保护医学——一个正在兴起的交叉学科

Conservation Medicine, a New Multiple and Crisis Discipline

保护医学作为一门新兴的交叉学科已受到广泛瞩目。保护医学涉及人类健康、动物健康和生态系统健康3个层面,它们构成有机的整体,相互影响,相互作用,缺一不可。保护医学研究的最终目标是实现生态的健康,这是保证包括人类在内的生命健康的根本前提。它强调健康与生态、环境之间的联系,体现了多学科的交叉,如人类健康和公共卫生、流行病学、兽医学、毒物学、生态学和保护生物学等,而且其研究方法也体现出多学科交叉的特点。

The birth of conservation medicine is timely. It is an essential response to the emergence of new diseases and the physiological threats to human beings and millions of other species caused by industry, agriculture, and commerce. The term “conservation medicine” was first introduced by Koch (1996) to describe the broad ecological context of health. It studies the multiple two-way interactions between pathogens and disease on the one hand, and between species and the ecosystem on the other. Conservation medicine addresses the two-way exchange of pathogens between human society and self-regulated nature, and it calls for interdisciplinary research that might lead to new solutions.