Noah Webster
Clinic
CLINIC,
CLINICAL, adjective In a general sense, pertaining to a bed. A clinical lecture is a discourse delivered at the bed-side of the sick, or from notes taken at the bed-side, by a physician, with a view to practical instruction in the healing art. Clinical medicine is the practice of medicine on patients in bed, or in hospitals. A clinical convert is a convert on his death-bed. Anciently persons receiving baptism on their death-beds were called clinics.
CLINIC, noun One confined to the bed by sickness.