Medical literature is the

scientific literature : ''For a broader class of literature, see Academic publishing.'' Scientific literature comprises scholarly publications that report original empirical and theoretical work in the natural and social sciences. Within an academic field, scienti ...

medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practice ...

: articles in journals and texts in books devoted to the field of medicine. Many references to the medical literature include the

health care Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health profes ...

literature generally, including that of

dentistry Dentistry, also known as dental medicine and oral medicine, is the branch of medicine focused on the teeth, gums, and mouth. It consists of the study, diagnosis, prevention, management, and treatment of diseases, disorders, and conditions of ...

veterinary medicine Veterinary medicine is the branch of medicine that deals with the prevention, management, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, disorder, and injury in animals. Along with this, it deals with animal rearing, husbandry, breeding, research on nutri ...

pharmacy Pharmacy is the science and practice of discovering, producing, preparing, dispensing, reviewing and monitoring medications, aiming to ensure the safe, effective, and affordable use of medicines. It is a miscellaneous science as it links healt ...

nursing Nursing is a profession within the health care sector focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life. Nurses may be differentiated from other health ca ...

, and the

allied health professions Allied health professions are health care professions distinct from optometry, dentistry, nursing, medicine, and pharmacy. They provide a range of diagnostic, technical, therapeutic, and support services in connection with health care. Definitio ...

. Contemporary and historic views regarding diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of medical conditions have been documented for thousands of years. The

Edwin Smith papyrus The Edwin Smith Papyrus is an ancient Egyptian medical text, named after Edwin Smith who bought it in 1862, and the oldest known surgical treatise on trauma. From a cited quotation in another text, it may have been known to ancient surgeons as ...

is the first known medical

treatise A treatise is a formal and systematic written discourse on some subject, generally longer and treating it in greater depth than an essay, and more concerned with investigating or exposing the principles of the subject and its conclusions." Trea ...

. Ancient medical literature often described inflictions related to warfare.

History

Throughout history people have written about diseases, how

human being Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...

s might contract them and what could be done to remedy it. Medicine ranged from folklore, witchcraft to the current

evidence-based medicine Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is "the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients". The aim of EBM is to integrate the experience of the clinician, the values of t ...

. Among the most notable descriptions are texts from Egypt (

Imhotep , other_names = Asclepius (name in Greek) Imouthes (also name in Greek) , burial_place = Saqqara (probable) , occupation = chancellor to the Pharaoh Djoser and High Priest of Ra , years_active = , known_for ...

, ''

Edwin Smith Papyrus The Edwin Smith Papyrus is an ancient Egyptian medical text, named after Edwin Smith who bought it in 1862, and the oldest known surgical treatise on trauma. From a cited quotation in another text, it may have been known to ancient surgeons as ...

'', '' Ebers Papyrus'', ''

Kahun Gynecological Papyrus The Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus (also Petrie Medical Papyrus, Kahun Medical Papyrus, Lahun Medical Papyrus, or UC32057) is the oldest known medical text in Egypt, although not the oldest in the world as in Philadelphia museum a Sumerian medical c ...

''), Mesopotamia ('' Diagnostic Handbook'', Alkindus, '' De Gradibus''), India (

Ayurveda Ayurveda () is an alternative medicine system with historical roots in the Indian subcontinent. The theory and practice of Ayurveda is pseudoscientific. Ayurveda is heavily practiced in India and Nepal, where around 80% of the population repor ...

, ''

Sushruta Samhita The ''Sushruta Samhita'' (सुश्रुतसंहिता, IAST: ''Suśrutasaṃhitā'', literally "Suśruta's Compendium") is an ancient Sanskrit text on medicine and surgery, and one of the most important such treatises on this subje ...

'', ''

Charaka Samhita The ''Charaka Samhita'' (, “Compendium of ''Charaka''”) is a Sanskrit text on Ayurveda (Indian traditional medicine). Along with the ''Sushruta Samhita'', it is one of the two foundational texts of this field that have survived from ancie ...

''), China ( Yellow Emperor, '' Huangdi Neijing''), Greece (''

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odyss ...

'' and ''

Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Iliad'', th ...

