Re: MeSH

[George Georgalis <georgw@galis.org>]

On Sun, Jul 20, 2003 at 03:53:10PM -0500, Elizabeth Barham wrote:
>I just found this when looking for drugs. This is pretty nice data.
>Does anyone know where it comes from?
>
>Medical Subject Headings
>http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/2002/
>
>Elizabeth


Hi -

PubMed became a really good tool when I got out of the Med Discovery
biz, but looks like you are looking at an old version. You want the
MeSH Database linked on the left side of the main PubMed page
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi

PubMed is an interface sponsored by the NIH for the Medline database,
which is the reference standard for medical information. :) There are
some other databases there for related sciences.

I'm not sure about the general history but most MeSH headings cite the
source used when they where added to the database (display the full MeSH
entry). For example the definition for Myopia is from Dorland, 27th ed.

MeSH stands for "Machine Subject Headings" -- its a standard to
categorize medical research. On PubMed, you can expand to any level of
the subject tree and select terms to add to a literature search, with
the exact level specificity you need.

      All MeSH Categories
            Diseases Category
                  Eye Diseases
                        Refractive Errors
                             Myopia

It's the best way to find the correct search terms for a medical search.

Enjoy,
// George


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