Also 6 tera-. [In sense 1, ad. mod.L. therapeutica, a. Gr. θεραπευτική (sc. τέχνη) the art of healing, fem. sing. of θεραπευτικός: see THERAPEUTIC a. In Fr. thérapeutique (16th c.). In senses 2 and 3 recent absolute uses of the adj.]
1. That branch of medicine which is concerned with the remedial treatment of disease; the art of healing. a. In the singular. Now rare.
(Quot. 1890 may belong to 2 b.)
1541. R. Copland, Galyen’s Terap., 2 A j. The fourth boke of the Terapeutyke or Methode curatyfe of Claude Galyen.
1547. Boorde, Brev. Health, Pref. 2 b. Galen, prince of phisicions, in his Terapeutike doth reprehende and disproue [it].
1625. Hart, Anat. Ur., I. ii. 19. Who did likewise deuide Physicke … into two parts, to wit, that which we commonly call Therapeuticke … and … that part which we call Diagnosticke.
1890. S. P. Lambros, in Athenæum, 30 Aug., 294/2. The modern therapeutic is far from having used all the sources of the ancients.
b. Now usually in the plural Therapeutics.
1671. Salmon, Syn. Med., III. i. 324*. The Therapeuticks, or active part of Physick, is either Material, or Relative.
1707. Floyer, Physic. Pulse-Watch, p. ii. The Chinese also have made that a part of their Therapeutics.
1843. Mill, Logic, VI. vi. § 1. Students in politics … attempted to study the pathology and therapeutics of the social body, before they had laid the necessary foundation in its physiology.
2. a. A curative agent. b. A medical man.
1842. Abdy, Water Cure (1843), 123. M. Roche acknowledges … that cold water has long been known as a therapeutic.
1858. Hogg, Life Shelley, II. 429. Medical society…. Some of the therapeutics were tolerably good company.
3. pl. = THERAPEUTÆ. rare.
1847. Webster, Therapeutics,… a religious sect described by Philo. They were devotees to religion.
