MEDICINE

the practice concerned with the maintenance of health and the prevention, alleviation, or cure of disease. The World Health Organization at its 1978 international conference held in the Soviet Union produced the Alma-Ata Health Declaration, which was designed to serve governments as a basis for planning health care that would reach people at all levels of society. The declaration reaffirmed that health, which is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, is a fundamental human right and that the attainment of the highest possible level of health is a most important world-wide social goal whose realization requires the action of many other social and economic sectors in addition to the health sector. In its widest form the practice of medicine, that is to say the promotion and care of health, is concerned with this ideal. the science concerned with the maintenance of health and the prevention, alleviation, or cure of disease. The subject of medicine is treated in a number of articles, the principal of which is medicine, history of. For a treatment of general considerations and current techniques in the diagnosis and treatment of disease, see diagnosis and therapeutics. For fields of medicine linked to environmental and occupational conditions, see occupational disease; radiation. For articles dealing with the broad fields of pathology associated with the major systems of the human body, see blood disease; bone disease; cardiovascular disease; digestive system disease; ear disease; endocrine system, human; eye disease; metabolic disease; muscle disease; nervous system disease; renal system disease; reproductive system disease; respiratory disease; sensory reception, human; skin disease. Specific ailments are dealt with in such articles as cancer; childhood disease and disorder; infection; poison. For the use of drugs in the treatment of disease and the general principles of their medicinal properties, as well as a description of various groups of drugs, see drug. For articles dealing in whole or in part with microorganisms that cause disease, see bacteria; virus. For a treatment of the role of diet and health, see nutrition. For medical aspects related specifically to women and childbirth, see pregnancy. For a summation of the principles used in the identification of disease and major factors influencing it, see disease. For articles on the maintenance of health, see exercise; immune system. For articles on the interconnection of physiological and psychological factors, see human behaviour; learning theory; perception; sexual behaviour, human; sleep. For articles discussing the maladjustment of these two sets of factors, see alcohol consumption; mental disorder. For problems of aging and development, see aging; growth; life span. For articles dealing with fundamental aspects of living organisms, see life; death; nucleic acid; protein; carbohydrate; lipid; hormone; vitamin. For some of the underlying principles of medicine, see cell; heredity. Much of the science of medicine is inseparable from related fields such as microbiology, biochemistry, and biophysics. For a discussion of related fields, see biology; science, history of. Additional reading Webster's Medical Desk Dictionary (1986), is a reference source for the layman. The Oxford Companion to Medicine , 2 vol., edited by John Walton, Paul B. Beeson, and Ronald Bodley Scott (1986), is a comprehensive text of 20th-century developments and persons. George Rosen, The Structure of American Medical Practice, 18751941 (1983), is a historical study. Particular kinds of medical practice are explored in Wesley Fabb and John Fry (eds.), Principles of Practice Management in Primary Care (1984); Sir Douglas Black et al., Inequalities in Health: The Black Report, edited by Peter Townsend and Nick Davidson (1982); David Sanders and Richard Carver, The Struggle for Health: Medicine and the Politics of Underdevelopment (1985); and V. Djukanovic and E.P. Mach (eds.), Alternative Approaches to Meeting Basic Health Needs in Developing Countries: A Joint UNICEF/WHO Study (1975). Also see the articles of such journals as Private Practice (monthly) and Modern Healthcare (semimonthly). For a view of alternative medicine, see Douglas Stalker and Clark Glymour (eds.), Examining Holistic Medicine (1985); and Richard Grossman, The Other Medicines (1985). The variety of roles in the health-care profession are the subject of Louise Simmers, Diversified Health Occupations (1983); C. Wesley Eisele, William R. Fifer, and Toma C. Wilson, The Medical Staff and the Modern Hospital (1985); and Eli Ginzberg (ed.), From Physician Shortage to Patient Shortage: The Uncertain Future of Medical Practice (1986).