Excerpt from A Handbook of Therapeutics The indications of disease are divided into symptoms and physical signs. The direct information to be obtained from the pulse, the skin, the tongue, the breathing, the evacuations, etc., are for convenience, termed objective symptoms. The indirect information we gather from the patient's description of his own feelings and sensations, which are detected only by the patient himself; these, likewise for the purpose of convenience, are termed subjective symptoms. Important though physical signs un doubtedly are, yet symptoms, especially objective symptoms, are far more valuable. Physical signs, as a rule, help us to detect only coarse and de cided changes, and are chiefly useful in diagnosis, whilst symptoms are far more useful guides in prognosis and in treatment. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.