title: [Demarcation of diseases].
abstract: Feinstein's opinion that diseases overlap does not stand up to professional criticism. Different diseases can certainly present very similarly, but they cannot overlap, in the same way as specialties cannot overlap. The specialties are separated from each other according to their different connections with the diseases. Diseases are separated from each other by their relations to the symptoms and clinical signs on the one hand and the results of medical consultation on the other hand. These considerations emphasize the fact that doctors should not make a diagnosis too hastily if a typical symptomatology is present. That, however, has nothing to do with overlapping of diseases, but with the temptation in the presence of a typical clinical picture to jump to a diagnosis without first having scrupulously clarified the possibility that the classical symptomatology was not, in fact, really due to the atypical manifestations of a totally different disease.
authors.affiliation: Arbeitsgemeinschaft zur Erforschung der Allgemeinpraxis, Wien.
authors.forename: R N
authors.initials: RN
authors.lastname: Braun
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Braun
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Alkoutani
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Danninger
mesh_terms: D001064:Appendicitis / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology*; D006801:Humans; D011014:Pneumonia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology*; D012017:Referral and Consultation
vernacular_title: Die Abgrenzung der Krankheiten.