Medicine

	Medicine is the science and "art" of maintaining and/or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of patients. 
	History of Medicine
	Medicine has been around since the dawn of mankind in one form or another. People have always gotten sick or injured and there has always been attempts to treat them. The earliest form of medicine was using plants and animal parts to create remedies. Some of these were very effective and are still used today. Each tribe would know about the healing properties of plants in their area and would have built up knowledge that was passed from generation to generation.
	Ancient Civilizations	
	Advancements in medicine were made in ancient Egypt, China, Persia and India around 3000BC. These included the development of basic surgical tools, some knowledge about the causes of different diseases.
	The Ancient Greeks and Romans also advanced medical knowledge a lot. Hippocrates is one of the most famous Ancient Greeks, he is known as 'The Father of Medicine'. His oath is used by doctors worldwide today to swear that they will use their medical training ethically. Hippocrates was one of the first to separate religion and medicine. Until then, incantations and religious rituals were used to cure illness which was thought to be caused by evil spirits. He studied anatomy, but his findings were very inaccurate because autopsies were forbidden in Ancient Greece which meant he could only speculate as to the inner workings of the human body.
	Renaissance	
	Medicine stayed roughly the same in Europe until the Renaissance. As part of developments in all areas of science and art, medical practise was vastly improved. For example, Leonardo da Vinci studied the human body by dissecting corpses. His famous notebooks contain many sketches of bones, muscles and ligaments.
	Although many advancements were made in anatomy and understanding of the causes of disease, not many cures were invented. There were few drugs available at the time, opium was one of the more effective ones they had.
	Modern Medicine
	In the 19th Century, many improvements were made to laboratory techniques and instruments, thereby improving knowledge of chemistry in relation to curing disease. Surgeons and doctors began to realise the importance of hygiene and so they started to wash hands before dealing with patients. This led to a much higher recovery rate because many patients had died of infection from lack of hygienic hospitals. 
	In 1859, Charles Darwin published 'The Origin of the Species', a book that laid out the theory of evolution. At the same time Gregor Mendel, was studying hereditary traits in plants and discovered the foundation of what would become genetics. Later, in 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick discovered DNA. Genetics was to become an important area of research, as many diseases could be diagnosed early by studying a person's genes.
	In 1880, Louis Pasteur created a vaccine against rabies.