Текст 2. More specialties in medicine

Since World War II there has been an almost explosive increase of knowledge in the medical science as well as enormous advances in technology as applicable to medicine. These developments have led to more and more specialization. Expansion of knowledge both in depth and in range has encouraged the development of new forms of treatment that require high degrees of specialization, such as organ transplantation and exchange transfusion. The field of anesthesiology has grown increasingly as equipment and anesthetics have improved.

New technologies have introduced microsurgery, laser beam surgery, and lens implantation (for cataract patients), all requiring the specialist’s skill. Precision in diagnosis has markedly improved; advances in radiology, the use of ultrasound, computerized axial tomography (CAT scan), and nuclear magnetic resonance imaging are examples of the technology extension requiring expertise in the field of medicine.

To provide more efficient service it is not uncommon for a surgeon and a physician to form a team working together in the field of, for example, heart disease. An advantage of this arrangement is that they can attract a highly trained group of nurses, technologists, operating room technicians, and so on, thus greatly improving the efficiency of the service to the patient.

Such specialization is expensive, however, and has required an increasingly large proportion of the health budget of institutions, a situation that eventually has its financial effect on the individual citizen. The question therefore arises as to their cost-effectiveness. Governments of developing countries have usually found, for instance, that it is more cost-efficient to provide more people with basic care.

Текст 3. Therapeutics.

Therapeutics is treatment and care of a patient for the purpose of both preventing and combating disease or alleviating pain or injury. The term comes from the Greek "therapeutikos", which means "inclined to serve." In a broad sense therapeutics means serving and caring for the patient in a comprehensive manner, preventing disease as well as managing specific problems.

Exercise, diet, and mental factors are therefore integral to the prevention, as well as the management, of disease processes. More specific measures that are employed to treat specific symptoms include the use of drugs to relieve pain or treat infection, surgery to remove diseased tissue or replace poorly functioning or nonfunctioning organs with fully operating ones, and counseling or psychotherapy to relieve emotional distress. Confidence in the physician and in the method selected enhances effectiveness.

Disease is a harmful deviation from the normal structural or functional state of an organism. A diseased organism commonly exhibits signs or symptoms indicative of its abnormal state. Thus, the normal condition of an organism must be understood in order to recognize the hallmarks of disease. Nevertheless, a sharp demarcation between disease and health is not always apparent.

The study of disease is called pathology. It involves the determination of the cause (etiology) of the disease, the understanding of the mechanisms of its development (pathogenesis), the structural changes associated with the disease process (morphological changes), and the functional consequences of these changes. Correct identifying of the cause of a disease is necessary for identifying the proper course of treatment. Humans, animals, and plants are all susceptible to diseases of some sort. However, that which disrupts the normal functioning of one type of an organism may have no effect on the other types.