Medical literature

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

Important medical works in the medieval Islamic era include texts from Persia (The Canon of Medicine of Ibn Sina), Spain (Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi's Kitab al-Tasrif), Iraq (De Gradibus), and Syria (Ibn al-Nafis' Comprehensive Book on Medicine), while important medical texts from early medieval Europe include those from England (Compendium Medicinæ) and Byzantine Greece (Medical Compendium in Seven Books).

Following Vesalius, William Harvey, Ignaz Semmelweis, Louis Pasteur, and others, the medical community have changed the way it conducts research.

After incorporating the scientific method, medical literature has introduced peer review, and is currently divided into journals and textbooks.

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.

Certain online services including Medscape and MDLinx offer aggregated digests of new articles from prominent medical journals.

Plates vi & vii of the Edwin Smith Papyrus at the Rare Book Room, New York Academy of Medicine
Statuette of Imhotep in the Louvre