MEDICINE - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

MEDICINEAuthored

The Law Mind • 1133 words

Definition

Medicine, as a legal term, operates primarily in two registers: (1) the regulated profession and practice of diagnosing and treating human disease, and (2) the substances or remedies administered in the course of treatment. Courts and legislatures have historically drawn the sharpest lines around the first meaning, because the practice of medicine is a licensed activity subject to criminal and civil penalty for unauthorized exercise.

Practice of medicine. The professional activity of examining patients, diagnosing conditions, and applying therapeutic measures — including prescription drugs and other remedies — for the purpose of curing, mitigating, or alleviating bodily disease. Statutes governing licensure typically define the practice of medicine broadly: announcing readiness to treat the sick, opening an office for that purpose, or otherwise holding oneself out to the public as a medical practitioner may constitute "practicing medicine" within the meaning of licensing laws regardless of formal credentials claimed.

Medicine distinguished from surgery. Historically, and in many licensing frameworks, medicine and surgery were treated as distinct but related practices. Medicine encompassed the application and use of drugs and remedies; surgery was limited to manual operations performed with instruments. This distinction shaped separate licensing regimes and, in litigation, the scope of expert testimony.

Medical substances. In a narrower sense, "medicine" refers to any substance administered to treat, cure, or alleviate disease. This meaning is most relevant in products liability, insurance coverage disputes, pharmacy regulation, and evidence questions about what was prescribed or administered.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A substance that promotes healing when ingested or consumed; also, the study, profession, and practice of diagnosing and treating disease or illness.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The science relating to the prevention, cure, or alleviation of disease; any substance administered in treatment; a remedial agent.

The gap between common and legal usage is not one of meaning but of consequence. In ordinary speech, "medicine" moves easily between the substance (a pill) and the profession (studying medicine). In law, the distinction carries significant weight: statutes, licensing boards, insurance policies, and malpractice frameworks each attach precise legal meanings to whether someone is "practicing medicine," dispensing a "medicine," or providing "medical services." A researcher conflating these senses in a statutory context risks misreading the scope of a regulatory provision or the coverage of an insurance clause.

Recognized Forms

/SUBTYPES

Allopathic medicine. The ordinary method of treatment commonly taught in mainstream medical institutions and adopted by the majority of licensed physicians — the standard of care against which deviation is typically measured in malpractice actions. Bouvier's identifies this usage explicitly in the context of licensing statutes.

Practice of medicine. The regulated activity subject to licensure. Defined broadly in most jurisdictions: holding oneself out to the public as ready to treat the sick is sufficient to trigger statutory requirements, whether or not treatment actually occurs.

Medical attendance / medical services. Terms of art arising most often in insurance and contract disputes. Bouvier's notes that their primary meaning is the rendering of professional medical advice or treatment, which may be narrower than the lay sense of "any care received."

Why It Matters in Research

Statutory interpretation. The definition of "medicine" or "practice of medicine" varies across licensing statutes, insurance codes, and criminal provisions within a single jurisdiction. A researcher cannot assume that a definition from a medical practice act controls interpretation in an insurance coverage case, or that a nineteenth-century judicial definition maps onto a modern regulatory framework.

Historical sources and their limits. The classic legal definition — medicine as drug application, surgery as manual operation — was articulated in Smith v. Lane and repeated through Bouvier's and both editions of Black's. That definition was workable in an era before radiology, anesthesiology, psychiatry, and interventional cardiology blurred the line between the two disciplines. Researchers working with pre-twentieth-century materials should treat this distinction carefully: it informed licensing prosecutions and expert testimony rules but does not translate cleanly into modern specialty categories.

Anderson's and the mismatch problem. The Anderson's entry retrieved under "medicine" actually addresses "means" — a clerical or indexing artifact in the corpus. Researchers using the Anderson's entries should verify context; the apparent entry may not correspond to the term being researched.

Bouvier's expert testimony note. The Bouvier's fragment referencing Rogers, 7 Metc. 505, and Chief Justice Shaw's formulation for expert witness questions about insanity appears in the medicine cluster of the corpus. This reflects the historical bundling of medical testimony questions under the "medicine" heading. Researchers working on expert witness competency or insanity defenses in nineteenth-century sources should look to this cluster, not just the evidence headings.

