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[[Image:Doctor_and_Child-by-David-Mason-flikr_5901759_9cfaa50cf7_o.jpg|right|thumb|Physician examining a child]]
==Overview==
Since the nineteenth century, only those with a medical degree have been considered to ''practice'' medicine. ''Clinicians'' (licensed professionals who deal with patients) can be physicians, physical therapists, physician assistants, nurses or others. The medical profession is the social and occupational structure of the group of people formally trained and authorized to apply medical knowledge. Many [[country|countries]] and legal jurisdictions have [[law|legal]] limitations on who may practice medicine.
Medicine comprises various specialized sub-branches, such as [[cardiology]], [[pulmonology]], [[neurology]], or other fields such as sports medicine, research or public health.
Human societies have had various different systems of health care practice since at least the beginning of recorded history. Medicine, in the modern period, is the mainstream scientific tradition which developed in the [[Western world]] since the early Renaissance (around 1450). Many other traditions of health care are still practiced throughout the world; most of these are separate from Western medicine, which is also called '''biomedicine''', '''allopathic medicine''' or the [[Hippocrates|Hippocratic]] tradition. The most highly developed of these are [[traditional Chinese medicine]], [[Traditional Tibetan medicine]] and the [[Ayurveda|Ayurvedic tradition]]s of [[India]] and [[Sri Lankan Ayurvedic tradition|Sri Lanka]]. Various non-mainstream traditions of health care have also developed in the Western world. These systems are sometimes considered companions to Hippocratic medicine, and sometimes are seen as competition to the Western tradition. Few of them have any scientific confirmation of their tenets, because if they did they would be brought into the fold of Western medicine.
"Medicine" is also often used amongst medical professionals as shorthand for [[internal medicine]]. [[Veterinary medicine]] is the practice of health care in [[animal]] [[species]] other than human beings.
==History of medicine==
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