# Data structure a’la Robert Burton

My thesis, as a computer science writing, needs some diagrams. I tried entity-relationship and some others, but I didn’t like them too much. Browsing a book in the bookstore, I came across a very nice example of LaTeX math typesetting. I developed the idea and came up with this:

My girlfriend noticed that it resembles diagrams from Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy. So I put a reference in the bibliography.

## Author: automatthias

You won't believe what a skeptic I am.

## 4 thoughts on “Data structure a’la Robert Burton”

1. Could you also post the source code of this diagramm? It’s interesting, how did you make it.

2. It’ll lose the indentation (in the comment) but at least lines will remain lines. Here you go:

begin{equation}
begin{array}{ll}
mathrm{patient}_1 &
left{
begin{array}{l}
left{
begin{array}{l}
mathrm{diagnosis}_1 \
mathrm{diagnosis}_2 \
vdots \
mathrm{diagnosis}_{d_1} \
end{array}
right.
\
left{
begin{array}{l}
mathrm{operation}_1
left{
begin{array}{l}
mathrm{procedure}_1 \
mathrm{procedure}_2 \
vdots \
mathrm{procedure}_{r_1} \
end{array}
right.
\
mathrm{operation}_2
left{
begin{array}{l}
mathrm{procedure}_1 \
mathrm{procedure}_2 \
vdots \
mathrm{procedure}_{r_2} \
end{array}
right.
\
vdots \
mathrm{operation}_{o_1}
left{
begin{array}{l}
mathrm{procedure}_1 \
mathrm{procedure}_2 \
vdots \
mathrm{procedure}_{r_{o_1}} \
end{array}
right.
\
end{array}
right.
end{array}
right.
\
mathrm{patient}_{2} & left{ vdots right. \
vdots & vdots \
mathrm{patient}_{p} &
left{
begin{array}{l}
left{
begin{array}{l}
vdots \
textrm{diagnosis}_{d_p} \
end{array}
right.
\
left{
begin{array}{l}
vdots \
textrm{operation}_{o_p}
left{
begin{array}{l}
vdots \
textrm{procedure}_{r_p} \
end{array}
right.
\
end{array}
right.
\
end{array}
right. \
end{array}
end{equation}

3. Thanks, it works. Even if no special package, such as amsmath, is loaded.