Medicine Medicine is the practice of preventing, treating, or curing disease as well as maintaining one's health. The Alma-Ata Health Declaration was developed by the World Health Organization during its 1978 international conference in the Soviet Union. Its purpose was to provide governments with a foundation on which to plan health care for people of all social classes. The declaration reaffirmed that health-a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being-is a fundamental human right and that the attainment of the highest possible level of health is a most important global social goal whose realization necessitates the actions of numerous other social and economic sectors in addition to the health sector. Health is not just the absence of disease or infirmity.