MEDICAL ADVICE SOON FROM DIAGNOSTIC COMPUTER

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30534, 1 September 1964, Page 12

MEDICAL ADVICE SOON FROM DIAGNOSTIC COMPUTER

“We may soon be able to plug ourselves in (to a ‘black box’), dial DOC, and receive instant teleprinted (medical) advice together with any necessary prescription,” says the “New Scientist,” commenting on a system developed by Dr. I. M. Levine and others at the Boston University Medical School. “It is perhaps not a far step to the central surgery manned day and night by a tireless computer with the highest medical qualifications,” says the' magazine. “Within the foreseeable future, according to Dr. Levine, a doctor will be able to carry a ‘black box’ to his patient’s home where he will attach a few electorodes to the patient’s body, plug the ‘box’ into the telephone, dial a number, and receive, from some distant consultant, an expert blow-by-blow description of the electrical workings of his patient’s heart or brain or muscles.“Dr. Levine and his colleagues have already devel-

oped a System which allows the long-distance transmission over ordinary telephone lines of an undisturbed record of practically any recordable human function. “The idea is hot new, (but) . . . what Dr. Levine and his group have done is to spend considerable time and ingenuity in developing apparatus which makes the transmission of biological information by telephone a practical proposition for the domestic user. Patients Left at Home “One aim which the Boston workers had in mind was the possibility of allowing a central clinic to keep watch over the condition of patients remaining in their own homes. Indeed, the whole system was developed because of the need to test the effect of muscle-relaxing drugs on certain patients with diseases producing muscle stiffness or spasms. “The state of contraction of a muscle can be judged by its electrical activity, and

> Dr. Levine and his colleagues ■ wanted to record the activity i of the muscles of home- • bound patients. They there- • tore designed transmitting apparatus with simple coni trols so that the home end I of the exercise could be mani aged by the patient’s own 1 relatives. “Now under development is « apparatus capable of simul- ■ taneously transmitting several i physiological functions, as : well as a voice, over a single telephone line. From this it is perhaps not a far step to i the central surgery manned ! day and night by a tireless i computer with the highest i medical qualifications. We > may soon be able to plug ouri selves in, dial DOC, and re- : ceive instant teleprinted ads vice together with any necest sary prescription. i “Dr. Levine and his friends > want to call their new tech- • nique telemedography and a telephone record of the i brain’s activity would be I an electroencephalotelemedol gram. It sounds expensive.”