Medicine is the science and practice
of establishing the diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, and prevention of disease. Medicine
encompasses a variety of health
care practices
evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness. Contemporary
medicine applies biomedical sciences, biomedical research, genetics, and medical technology to diagnose, treat, and prevent injury and disease, typically through pharmaceuticals or surgery, but also through
therapies as diverse as psychotherapy, external splints and traction, medical
devices, biologics, and ionizing radiation, amongst others.
Medicine has been around for thousands of years, during most
of which it was an art (an area of skill and knowledge) frequently having
connections to the religious and philosophical beliefs of
local culture. For example, a medicine
man would apply
herbs and say prayers for healing,
or an ancient philosopher and physician would apply bloodletting according to
the theories of humorism. In recent
centuries, since the advent of modern science, most medicine has
become a combination of art and science (both basic and applied, under the umbrella of medical science). While stitching
technique for sutures is an art
learned through practice, the knowledge of what happens at the cellular and molecular level in the tissues being stitched arises through
science.
Prescientific forms of medicine are now known as traditional medicine and folk
medicine, though they do
not fall within the modern definition of “medicine” which is based in medical
science. Traditional medicine and folk medicine remain commonly used with, or
instead of, scientific medicine and are thus called alternative medicine (meaning
“[something] other than medicine”, from Latin alter, “other”). For
example, evidence on the effectiveness of acupuncture is
"variable and inconsistent" for any condition,[2] but is
generally safe when done by an appropriately trained practitioner. In
contrast, alternative treatments outside the bounds not just of scientific
medicine, but also outside the bounds of safety and efficacy are termed quackery.
Quackery can encompass an array of practices and
practitioners, irrespective of whether they are prescientific (traditional
medicine and folk medicine) or modern pseudo-scientific, including chiropractic which rejects
modern scientific germ theory of disease (instead
believing without evidence that human diseases are caused by invisible subluxation of the bones,
predominately of the spine and less so of other bones), with just over half of
chiropractors also rejecting the science of immunization.
In the mid-to-late 19th century, interior design services expanded greatly, as the middle class in industrial countries grew in size and prosperity and began to desire the domestic trappings of wealth to cement their new status. Large furniture firms began to branch out into general interior design and management, offering full house furnishings in a variety of styles. This business model flourished from the mid-century to 1914, when this role was increasingly usurped by independent, often amateur, designers. This paved the way for the emergence of the professional interior design in the mid-20th century.
In the 1950s and 1960s, upholsterers began to expand their business remits. They framed their business more broadly and in artistic terms and began to advertise their furnishings to the public. To meet the growing demand for contract interior work on projects such as offices, hotels, and public buildings, these businesses became much larger and more complex, employing builders, joiners, plasterers, textile designers, artists, and furniture designers, as well as engineers and technicians to fulfil the job. Firms began to publish and circulate catalogs with prints for different lavish styles to attract the attention of expanding middle classes.
As department stores increased in number and size, retail spaces within shops were furnished in different styles as examples for customers. One particularly effective advertising tool was to set up model rooms at national and international exhibitions in showrooms for the public to see. Some of the pioneering firms in this regard were Waring & Gillow, James Shoolbred, Mintons, and Holland & Sons. These traditional high-quality furniture making firms began to play an important role as advisers to unsure middle class customers on taste and style, and began taking out contracts to design and furnish the interiors of many important buildings in Britain.
This type of firm emerged in America after the Civil War. The Herter Brothers, founded by two German emigre brothers, began as an upholstery warehouse and became one of the first firms of furniture makers and interior decorators. With their own design office and cabinet-making and upholstery workshops, Herter Brothers were prepared to accomplish every aspect of interior furnishing including decorative paneling and mantels, wall and ceiling decoration, patterned floors, and carpets and draperies.
A pivotal figure in popularizing theories of interior design to the middle class was the architect Owen Jones, one of the most influential design theorists of the nineteenth century. Jones' first project was his most important—in 1851, he was responsible for not only the decoration of Joseph Paxton’s gigantic Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition but also the arrangement of the exhibits within. He chose a controversial palette of red, yellow, and blue for the interior ironwork and, despite initial negative publicity in the newspapers, was eventually unveiled by Queen Victoria to much critical acclaim. His most significant publication was The Grammar of Ornament (1856), in which Jones formulated 37 key principles of interior design and decoration.
Jones was employed by some of the leading interior design firms of the day; in the 1860s, he worked in collaboration with the London firm Jackson & Graham to produce furniture and other fittings for high-profile clients including art collector Alfred Morrison as well as Ismail Pasha, Khedive of Egypt.
In 1882, the London Directory of the Post Office listed 80 interior decorators. Some of the most distinguished companies of the period were Crace, Waring & Gillowm and Holland & Sons; famous decorators employed by these firms included Thomas Edward Collcutt, Edward William Godwin, Charles Barry, Gottfried Semper, and George Edmund Street.
