Vol. II No. il
Lawrence November
Kansas 1945
foo pe ABOUT HEALTH
% * * % * x * x

MEDICINE

Originally employed to denote substances used to cure or alleviate disease, medicine,
has now come to mean everything that has to do with disease inclu ding both its
causes and its effects. It also includes all that mass of interests and information
that in any way promotes the attainment, preservation, or practice of health.

Since life and living include both health and disease and since disease and death
are just as normal ( natural) as health and life, uedicine, in the broad sense
covers everything in which humanity is or can be interested. It ‘has no science
properly called its own but in its study and practice appropriates any and all
science to its use. It is thus so all inciusive that hundreds of energetic lives
are spent in exploring its various fields or aspects without, in any case, ex-
nausting their respective possibilities. One of the things that makes the study

of medicine attractive to the serious minded student is the fact that after a little
basic work, he may go anywhere and do anything he likes and still be in the field

of medicine,--still " belong" .

One of the vagaries of medicine is that ev rything from dandelion ( bitter stomachic
tonic) to horn scrapings (for propping up ingrown toe nails) has been used to treat
disease and one of its glories is thut they could and would be used again if, in

the judgment of the directing mind, any help could be thus attained.

One should not think of only doctors end nurses as being interested in medicine.
They are relatively a few of those who are or should be interested in disease.
When economists discuss the actual or possible increase of wealth, they speak of
health and the ability and willingness of people to work normally as being the
basic material from which wealth may be made. Farsighted industrialists are keenly
alive to the prevention of the loss of " man hours" , " labor days" or whatever
they happen to be call ing the reduction of wealth producing potential by the
failure of health. :.Sociologists teach that the problem of poverty cannot be
solved without also doing something about tiie matter of health. P erhaps the milit-
arists have the most practical, the most earnest, and the most constant interest in
medicine thus far found anywhere!! This largely explains the tremendous advance-
ment made in medicine during every great war. The ill themselves have some in-
terest in medicine, disease, and recovery with emphasis sometimes on one , some-
times on another. For some of them, their lack of health is a sort of capital stock
from which they make a living or attain other desirable end. The beggar's sores
and ucfor.itles cnu «. s-ollecd daughter's hysteria suggest themselves as examples.
here are others interested in medicine, so many as to be practically all inclusive..

For study and discussion, the field of medicine may be divided into two great parts;-
clinical and preventive. Clinical medicine has to do with the sick whether they

are in bed or not and preventive medicine has to do with protecting the well.
Originally, practically all medical study and medical effort was