A construção das doenças na medicina ocidental contemporânea

Abstract

The theoretical constl'Uction of nosologic categon·es plays a major role in medical rationality. Structured upon scientific models originated from the development of classical physics, medical knowledge is, however, an irregular agregate of disciplines where many of its fundamental notions are implicit, leading to the production of contradictions that cannot be overcome, both intemally and in its relations to clinics. As a consequence of these inconsistencies, the diseases are structured along three axes of construction - explanatory, morphologic and semiologic - each of them characterized by a speci.fic methodology, discipline and conception of disease. The valuation of these axes from either a theoretical or practical point of view is diametrically opposed to the other, once more making evident the distance between thesefields in medicine.