Document Detail


About signs and symptoms: can semiotics expand the view of clinical medicine?
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  9001129     Owner:  NLM     Status:  MEDLINE    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
Semiotics, the theory of sign and meaning, may help physicians complement the project of interpreting signs and symptoms into diagnoses. A sign stands for something. We communicate indirectly through signs, and make sense of our world by interpreting signs into meaning. Thus, through association and inference, we transform flowers into love, Othello into jealousy, and chest pain into heart attack. Medical semiotics is part of general semiotics, which means the study of life of signs within society. With special reference to a case story, elements from general semiotics, together with two theoreticians of equal importance, the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and the American logician Charles Sanders Peirce, are presented. Two different modes of understanding clinical medicine are contrasted to illustrate the external link between what we believe or suggest, on the one hand, and the external reality on the other hand.
Authors:
J Nessa
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Publication Detail:
Type:  Journal Article; Review    
Journal Detail:
Title:  Theoretical medicine     Volume:  17     ISSN:  0167-9902     ISO Abbreviation:  Theor Med     Publication Date:  1996 Dec 
Date Detail:
Created Date:  1997-02-20     Completed Date:  1997-02-20     Revised Date:  2005-11-16    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  8405140     Medline TA:  Theor Med     Country:  NETHERLANDS    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  363-77     Citation Subset:  E; IM    
Affiliation:
Department of Public Health & Primary Health Care, University of Bergen, Norway.
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MeSH Terms
Descriptor/Qualifier:
Diagnosis*
Humans
Linguistics*
Logic
Medical History Taking*
Nonverbal Communication
Philosophy, Medical*
Symbolism*

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine


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