Infectious diseases

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Infectious Disease Medicine

The principles and practice of Infectious Disease Medicine are a late-coming sub-specialty of Internal Medicine and Paediatrics. Traditionally, medical and surgical sub-specialties have been defined by anatomy and pathology in the classification of disease. Infectious Diseases were the clinical subset of Medical Microbiology, a branch or division of Laboratory Medicine, like Haematology, Anatomic Pathology or Biochemistry. In the last century, medical education and practice has been changed by the gradual and overwhelming increase in knowledge of aetiology and pathogenesis - leading to another classification or taxonomy rather than an anatomic, organ-based system, such as cardiology, respirology, gastroenterology, hepatology, rheumatology, neurology and so on, in favour of oncology, or infectious diseases. In the British system, Clinical Microbiology was the laboratory-based practice of microbiology, while in the United States, Infectious Diseases is a bed-side clinical practice and a Division of a Department of General or Internal Medicine.