OLD-SCHOOL DOCTORS PAID ATTENTION TO THESE CUES. MODERN ONES NOT SO MUCH: Sniffing out the link between odor and disease. So we’ll have machines to do it.

My old doctor, now retired, complained that most people now take a pulse with a pulse oximeter, which just gives you a number for beats per minute. Taking a pulse manually gave you a lot more than a number: Was it bounding, thready, steady or irregular, etc. Useful information was lost in exchange for the convenience of sticking a small gadget on someone’s finger.