Having noted the tendency for other studies to proceed without offering any definition of prognostics, or to describe them only in terms of cultural status (usually as examples of folklore, or specifically as
iatromathematical or medico-magical works), Laszlo Sandor Chardonnens begins his analysis with a general characterization, based on the shared features of the 174 texts in his corpus: prognostics are 'a codified means of predicting events in the life-time of an individual or identifiable group of individuals, using observation of signs and times, or mantic divination' (p.