a. [f. as CLINIC + -AL.]
1. Med. Of or pertaining to the sick-bed, spec. to that of indoor hospital patients: used in connection with the practical instruction given to medical students at the sick-beds in hospitals; e.g.
Clinical clerk, one who accompanies a hospital-physician in the wards, and keeps records of the cases; Clinical lecture, a lecture at the bedside of the patient upon his case; Clinical medicine, surgery, medicine or surgery as learnt or taught at the bedside, ‘usually applied to hospital practice in which the physician, in going round the wards, comments upon the cases under his care’ (Syd. Soc. Lex.), hence Clinical physician, surgeon; Clinical thermometer, a thermometer for ascertaining the patient’s temperature.
1780. Ann. Reg., 216. Dr. John Parsons was unanimously elected Clinical Professor to the Radcliffe Infirmary at Oxford.
1809. Med. Jrnl., XXI. 161. The cultivation of clinical medicine, or the actual superintendence of the treatment of diseases.
1835. St. Thomas’ Hospital Rep., 83. I will give you the words of my clinical clerk.
1867. J. Hogg, Microsc., I. ii. 105. Dr. Beale devised an exceedingly simple and convenient form of microscope, for the purposes of clinical instruction and of class demonstration.
1878. Markham, Gt. Frozen Sea, ii. 16. A clinical thermometer was inserted into the mouth.
1889. London Hosp. & Med. Coll. Prospectus, 16. Graduates … admitted to three months’ Clinical Clerkship or Dressership.
2. Eccl. Administered on the sick-bed to one in danger of death.
1844. Eng. Saints, St. German, ii. 17. After the Baptism he received on the bed of sickness, which the ancients called Clinical baptism.
1846. C. Maitland, Church in Catacombs, 120. Unless in danger of death, when a clinical or death-bed reconciliation was permitted.
1855. Cdl. Wiseman, Fabiola, 375. Clinical baptism … was administered by pouring or sprinkling the water on the head.
1876. C. M. Davies, Unorth. Lond., 239. The baptism of Rome and England [is] stigmatized [by the Greek Church] as ‘clinical’ only.
