Medicine, related to everyone's life and death, has received extensive attention. It seems that everyone is familiar with medicine. However, it is not easy to give an exact definition of medicine.
Avicenna (980- 1037), a great Arab doctor in the Middle Ages, once defined medicine as follows: "Medicine is science, from which we learn (a) various states of the human body, (i) when to be healthy; (ii) Poor health; (b) By what means: (1) health is easily lost, and (2) health is restored after health is lost. In other words, medicine is the skill of how to keep healthy, and it is the skill of restoring health after losing health.
As an outstanding medical scientist, philosopher and natural scientist, Avicenna, with his amazing insight and generalization, can make such a profound and predictable explanation of medicine nearly a thousand years ago, which deserves attention.
This definition, which appeared long before the formation of basic medicine and preventive medicine, contains what actually belongs to basic medicine ("various states of human health"), and summarizes anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, psychology and so on. , and "all kinds of states when the human body is unhealthy" summarizes pathological anatomy, pathophysiology, diagnostics and so on. ) and preventive medicine ("health is easy to lose"). This definition not only points out the scientific nature of medicine, but also points out the practicality of medicine ("skill").
This definition is based on "health" rather than "disease" to reveal medicine. It only uses the words "healthy", "unhealthy", "recovering health" and "keeping healthy", which is quite insightful and avoids the narrow view that medicine is limited to treatment (of course, treatment is undoubtedly included in Avicenna's definition).
Some popular definitions of medicine are either one-sided (only regard medicine as a science, even as a natural science, or strongly list class as the essential attribute of medicine; And so on), far less than Avicenna's decision.
Yes, or just in modern language, it tells the contents of Avicenna's medical definition. Of course, these definitions may not all know Avicenna's medical definition, but just coincide with Avicenna's "Great minds think alike". This just shows that the connotation and extension of medicine have their common side in ancient and modern China and foreign countries, so the essence of medicine is independent of the wishes of the times, countries and definers.
Of course, we are not satisfied with quoting Avicenna's definition. Let's give a shorter and clearer definition of medicine: medicine is a scientific knowledge system and practical activity to recognize, maintain and improve human health, prevent and treat diseases and promote the recovery of the body.
Accepted point of view:
A popular view that medicine "is a natural science" or medicine "belongs to the category of natural science" is incomplete and inaccurate. In book taxonomy, medicine is often classified as a kind of "applied science". As far as medicine is the practice of using life sciences and other disciplines to prevent and treat diseases, this statement is not unreasonable. However, it is not comprehensive and accurate to exclude basic medicine (most subjects belong to life science) from medicine conceptually.
As early as the last century, an outstanding pathologist, R. Virchow (1821-kloc-0/902), wrote in the article Scientific Methods and Therapeutic Perspectives (1849) that some people suggested that "medicine is essentially a social science". However, people often only regard medicine as a pure natural science.
Siegrist (1892- 1957), a famous medical historian who has a great influence on contemporary western medicine, once profoundly pointed out: "When I said that medicine is not so much a natural science as a social science, I shocked the medical audience more than once. The purpose of medicine is social. Its purpose is not only to treat diseases. Restore an organism. In addition, its purpose is to enable people to adapt to his environment and become useful members of society.