[Subjectivity and objectivity, semiotics and diagnosis. An approach to the medieval concept of illness]

Relying on their patients' complaints, medieval physicians did not discriminate theoretically between sickness and health. As for the types of illness, there were two different concepts of disease: The semiotic tracts (sphygmology, uroscopy, hematoscopy) describe signs of dyscrasia and locus affectus, while the medical handbooks combine symptoms like fever, pain, nausea, constipation etc. with the signs of pulse, urine and blood. The term "diagnosis" should be used only for this latter type of disease. Because of the ancient model of humoral pathology and because of the deductive construction of symptomatology, "medieval" illnesses cannot be compared with "ours".