Medicinae

Medicinae is the Latin term associated with medicine and, more broadly, with the medical arts and science. In Latin texts, medicinae denotes the discipline of healing and its practice, and the genitive form medicinae often appears in titles and phrases such as "De medicinae" or "Doctor medicinae" (MD).

Historically, Latin medicine developed from Greek and Egyptian traditions. In the Roman era, physicians combined pharmacology, surgery, and clinical observation; Latin authors preserved and transmitted much of antiquity's medical knowledge. The most influential early Latin work is De Medicina by Aulus Cornelius Celsus; later, Galen's writings, originally Greek, were translated into Latin and remained authoritative in medieval Europe.

During the medieval period, medicina became a formal faculty in universities. Centers such as Salerno, Bologna, Montpellier, and Padua taught medical theory in Latin, integrating humoral theory with anatomy, materia medica, and surgery. The curriculum combined scholastic logic with clinical practice, and medical texts circulated widely in manuscript form and later in print. In this period, barber-surgeons and physicians played different roles in care, with medicine focusing on theory and pharmacology and surgery on operative procedures.

Today, Medicinae survives chiefly as a historical term. In modern usage, the Latin phrase Doctor medicinae (MD) appears in some jurisdictions as a degree title. More broadly, Medicinae functions as a reference point for the study of medicine's history, institutions, and texts, illustrating how Greek, Roman, and medieval traditions shaped contemporary medical science.