Licensing and scope of practice disputes. Modern research into scope-of-practice conflicts — nurse practitioners, physician assistants, naturopaths, telemedicine providers — will find the historical definitions inadequate but useful as baseline. Courts interpreting modern statutes sometimes invoke the traditional medicine/surgery distinction as a starting point before departing from it.

Historical Dictionary Support

All four historical sources converge on the core distinction between medicine (drug-based treatment) and surgery (manual operations), tracing to Smith v. Lane, 24 Hun (N.Y.) 633. Black's first and second editions reproduce nearly identical language, suggesting this formulation had hardened into a standard legal definition by the late nineteenth century.

Bouvier's extends the definition usefully in two directions: it addresses what conduct triggers licensing statutes (public announcement of readiness to treat), and it separately defines allopathic practice as the mainstream method — a definition that arose in regulatory contexts where competing schools of medicine (homeopathic, eclectic) sought licensure recognition. This jurisdictional contest among medical schools is largely invisible in Black's but is important context for reading licensing decisions from the 1880s through the early 1900s.

What the historical dictionaries miss: they do not address the diagnostic function of medicine at all — the idea that examination and diagnosis, even without treatment, may constitute practicing medicine. Modern licensing statutes and courts have generally held that diagnosis alone falls within the practice; this development is post-Bouvier's.

Jurisdictional Note

Licensing definitions vary materially by state. Some jurisdictions define the practice of medicine to include diagnosis alone; others require a treatment element. Telemedicine has prompted statutory revision in many states, sometimes displacing older judicial definitions. Researchers working on modern scope-of-practice questions should consult current state licensing statutes directly rather than relying on the historical definitions carried in the corpus dictionaries.

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

Genetic Testing and Genomic Medicine — GINA, Genetic Privacy, and Direct-to-Consumer Testing (Law Mind Health Law & Bioethics Encyclopedia) [health_56]

MEDICINEmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

"The practice of medicine is a pursuit very generally known and under- stood, and so also is that of surgery. The former includes the application and use of medicines and drugs for the purpose of cur- ing, mitigating, or alleviating bodily diseases, while the functions of the latter are limited to manual operations usually performed by surgical instruments or appliances." Hun, 633.

MEDICINEmain

Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910

“The practice of medicine is a pursuit very generally known and understood, and so also is that of surgery. The former includes the application and use of medicines and drugs for the purpose of curing, mitigating, or alleviating bodily diseases, while the furfctions of the latter are limited to manual operations usually performed by surgical instruments or appliances.” Smith v. Lane, 24 Hun (N. Y.) 633. —Forensic medicine. Another name for medical jurisprudence. See JURISPRUDENCE. chools of medicine. See OSTEOPATHY; PSYCHOTHERAPY,

