> On 2 Nov 1995, Stephen G. Kayes wrote:
>> > I am not very good at this sort of thing but are you looking for
> > the term "geographic Medicine". I never thought that that was a
> > particularly useful term but many places have departments of same.
> >
> Geographic medicine has the advantage of defining the domain of
> inquiry as the study of diseases and health effects on a global scale
> without being limited to diseases associated with tropical
> lattitudes (e.g. malaria, schisto, dengue, etc.). Thus, its possible to
> discuss the zoonotic implications of echinoccosis as it relates to sheep
> husbandry, or a caribou-sled dog association with humans, toxocarosis as
> a problem of lg stray and companion animal populations in urban
> settings, as well as the traditional topics in tropical medicine in a
> single course. I think the Trop Med label is a somewhat dated label
> derived from the colonialism of the 19th century. Geographic medicine, on the
> other hand reflects our increasing awareness and concern with the study of
> health and disease in a global community. Just a thought.
I find geographic a superfluous term when applied to medicine.
Presumeably disease or lack of health reflects an imbalance in some
some aspect of the host/agent/environment interaction and it would
seem that the term geographic tends to emphasize the latter
component. Not such a bad thing maybe in today's world of
reductionist/sequenced logic, but on the other hand perhaps it's just
another unnecessary word. I can think of very few diseases that DONT
have a geographic component. Terms such as tropical, zoonotic etc
attempt to define (some more clearly than others) a subspeciality
within that. Also I am all for simplicity.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Robin McFarlane,
Principal Research Officer,
Animal and Veterinary Science Group,
Lincoln University,
NEW ZEALAND.
Phone: 64-03-3252811 (ext 8176), Fax: 64-03-3253851
e mail:mcfarlan at lincoln.ac.nz
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