Portal:Medicine

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Medicine is the branch of health science and the sector of public life concerned with maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis and treatment of disease and injury. It is both an area of knowledge — a science of body systems, their diseases and treatment — and the applied practice — an art or craft — of that knowledge. However, medicine often refers more specifically to matters dealt with by physicians and surgeons.

The term "medicine" is sometimes used amongst medical professionals as shorthand for internal medicine. Veterinary medicine is the practice of health care in animal species other than human beings. Please see our medical disclaimer for cautions about Wikipedia's limitations.

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An artificial heart is a prosthetic device that is implanted into the body to replace the biological heart. It is distinct from a cardiopulmonary bypass machine (CPB), which is an external device used to provide the functions of both the heart and the lungs. The CPB oxygenates the blood, so does not need to be connected to both blood circuits. Also, a CPB is only suitable for a few hours use, while artificial hearts have so far been used for periods of long over a year (as of 2007).

A synthetic replacement for the heart remains one of the long-sought holy grails of modern medicine. The obvious benefit of a functional artificial heart would be to lower the need for heart transplants, because the demand for donor hearts (as it is for all organs) always greatly exceeds supply.

Although the heart is conceptually simple (basically a muscle that functions as a pump), it embodies subtleties that defy straightforward emulation with synthetic materials and power supplies. Consequences of these issues include severe foreign-body rejection and external batteries that limit patient mobility. These complications limited the lifespan of early human recipients to hours or days.

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Animated sequence from a CTPA study.

Photo credit: Original uploader was KieranMaher at en.wikibooks

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... that in Prehistoric medicine, a hole was cut into the skull to release evil spirits (Trepanning) and that there is evidence that many people survived the operation?

...Empty nose syndrome is caused by excess surgical removal of turbinate tissue, e.g. because of severe chronic congestion, and may severely impact quality of life?