Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1877 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IV. PERCUSSION. SECTION I. INTRODUCTORY. Article I.--Historical. PERCUSSION, or the art of striking a part of the body so as to beget a sound useful for the discovery of disease, has been practised from the earliest times. Employed at first in the diagnosis of abdominal diseases (to distinguish tympanites from ascites1), it was not until the middle of the last century that percussion was applied to the discrimination of the diseases of the chest. This important extension of the powers of percussion we owe to Auenbrugger, . who in 1761 published a small book descriptive 1 This most ancient means of diagnosis is probably at least as early as Hippocrates. During the three busy centuries after Hippocrates, the Greeks invented the word tympanites, which was in familiar use by the time of Celsus. of his method.1 When we hear of the reception which Auenbrugger'a contemporaries in the city of Vienna gave to his discovery it is difficult to restrain a feeling of anger. The medical dictators of the day, Van Swieten and De Haen,2 disregarded percussion altogether: less exalted personages carelessly confounded it with the Hippocratic method of succussion. Auenbrugger tells us that he was prepared to meet with envy, hatred, and calumny; we know that he did meet with what is harder to bear, simple neglect: however the scanty records of the man's life justify the belief that he passed from one social deed to another social deed, and found his happiness in doing so.3 It was worthy of Stoll that he at least should not fail to acknowledge the 1 Leopoldi Auenbrugger, M. D., Inventum novum ex percussione thoracis humani ut signo abstrusos interni pectoris morbos detegendi. Vindobons, 1761. This edition is very rare: a reprint was published at Graz in..
