Question

What is the difference between vaccines and medicine?

Answer 1

Health has been the biggest concern and its maintenance needs great advancement in the field of medicine. Vaccine and medicine are taken when a person is ill or has encountered any kind of bacterial or viral infection. They help us to fight against them.

Complete answer:
Let us first infer about the vaccine and the medicine.
The vaccine is a biological preparation that is generally taken in any particular infectious disease so as to provide us with active acquired immunity. It contains an agent that resembles the disease-causing microorganism and is considered to be prepared from the killed or weakened form of the microbe or its toxin or from its surface proteins. The vaccine helps in the stimulation of the body's immune system so as to recognize the agent as a threat, later destroy it and further recognize the agent and then destroy any microorganism that is associated with it if the body encounters the agent in the future. The terms vaccine and vaccination were derived from the Variolae vaccine that is generally denoted cowpox by Edward Jenner.

Medicine is considered as the science and the practice of caring for the patient, diagnosing the problem, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury and promoting health care. It generally encompasses a variety of health care facilitated so as to maintain and restore health by prevention and treatment of illness. It is considered a prehistoric art that has a connection to the religious and philosophic beliefs of local culture. Medicine deals to promote and maintain the health and wellbeing of the person. Conventional modern medicine or allopathic medicine involves the use of drugs or surgery which is often supported by counselling and lifestyle measures. Alternative and complementary types of medicine include different fields of medicine such as homoeopathy, herbal medicine, art therapy, traditional Chinese medicine and many more.

The following table shows the difference between vaccines and medicine.

Vaccine	Medicine
A vaccine is a chemical substance that is injected into the body of the person for prevention against some kind of bacteria and viruses.	A medicine is a chemical substance that is given in some kind of illness or disease.
It is taken before the encounter with the harmful bacteria or virus.	It is taken only if the person is infected or ill.
Some vaccines are painful.	They are not painful but taste bad.
They are taken in by injection or by nasal spray.	They are usually taken in by mouth intake.
They are in liquid form.	They may be in the liquid or solid state.

Note: Vaccine and medicine play a key role in fighting against any kind of infection that one encounters. Many diseases which were once common such as polio, tetanus etc have now become rare and are well controlled because of the invention of vaccines. When we talk about medicines, they are given only if one encounters any seasonal infections like cold, cough etc.