When a part of the body isn’t working right, the body often tries to tell us by giving us symptoms. These are clues that something is wrong and we should go see a doctor.
Signs are objective, meaning they can be noticed by other people, like a skin rash that indicates eczema or the raspy sound of someone’s bronchitis cough. Symptoms, on the other hand, are things that only the person experiencing them can recognize. These include a headache, tummy ache, or tiredness.
Some diseases don’t produce any signs or symptoms at all. But when they do, the signs give healthcare professionals important clues about what disease is present and how severe it is. For example, high blood pressure or fever are signs that a person may have high blood pressure or pneumonia.
For example, when a child has the common cold, the nose and throat begin to hurt. Then, within a few days, the nose teems with watery nasal secretions that become thicker and darker. This is a sign that the virus has spread and it’s time to wash hands (with soap for at least 20 seconds) or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
Sometimes the signs of a disease are long-lasting or come back, like in diabetes or cancer. And other times, the signs disappear and the disease goes away for years, such as with some types of depression or high blood pressure. The discovery of cells and microbes by Antony van Leeuwenhoek in 1674 opened the door to identifying signs of disease that are invisible to the human eye.
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