Status

STATUS (from Latin), literally state; a term used in three types of cases: firstly, to characterize the state of a given subject undergoing a medical examination at a given moment in time (the so-called status praesens), in contrast to the anamnesis—the collection of data regarding the patient's past; secondly, when applied to any pathological phenomenon for the purpose of indicating its persistence; for example, one speaks of status epilepticus in those cases where epileptic seizures are not separated from one another by more or less significant intervals of time, but often follow one after another, thereby creating the impression of an almost continuous seizure state. In the same sense, one sometimes speaks of status convulsivus, again wishing with this term to emphasize the apparent continuity of the convulsive state and the frequent repetition of seizures, in contrast to those cases where the same convulsive seizures arise episodically, only from time to time. The term status febrilis denotes the duration of a febrile state, in contrast to cases of short-term rises in temperature, and the term status typhosus conveys the idea not only of body temperature held at a high level for a number of days with only small remissions, but simultaneously of such symptoms characteristic of typhus as persistent headache and clouded consciousness. But the term under discussion is used even more widely in constitutionology to denote the peculiarities of one constitutional state or another or constitutional anomalies. Thus, one speaks of status asthenicus, status lymphaticus, status thymico-lymphaticus, status degenerativus, status hypoplasticus, status irritabilis, status arthriticus, etc. (see Constitution), and sometimes the term status is used to classify constitutions into groups instead of grouping them by types. Thus, sometimes, when operating with Sigaud's scheme, instead of dividing normal constitutions into types—cerebral, digestive, muscular, and respiratory—they say: status cerebralis, status digestivus, etc., which, however, can hardly be called entirely successful, since the word 'type' includes the concept of a group, which, by the literal meaning of the word, cannot be said about status. But it is quite unsuccessful to call the rather rarely encountered confusion of the concepts of status and habitus, since the latter should be understood as physique, whereas the concept of status is broader, including the anatomical and functional peculiarities of the individual.