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Safety and Wellness

What Medicines Are and What They Do


You're sitting in the doctor's office, feeling crummy and hardly able to swallow. You watch and listen as the doctor grabs her prescription pad and says to your parent, "The test came back, and he's got strep throat. I've seen a lot of kids with it this week. Give him this medicine, make sure he finishes all of it, and he should be well enough to go back to school soon." So you go home and start taking your medicine. Sure enough, you quickly get better.

But what was in the medicine? How did it work to make you better? And how did the doctor know to give you that medicine instead of one of thousands of others?

Medicines aren't really a mystery — keep reading and you'll learn more.

A Rainbow of Medicine


Most medicines today are made in laboratories and many are based on substances found in nature. After a medicine is created, it is tested over and over in many different ways. This allows scientists to make sure the medicine is safe for people to take and that it can fight or prevent a specific illness.


Medicines Can Replace What's Missing

Sometimes a part of the body can't make enough of a certain substance, and this can make a person sick. When someone has type 1 diabetes (say: dye-uh-be-tees), the pancreas (a body organ that is part of the digestive system) can't make enough of an important chemical called insulin, which the body needs to stay healthy.

If your body makes too much of a certain chemical, that can make you sick, too. Luckily, medicines can replace what's missing (like insulin) or they can block production of a chemical when the body is making too much of it.

Most of the time when kids get sick, the illness comes from germs that get into the body. The body's immune system works to fight off these invaders, but the germs and the body's natural way of germ fighting, like getting a fever, can make a person feel ill. In many cases, the right kind of medicine can help kill the germs and help the person feel better.

Medicines Help in Many Ways




Pain Relievers and Symptom Soothers





Many Ways to Take Medicine

What does medicine mean to you? Do you picture a pill or a spoonful of purple liquid? Those are two ways medicine can be given, but there are others. Medicines are given in different ways, depending on how they work best in the body.




Still others work best when they are put directly on the spot that needs the medicine — like patting ointment on an infected cut or dropping eardrops into a clogged-up ear.

Mind Your Medicines



Reviewed by: Mary L. Gavin, MD
Date reviewed: September 2010




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