MEDICINEmain

Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890

Means necessary to an end. Any means calculated to produce the end.1 See NECESSARY. Means of satisfaction in hand. Referring to a creditor, property or money of the debtor in the creditor's possession, which he may lawfully appropriate to the debt.? See AVAILABLE. Means of support. May embrace all the resources from which the necessaries and comforts of life are or may be supplied, such as lands, goods, salaries, wages, or other sources of income.3 The practice of medicine includes the application of medicines and drugs for the purpose of curing, mitigating or alleviating bodily diseases; while the practice of “ surgery" is limited to manual operations usually performed by surgical instruments or appliances.9 • M'Culloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 414 (1819); 35 N. J. L546. 2 Perrine v. Fireman's Ins. Co., 22 Ala. 576 (1853); Knighton v. Cuery, 62 id. 408 (1878). • Schneider v. Hosier, 21 Ohio St. 112 (1871), McIlvaine, J.; Meidel v. Anthis, 71 111. 246 (1874), Breese, C. J. And see Sharpley v. Brown, 43 Hun, 375 (1887). See Sedgwick, Damages, 29. • Berks County v. Bertolet, 13 Pa. 525 (1850), Rogers, Judge. Story v. Walker, 11 Lea, 517 (1883), Cooper, J. Whitcomb v. Reid, 31 Miss. 569 (1856). 8 Maxon v. Perrott, 17 Mich. 337 (1868), Cooley, C. J. Smith v. Lane, 24 Hun, 633-35 (1881). One who undertakes to cure disease by mere manipulation is not engaged in practicing either medicine or surgery.1 "Allopathic practice" of medicine means the ordinary method commonly adopted by the great body of learned physicians, taught in their institutions, established by their highest authorities, and accepted by the larger portion of the community. By "eclectic practice" is intended a different system, unusual and eccentric, not countenanced by the class referred to, but characterized by them as spurious and denounced as dangerous.2 SEE DRUGGIST; DRUGS; LIQUOR; PHYSICIAN. Medicine-chest. All vessels over a given size are required, by acts of Congress, to keep a medicinechest. 3 Medical. Pertaining to medicine, or the study or practice of medicine. Medical adviser. See COMMUNICATION, Privileged, 1. Medical attendance. Is not restricted to professional medical services rendered; will include nursing, as, within a statute for the relief of paupers. 4 A medical attendant is one to whom the care of a sick person has been intrusted.5 Medical college. Is not a "benevolent, charitable, scientific, or missionary society." 6 The courts cannot be too scrupulous in examining the asserted rights of colleges to graduate matriculants with the degree of doctor of medicine.7 The power of the legislature to prescribe reasonable conditions calculated to exclude from the profession persons unfitted to discharge its duties cannot be questioned. Statutes for the accomplishment of this purpose, which have been common, generally require that the practitioner shall be a graduate of an institution for medical instruction, or shall have a certificate of qualification from some recognized body of men learned in the science, and shall be of good moral character. See EMERGENCY. Medical evidence. Testimony furnished by physicians or surgeons, or standard treatises prepared by them. See EXPERT; SCIENCE. Medical examination. See INSPECTION, 2, Of person. Medical jurisprudence. Treats of matters 1 Smith v. Lane, ante. Bradbury v. Bardin, 34 Conn. 453 (1867), McCurdy, J.; Same v. Same, 35 id. 581 (1869). Bardin had falsely represented that his practice, made the subject of a sale, was regular allopathic. $1 Story, Laws, 106; 2 id. 971; R. S. §§ 4569-70. Scott v. Winneshiek County, 52 Iowa, 580 (1879). * Edington v. Mutual Life Ins. Co., 5 Hun, 6 (1875). • People v. Cothran, 27 Hun, 345 (1882). People v. Gunn, 30 Hun, 325 (1883). • State v. State Medical Examining Board, 32 Minn. 327 (1884), cases. MEDIETAS LINGUÆ

MEDICINEn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

The science which relates to the prevention, cure, or alleviation of disease. Any substance administered in the treatment of disease; a remedial agent; a remedy; physic. By medicine, life may be prolonged. Shak. A philter or love potion. [Obs.] Shak. A physician. [Obs.] Shak. Medicine bag, a charm; -- so called among the North American Indians, or in works relating to them.  -- Medicine man (among the North American Indians), a person who professes to cure sickness, drive away evil spirits, and regulate the weather by the arts of magic.  -- Medicine seal, a small gem or paste engraved with reversed characters, to serve as a seal. Such seals were used by Roman physicians to stamp the names of their medicines.

MEDICINEv.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

To give medicine to; to affect as a medicine does; to remedy; to cure. "Medicine thee to that sweet sleep." Shak.

medicinenoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

A substance which specifically promotes healing when ingested or consumed in some way; a pharmaceutical drug. | Any treatment or cure. | The study of the cause, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of disease or illness. | The profession and practice of physicians, including surgeons. | The profession and practice of physicians, including surgeons. | Scientific medicine. | The profession and practice of physicians, including surgeons. | The profession and practice of nonsurgical physicians as sometimes distinguished from that of surgeons. | Ritual magic used, as by a medicine man, to promote a desired outcome in healing, hunting, or warfare; traditional medicine. | Among the Native Americans, any object supposed to give control over natural or magical forces, to act as a protective charm, or to cause healing. | Black magic, superstition. | A philter or love potion. | A physician. | Recreational drugs, especially alcoholic drinks.

medicineverb

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

To treat with medicine.

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