'' are the earliest sources of Greek medical practise; Hippocratic medicine), Persia (

Rhazes Abū Bakr al-Rāzī (full name: ar, أبو بکر محمد بن زکریاء الرازي, translit=Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakariyyāʾ al-Rāzī, label=none), () rather than ar, زکریاء, label=none (), as for example in , or in . In m ...

Avicenna Ibn Sina ( fa, ابن سینا; 980 – June 1037 CE), commonly known in the West as Avicenna (), was a Persian polymath who is regarded as one of the most significant physicians, astronomers, philosophers, and writers of the Islamic ...

, ''

The Canon of Medicine ''The Canon of Medicine'' ( ar, القانون في الطب, italic=yes ''al-Qānūn fī al-Ṭibb''; fa, قانون در طب, italic=yes, ''Qanun-e dâr Tâb'') is an encyclopedia of medicine in five books compiled by Persian physician-phi ...

'', ''

The Book of Healing ''The Book of Healing'' (; ; also known as ) is a scientific and philosophical encyclopedia written by Abu Ali ibn Sīna (aka Avicenna) from medieval Persia, near Bukhara in Maverounnahr. He most likely began to compose the book in 1014, co ...

''), Spain (

Abulcasis Abū al-Qāsim Khalaf ibn al-'Abbās al-Zahrāwī al-Ansari ( ar, أبو القاسم خلف بن العباس الزهراوي;‎ 936–1013), popularly known as al-Zahrawi (), Latinised as Albucasis (from Arabic ''Abū al-Qāsim''), was ...

, '' Kitab al-Tasrif'') and Syria ( Ibn al-Nafis, ''Commentary on Anatomy in Avicenna's Canon'', ''Comprehensive Book on Medicine''). Following

Vesalius Andreas Vesalius (Latinized from Andries van Wezel) () was a 16th-century anatomist, physician, and author of one of the most influential books on human anatomy, ''De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem'' (''On the fabric of the human body'' '' ...

William Harvey William Harvey (1 April 1578 – 3 June 1657) was an English physician who made influential contributions in anatomy and physiology. He was the first known physician to describe completely, and in detail, the systemic circulation and proper ...

Ignaz Semmelweis Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (; hu, Semmelweis Ignác Fülöp ; 1 July 1818 – 13 August 1865) was a Hungarian physician and scientist, who was an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures. Described as the "saviour of mothers", he discovered that t ...

Louis Pasteur Louis Pasteur (, ; 27 December 1822 – 28 September 1895) was a French chemist and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation and pasteurization, the latter of which was named after ...

, and others, the medical community have changed the way it conducts

research Research is " creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness ...

. After incorporating the

scientific method The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries; see the article history of scientific me ...

, medical literature has introduced

peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...

, and is currently divided into journals and textbooks.

Medical journal

These are publications in which the medical community shares information. The common articles are original articles, reviews and

case report In medicine, a case report is a detailed report of the symptoms, signs, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up of an individual patient. Case reports may contain a demographic profile of the patient, but usually describe an unusual or novel occurrence. ...

s. * Original articles describe methods, results, discussion and conclusions and a new research that is conducted by the authors. Although according to the

consensus the

randomized controlled trials A randomized controlled trial (or randomized control trial; RCT) is a form of scientific experiment used to control factors not under direct experimental control. Examples of RCTs are clinical trials that compare the effects of drugs, surgical t ...

are the gold-standard for medical research, currently, they constitute only a minority of conducted research. * Reviews are an overview of one particular topic of clinical interest in order to refresh the readers' memory, to enhance an emergence concept or the summary recent publications that haven't appeared in the textbooks yet. Other type of reviews are the

systematic reviews A systematic review is a scholarly synthesis of the evidence on a clearly presented topic using critical methods to identify, define and assess research on the topic. A systematic review extracts and interprets data from published studies on t ...

and the

meta-analysis A meta-analysis is a statistical analysis that combines the results of multiple scientific studies. Meta-analyses can be performed when there are multiple scientific studies addressing the same question, with each individual study reporting me ...

in which a specific clinical dilemma is answered by collecting and summarizing all published data regarding this question. * Case reports are descriptions of clinical cases of rare phenomenon or a new clinical method. Case reports may be of value in assessing unusual medical conditions that cannot be studied in clinical trials. Currently, most of the top-ranked medical journals do not publish case reports because of space constraints or a preference for larger, more definitive studies.

