Saturday, July 20, 2019

Is nosology the medical study of noses?











No, although it sounds like it might be. Instead it is defined as a branch of medical science that deals with classification of diseases. (The Greek word for disease is nosos). Poet Matthew Arnold (1822 – 1888) once lamented:

“Not bring, to see me cease to live,

Some doctor, full of phrase and fame,

To shake his sapient head and give

The ill he cannot cure a name.”

Painted images of noses for Napoleon and George Washington came from Wikimedia Commons.

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