We have dealt with a certain false and illegitimate conjectation. Now we must speak of the true, serious, and genuine one. Ancient and recent doctors have pursued this medical semiotic in whole treatises, which those who thirst for full bowls can read. To me this one thing seems capable of being stated generally.
Approved signs are those confirmed by natural principles and true experiences; the rest are vain and foreign to the art of physicians. Of approved signs, some testify to sound and intact health; some to health degenerating or already affected; some to a disease that is overpowering and already victorious; some to one that is almost gathering itself and victorious; and finally some are ambiguous, even to the masters themselves. None is so certain that it does not sometimes deceive. Hence that old saying is true: it is better to be condemned and sentenced to death by sixty physicians than by six aldermen.
[margin: Medical semiotic: Hippocrates, Prognostics, with Galen’s commentary; Galen; Aristotle in the Problems; Celsus, On Medicine, book 2; Francisco Pico following them; Conrad Wimpina, On Signs, chapters 8 and 13 through 21; Guinter of Andernach, commentaries on old and new medicine, tome 1, dialogue 7]