Preventive Medicine, Physical

the prevention of disease by natural and artificial physical means. In a broad sense, it includes methods that protect persons from harmful environmental factors and that create optimum conditions for living, working, and rest. These methods include conditioning and purifying air and staying in prophylactic centers, houses of rest, and sanatoriums.

Other methods of physical preventive medicine include hardening the body by exposure to sunlight, ultraviolet rays, and infrared rays in solaria at industrial plants and schools, as well as by means of swimming, physical culture, and massage. Methods of physical preventive medicine are also used to prevent postoperative complications and the recurrence of disease; they include ultrasonic radiation, inhalation therapy, aeroionotherapy, drug electrophoresis, and hydrotherapy.