Instances

When looking for specific information in any journal one can use the

National Library of Medicine The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), operated by the United States federal government, is the world's largest medical library. Located in Bethesda, Maryland, the NLM is an institute within the National Institutes of Health. Its ...

PubMed PubMed is a free search engine accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health maintain the ...

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases span ...

Peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...

ed journals are ranked higher thus are a better source for medical information than non-peer reviewed journals.

Medical textbooks

A medical manual is

literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...

(usually a book) describing

diagnosis Diagnosis is the identification of the nature and cause of a certain phenomenon. Diagnosis is used in many different disciplines, with variations in the use of logic, analytics, and experience, to determine " cause and effect". In systems engine ...

, treatment,

management Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities ...

, and

prognosis Prognosis (Greek: πρόγνωσις "fore-knowing, foreseeing") is a medical term for predicting the likely or expected development of a disease, including whether the signs and symptoms will improve or worsen (and how quickly) or remain stable ...

of various

disorder Disorder may refer to randomness, non-order, or no intelligible pattern. Disorder may also refer to: Healthcare * Disorder (medicine), a functional abnormality or disturbance * Mental disorder or psychological disorder, a psychological pattern a ...

s. The first known medical manual is the

of ancient Egypt. After consensus has been reached, it is incorporated in

textbook A textbook is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. Textbooks are produced to meet the needs of educators, usually at educational institutions. Schoolbooks are textbook ...

s. There are textbooks on every

medical specialty A medical specialty is a branch of medical practice that is focused on a defined group of patients, diseases, skills, or philosophy. Examples include those branches of medicine that deal exclusively with children (paediatrics), cancer ( oncology) ...

and they contain comprehensive discussion on all

diseases A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that a ...

and their

, therapy and

. The first textbook to utilize experts to write specific chapters within the book was the Cecil Textbook of Medicine edited by Russell Cecil, MD in 1927. The book was an immediate international success because of the idea that single or double author medical books was outmoded, "since the scope of medical knowledge was far surpassing the capacity of any single individual to encompass". Since that time, this has been the standard. Examples are: *'' Cecil Textbook of Medicine'' *''

Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine ''Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine'' is an American textbook of internal medicine. First published in 1950, it is in its 21st edition (published in 2022 by McGraw-Hill Professional ) and comes in two volumes. Although it is aimed at a ...

'' *The '' Oxford Textbook of Medicine'' * '' The Principles and Practice of Medicine'' * The '' Textbook of Pain'' Harrison's ''Principal of Internal Medicine'' is widely considered the most read textbook of medicine ever. It was able to eclipse Cecil's by changing the organization. Instead of organizing by disease,

Tinsley Harrison Tinsley Randolph Harrison (March 18, 1900 – August 4, 1978) was an American physician and editor of the first five editions of ''Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine''. Harrison specialized in cardiology and the pathophysiology of he ...

organized the book by region and symptom, allowing students to learn the myriad causes of a patient's symptom, without first knowing the specific disease. Harrison's is also credited for a strong commitment to linking basic science to clinical medicine.

Medical journalism

Health-related information is often disseminated to the public via mainstream media outlets; these reports influence doctors, the general public, and the government. According to one study of 500 US health news stories, between 62 and 77% failed to adequately address costs, harms, benefits, the quality of the evidence, and the existence of other options. Although medical news articles often deliver public health messages effectively, they often convey wrong or misleading information about health care, partly when reporters do not know or cannot convey the results of clinical studies, and partly when they fail to supply reasonable context. Several web sites review medical journalism; examples include

Health News Review HealthNewsReview.org is a web-based project that rates the completeness, accuracy, and balance of news stories that include claims about medical treatments, tests, products and procedures. History The Founder and Publisher is Gary Schwitzer, a ...

in the U.S. and Media Doctor in Australia.

Internet

Most prominent journals and textbooks are currently available

on-line In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed "on line" or ...

or via

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both compute ...

. Certain online services including

Medscape Medscape is a website providing access to medical information for clinicians; the organization also provides continuing education for physicians and health professionals. It references medical journal articles, Continuing Medical Education (CM ...

and MDLinx offer aggregated digests of new articles from prominent medical journals.

History

Medical journal

Instances

Medical textbooks

Medical journalism

Internet

See also

References

Further reading