the.com/vital signs
the body's four-line status update, checked before anyone asks how you're doing.
means the core measurements — temperature, pulse, breathing rate, blood pressure — that show whether a body is currently succeeding at being alive.
from from latin vita, life; formalized as a clinical checklist in 19th-century medicine once thermometers and stethoscopes made invisible processes countable.
original fourtemperature, pulse, respiration, blood pressure
fifth vital signpain is sometimes added as unofficial fifth
first checknurses measure these before doctors say a word
oldest toolpulse-taking predates the thermometer by centuries