Medicine

(měd'e-sin.) [Fr. médecine; L. medic in a.] A | science, the object of which is the cure of disease and the preservation of health. Occasionally, it is used to comprehend all the branches of the healing art; at others, to comprise one great division, in contradistinction to surgery and obstetrics. M., in this sense, includes many branches; the chief of which are, Anatomy, Physiology, Pathology, Therapeutics, Hygiene, Materia Medica, and Pharmacy. Hippo crates, who lived about the middle of the 5th cent. B. c., is the earliest author on M. whose writings have been preserved. He was a man of very superior medical acquirements, and, by the consent of posterity, he has been styled the Father of M. Two other lights of ancient medicine were Celsus, who wrote in Latin in the 1st cent. A. D., and Galen,who practised at Rome, but wrote in Greek, his native language, in the 2d cent. M. has struggled at all times, and continues to struggle, with favorite theories; and has, with the slowne which marks all important advances inhuman knowledge, but lately emerged from some of the prejudices of many ages, and will doubtle long continue subject to others. [s. 589]