Universal Medicine

Human Papillomavirus (HPV) is an extremely common sexually transmitted infection. It is mostly linked with causing cervical cancer in women as certain strains of the infection can cause cells in the cervix to grow abnormally which in some cases can lead to cervical cancer. HPV can also cause mouth cancer and genital warts in both men and women; and can cause penile and anal cancers in men.  However, only young women are readily and freely vaccinated through a school based programme implemented in 2008. Young men are not vaccinated freely so they are not protected against HPV related diseases even though they are still at risk. The vaccination of young women does offer ‘herd protection’ to some men as men who have sexual contact with vaccinated women will not be infected with high risk HPV. However, men who have sexual contact with men (MSM) are more at risk as neither party has received the vaccine.   The reason the vaccine is not readily available to young men is...

Within the nervous system is a branch called the ANS (Autonomic Nervous System). This system is responsible for regulating subconscious bodily processes such as organ function, digestion, reflexes and breathing. The ANS is subdivided into sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems which usually respond in different ways.  The sympathetic nervous system activates the 'fight or flight' response, preparing the body for physical and mental activity to respond to perceived threat. This system is found in the sacral region of the spinal cord. Sympathetic neurons accelerate activity such as heart rate by releasing adrenaline into the bloodstream, as well as causing dilation of the pupils in the eyes, muscle contraction, decreased stomach movement and secretions (this is why you may feel a 'knot' in your stomach when feeling nervous because the 'fight or flight'/stress response causes stomach muscles to tighten and causes blood to be redirected away from the...

In 2001 portugal was the first European country to put the drug policy into place. This meant that the use of drugs were decriminalised and instead drug possession was seen as a public health issue, not a criminal issue. If a person is found with a small quantity of a narcotic (10 days’ worth for personal use). The drug is summoned to a panel called Comissões para a Dissuasão da Toxicodependência. The person is then assessed by a social worker, psychiatrist and an attorney. If it is seen as an addiction the person treatment is offered or community service however treatment cannot be imposed but only offered. Civil sanction can also be imposed which can be a fine between €25–€150, loss of professional licence, or even suspension of a professional licence. The manufacturing, importation and sale of drugs is still illegal and the drug policy has shifted drug use from a criminal offence to a health issue. Despite many being skeptical that the decriminalisation of drugs would drastical...

In October in 1895, Wilhelm Rӧntgen was working on an electron tube that shot electrons from one electrode to another, when he noticed a powerful and invisible leakage that penetrated layers of blackened cardboard producing a white glow on a barium screen that had accidentally been left on a bench in the room. Rӧntgen placed his wife, Anna’s, hand between the source of the rays and a photographic plate, and observed a silhouette of her finger bones and her wedding ring on the plate – he had found a form of energy that could pass through tissues selectively. He called this form of light X-rays. In 1896 Henri Becquerel, a French chemist, discovered that certain materials autonomously emitted their own invisible rays with similar properties to Rӧntgen’s X-rays. In Paris friends of Becquerel’s, Pierre and Marie Curie, began a search for even more powerful sources of X-rays, using Pierre’s invention, the electrometer, with which Marie had shown that minute amounts of radiation emitte...