Medicine is the science and art of healing. It is a science because it is based on knowledge gained through careful study and experimentation. It is an art because it depends on how skillfully doctors and other medical workers apply this knowledge when dealing with patients.
2. The goals of medicine are to save lives, to relieve suffering, and to maintain the dignity of ill individuals. For this reason, medicine has long been one of the most respected professions. Thousands of men and women who work in the medical profession spend their lives caring for the sick. When disaster strikes, hospital workers rush emergency aid to the injured. When epidemics threaten, doctors and nurses work to prevent
the spread of disease. Researchers in the medical profession continually search for better ways of fighting disease.
3. Human beings have suffered from illnesses since they first appeared on the earth. Throughout most of this time, they knew little about how the human body works or what causes disease. Treatment was based largely on superstition and guesswork.
4. However, medicine has made tremendous progress in the last several hundred years. Today, it is possible to cure, control, or prevent hundreds of diseases. People live longer than they did in the past as a result of new drugs, machines, and surgical operations. Medical progress in the control of infectious diseases, improvements in health care programs for mothers and children, and better nutrition, sanitation, and living conditions have given people a longer life expectancy.
5. As medicine has become more scientific, it has also become more complicated. In the past, doctors cared for patients almost single-handedly. Patients received treat-ment at home for most kinds of illnesses. Today, doctors no longer work by themselves. Instead they head medical teams made up of nurses, laboratory workers, and many other skilled professionals. The care provided by such teams cannot generally be started at home. As a result, clinics and hospitals have become the chief centers for medical care in most countries.