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Principles and Scope of Environmental Medicine

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Principles and Practice of Environmental Medicine

Abstract

Human health is determined by the interplay between heredity and the environment. The dimensions of the environment are vast, encompassing all external factors that impinge on humans. Air, water, food, and soil contain chemical, physical, and biological agents some of which are known to be harmful to health. In the past, the major cause of death was bacterial infection. With improved sanitation, biological factors (i.e., infections) pose a much smaller health threat in developed countries. With the microbial threat to health reduced, both medical scientists and clinicians have focused on changes within the body as a major source of disease. Investigators have made fundamental advances in the fields of biochemistry, physiology, pharmacology, and surgery, and clinicians have aimed at understanding the patient’s symptoms and signs in terms of biochemical and physiological changes occurring within the body.

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Authors
  1. Alyce Bezman Tarcher
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA

    Alyce Bezman Tarcher M.D.

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© 1992 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Tarcher, A.B. (1992). Principles and Scope of Environmental Medicine. In: Tarcher, A.B. (eds) Principles and Practice of Environmental Medicine. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2447-6_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2447-6_1

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4899-2449-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-2447-6

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