Signs and Semiotics
The art of interpreting clinical signs was originally called semiotics (a term now used for the study of sign communication in general) in English. This term, then written semeiotics (derived from the Greek adjective σημειοτικός: semeiotikos, "to do with signs"), was first used in English in 1670 by Henry Stubbes (1631–1676), to denote the branch of medical science relating to the interpretation of signs:
- …nor is there any thing to be relied upon in Physick, but an exact knowledge of medicinal phisiology (founded on observation, not principles), semeiotics, method of curing, and tried (not excogitated, not commanding) medicines…
Read more about this topic: Medical Signs
Famous quotes containing the words signs and and/or signs:
“But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and I will multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Exodus 7:3.
“Among all the modernized aspects of the most luxurious of industries, the model, a vestige of voluptuous barbarianism, is like some plunder-laden prey. She is the object of unbridled regard, a living bait, the passive realization of an ideal.... No other female occupation contains such potent impulses to moral disintegration as this one, applying as it does the outward signs of riches to a poor and beautiful girl.”
—Colette [Sidonie Gabrielle Colette] (1873–1954)