Dictionary

scotoma en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /skoʊˈtoʊ.mə/
• (Southern-England) audio
• /skəˈtoʊ.mə/

Etymology

From Late Latin scotoma, from Ancient Greek σκότωμα (skótōma), from σκότος (skótos, “darkness”). By surface analysis, scot- + -oma. The figurative sense is an extension from the literal sense, as if the mind, like an eye, cannot "see" certain things.

Meanings

1. An area of impaired or lost vision within a visual field otherwise in a good (or at least healthy) state.
   • Malcolm’s vision was now almost totally occupied by the shimmering dazzle of the scotoma. 2019, Philip Pullman, The Secret Commonwealth, David Fickling Books (2020), page 373:
2. (figuratively) A weakness of the mind's perception, cognition, or world view, causing it to ignore some aspects of reality.
   • The intellectual foundations for the scientific revolution in medicine were laid down in the second half of the nineteenth century, but therapeutic applications did not reach the bedside until the mid-1940s (L. Eisenberg 1988). The profession I entered cloaked itself in the apparel of science, but its practices differed little from those of the empirics a half century earlier; basic science had taught doctors a great deal about the pathogenesis of disease, but little about its treatment. Indeed, the dazzling discoveries of the specific bacterial and viral causes of infectious diseases blinded physicians to the importance of host factors in determining disease outcome, an intellectual scotoma that continues to impair the scientific vision of today's physicians and researchers (L. Eisenberg 1988). Only 5 to 15 percent of individuals who contract a primary TB [tuberculosis] infection manifest clinical symptoms. Infection with the TB bacillus is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for illness (Glassroth, Robins, and Snider 1980). It was my good fortune to begin my medical education just as science reached the clinic. The gains in the therapeutic capabilities of medicine during my lifetime have been simply extraordinary. Let me cite a few examples. 1996, Leon Eisenberg, “Medicine and the Idea of Progress”, in Leo Marx and Bruce Mazlish, editors, Progress: Fact or Illusion?, University of Michigan Press, →ISBN, page 50:
   • intellectual scotoma

Forms

Deriveds

scotomaphobia · scotometer · scotomization · scotometry · scotomatous · scintillating scotoma · microscotoma

Relateds

scotomize · scotomy

Synonyms

blind spot · blind spot

Translations (7)

it scotoma (area of impaired or lost vision) · id bintik buta (area of impaired or lost vision) · fr scotome (area of impaired or lost vision) · fi skotooma (area of impaired or lost vision) · pt escotoma (area of impaired or lost vision) · id skotoma (area of impaired or lost vision) · ca escotoma (area of impaired or lost vision)