sphygmology en · NOUN
Etymology
From sphygm- + -ology.
Meanings
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(historical, uncountable, usually) The study of the pulse.
Sphygmology only developed in the Alexandrian period, a couple of centuries after Hippocrates.
1880, American Journal of Philology, page 290:Tactile Sphygmology, probably the most ancient among the branches of medical science, is now far behind some of its younger sisters.
1895, W. Wood, Heart Studies, Chiefly Clinical: I. The Pulse-sensations: a Study in Tactile Sphygmology:This emphasis on the skilful feeling of the pulse made sphygmology one area of Renaissance medicine in which the much-vaunted theoretical division between physicians, who did not touch their patients, and surgeons, who routinely got their hands dirty, broke down in practice.
2014, Joe Moshenska, Feeling Pleasures: The Sense of Touch in Renaissance England:This was the case with the diagnostic techniques of uroscopy and sphygmology, and with prognosis, best represented by the Hippocratic Prognosticon.
2015, Peter Dendle, editor, Health and Healing from the Medieval Garden:The procedure of pulse palpation is termed sphygmology, literally meaning 'the study of the pulse'.
2007, Sean Walsh, Pulse Diagnosis: A Clinical Guide:Also, although sphygmology, or pulse lore, is absent from the Āyurvedic classics, it was well developed in Yunānī medicine, and became the symbol of an Āyurvedic physician's skill. The reputation of sphygmology was such that by the nineteenth and twentieth centuries it had become more a technique of divination than a rational diagnostic method.
1976, Charles M. Leslie, editor, Asian Medical Systems: A Comparative Study, page 356: