MEDICINE (see also MEDICINE, GENERAL ; MEDICAL RE SEARCH), the department of knowledge and practice dealing with disease and its treatment in man and domestic animals. In a more limited sense it implies that branch of the whole which is contrasted with surgery. Medicine regards the normal in health as a base line against which disease can be evaluated and its standard of attainment in all its branches in any age bears a close relation to the general mental development of the nation producing its practitioners. Medical knowledge, therefore, moves on parallel lines with the development of education. But this is not all. The history of medicine teaches that, measured by modern standards, in many ancient states medical knowledge was limited and inexact at a time when civilization, art and letters were at their highest. It was not until about the middle of the 19th century, when there occurred in Europe a notable awakening of interest in all branches of Natural Science, that Medicine can be said to have attained any like degree of development, since when its development has steadily continued until to-day it has grown so extensive that its ramifications are manifestly beyond the powers of any single individual to grasp. It covers medicine
in the limited sense, surgery, midwifery, and numerous sub divisions in these main groups. It includes pathology, which deals with the "how" and "why" of disease ; pharmacology, which is concerned with the action of drugs ; physiology, which deals with normal processes in normal animals; and anatomy, which inves tigates their structure and organization as revealed alike to the naked eye and by microscopic examination. It has links with biology, chemistry, physics, meteorology, geology, ethnology ; in deed, it draws where it can from all branches of knowledge. Even its terminology is constructed—unhappily, not always on blameless lines—from the classical languages, and in its acquire ment of information it needs to be conversant with most written tongues. Its range is coterminous with human and animal life. (W. S. L.-B.)