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Lewis Stephen | Fellow Visitor
| Research area: Other
A Treatise on Key Biomedical Terms
Following a study of Darwinian Medicine, my research has come to be focused on the biological and philosophical understanding of the concepts of "disease" and "health" – still within an evolutionary context. But whereas Darwinian Medicine tends to take a lead from clinical concerns, I have come to see it as a tool useful for the biological understanding of these notions and more. Although "disease" and "health" are common words used freely by laymen, biologists, and clinicians, considerable difficulty exists with regard to their definition. It has largely gone unnoticed that where attempts have been made to define these words, it has been done against a background that fails to explore the meanings of the words "life" and "death" which form the context within which the phenomena of "disease" and "health" occur. In a real sense, my work has come to focus on two sets of words – one ("disease" and "health") which receives attention; the other ("life" and "death") which receives little or no attention. This work has resulted in the collection of a sizable body of material, which is now in need of a more formalized and coherent arrangement.