MeSH is the National Library of Medicine's controlled vocabulary
thesaurus. It consists of sets of terms naming descriptors in a
hierarchical structure that permits searching at various levels of
specificity. MeSH descriptors are arranged in both an alphabetic and a
hierarchical structure. At the most general level of the hierarchical
structure are very broad headings such as "Anatomy" or "Mental
Disorders." More specific headings are found at mo...
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MeSH is the National Library of Medicine's controlled vocabulary
thesaurus. It consists of sets of terms naming descriptors in a
hierarchical structure that permits searching at various levels of
specificity.
MeSH descriptors are arranged in both an alphabetic and a
hierarchical structure. At the most general level of the hierarchical
structure are very broad headings such as "Anatomy" or "Mental
Disorders." More specific headings are found at more narrow levels of
the eleven-level hierarchy, such as "Ankle" and "Conduct Disorder."
There are 24,767 descriptors in 2008 MeSH. In addition to these
headings, there are more than 172,000 headings called Supplementary
Concept Records (formerly Supplementary Chemical Records) within a
separate thesaurus. There are also over 97,000 entry terms that assist
in finding the most appropriate MeSH Heading, for example, "Vitamin C"
is an entry term to "Ascorbic Acid."
