and technology developed, medicine became more reliant upon medications. Throughout history and in Europe right until the late 18th century, not only animal and plant products were used as medicine, but also human body parts and fluids. Pharmacology developed in part from herbalism and some drugs are still derived from plants (atropine, ephedrine, warfarin, aspirin, digoxin, vinca alkaloids, taxol, hyoscine, etc.). Vaccines were discovered by Edward Jenner and Louis Pasteur.

The first antibiotic was arsphenamine (Salvarsan) discovered by Paul Ehrlich in 1908 after he observed that bacteria took up toxic dyes that human cells did not. The first major class of antibiotics was the sulfa drugs, derived by German chemists originally from azo dyes.

Packaging of cardiac medicine at the Star pharmaceutical factory in Tampere, Finland in 1953.

Pharmacology has become increasingly sophisticated; modern biotechnology allows drugs targeted towards specific physiological processes to be developed, sometimes designed for compatibility with the body to reduce side-effects. Genomics and knowledge of human genetics and human evolution is having increasingly significant influence on medicine, as the causative genes of most monogenic genetic disorders have now been identified, and the development of techniques in molecular biology, evolution, and genetics are influencing medical technology, practice and decision-making.

Evidence-based medicine is a contemporary movement to establish the most effective algorithms of practice (ways of doing things) through the use of systematic reviews and meta-analysis. The movement is facilitated by modern global information science, which allows as much of the available evidence as possible to be collected and analyzed according to standard protocols that are then disseminated to healthcare providers. The Cochrane Collaboration leads this movement. A 2001 review of 160 Cochrane systematic reviews revealed that, according to two readers, 21.3% of the reviews concluded insufficient evidence, 20% concluded evidence of no effect, and 22.5% concluded positive effect.

Quality, efficiency, and access

Evidence-based medicine, prevention of medical error (and other "iatrogenesis"), and avoidance of unnecessary health care are a priority in modern medical systems. These topics generate significant political and public policy attention, particularly in the United States where healthcare is regarded as excessively costly but population health metrics lag similar nations.

Globally, many developing countries lack access to care and access to medicines. As of 2015, most wealthy developed countries provide health care to all citizens, with a few exceptions such as the United States where lack of health insurance coverage may limit access.

See also

Main articles: Outline of medicine, Outline of health, and Glossary of medicine
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