Cover -- Table of Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Prologue -- Chapter 1: A Word about "Words" -- 1.1 The Word and Science -- 1.2 The Language Base -- 1.3 Naming and Knowledge: The Act of Creation -- Chapter 2: The Living Being -- 2.1 The Culture of Being -- 2.2 From Being to Becoming: The Birth of Physis -- 2.3 The Greek Linguistic Mythos -- 2.4 The Greek Linguistic Tree -- 2.5 Physis: Emergence in Early Greek Poetry -- 2.6 Physis: Emergence in Natural Philosophy -- Chapter 3: Physiology: The Mythos and Logos of Life in Antiquity -- 3.1 Physis and Life in Ancient Greece: From Mythos to Logos -- 3.2 Physis and the Origin of the Greek Medical Tradition -- 3.3 Physiologia: An Informatics Base in Early Biomedical Thought -- 3.4 Galen and Physiologia… and Physiology -- Chapter 4: Physiologia in Early Medieval Times -- 4.1 The Peculiar Case of the Physiologus -- 4.2 The Written Word in Late Antiquity -- 4.3 Physiologia Recast in the Medical Semiotics of Late Antiquity -- Chapter 5: Physica-cum-Medicina in the Middle Ages -- 5.1 The "Renaissance" of the Twelfth Century -- 5.2 The Word Spreads -- 5.3 Physis: A Götterdämmerung -- Chapter 6: The Renaissance Natural World: Cradle of a Newfound Physiologia -- 6.1 A "Philological Safari" -- 6.2 Renaissance Language of Nature -- 6.3 The Changing Nature of Medicine -- 6.4 Medical Humanism in the Renaissance -- 6.5 Nature and Medicine -- 6.6 The New Physiologia -- Chapter 7: Physiologia Gives Birth to Physiology -- 7.1 From Physiologia to Physiology -- 7.2 Fernel's Legacy -- Chapter 8: Physiology: The Word Comes to Life -- 8.1 Physiology: A Word Apart -- 8.2 Physiology: What Does It Mean? -- Chapter 9: Physiology Today: Finding the Word in the Data -- Epilogue -- References Cited -- Index.