The title is Latin for "Touch me not", and is taken from John 20:17 in the Bible, where a newly-risen Jesus admonishes a bewildered Mary Magdalene: "Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father."[1]
Early English translations of the novel used titles like An Eagle Flight (1900) and The Social Cancer (1912), disregarding the symbolism of the title, but the more recent translations were published using the original Latin title. It has also been noted by the Austro-Hungarian writer Ferdinand Blumentrittthat "Noli me tangere" was a name used by ophthalmologists for cancer of the eyelids; that as an ophthalmologist himself Rizal was influenced by this fact is suggested in the novel's dedication, "To My Country".
