RECORDING HEART SOUNDS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 100, 27 April 1912, Page 12

RECORDING HEART SOUNDS

Dr. H. B. Williams, Associate in Physiology at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in the medicul school of Columbia University, United States, is engaged I in (he task of photographing sound. This means that a vtiluuble adjunct to diagnosis in affections of the heart is in practical operation. Not only that, but it is not necessary to have the patient in tho physiological laboratory while this method of diagnosis is being employed ; he can be examined with the eamo accuracy in this respect. while lying on a cot in a hospital at a distance or while standing in. tho dispensary devoted to the use of out-door patients <of tho institution. As a matte-r of fact, it is the purpose of the 'authorities of the college and of the Vanderbilt Clinic to connect the laboratory and the clinic by means of electric wires just as the office telephone is "hooked up" with "central." Thib connection will bo established in a few weeks. This announcement of the practical photographing of heart sounds is not to bo confused with the production of electrocardiograms. Eleotro-cardiogrums are the photographic reproductions of the electric currents of tho heart, produced by the electro-cardiograph. Th© same machine, however, the galvonometer, is used to record photographically both tho currente und sou rule of the heart. A distinguished English eurgeon declared a short time ugo that the greatest advance made iv recent years in surgical procedure had to do with surgery ofthe heart. He told of tho many operations performed on tlie heart, chiefly iv case 6 where the organ had been wounded by lead or steel, and of tne remarkable percentage of cures effected. It may be said with equal truth, in view of the ease with which both the movements and sounds of the cardiac muscle can now be recorded (says the New York Times), that the greatest recent advance in diagnosis has to do with the heart and its diseases. The student, whether undergraduate or post-graduate, finds himself confronted by a bewildering array of apparatus when he goes vo find out 111 the "P. and S." physiological laboratory just what is meant when one talks about photographing the fcaunds of the heart. Presently ha discovers himself tangled up in matters ats alluring aa any lornantic theory evolyed by the mediaeval alchemist! On the one nand he is permitted io gaw» upon tx powerful-looking _ crossbow, theu a rod is shown to him which, by all tho rules of the micr-cscope, he tshould not bo able to use at all, because it Js only one-half the diameter of a red blood corpuscle, and that, the physiologists tell Üb, ia about 1-3,200 ol an inch in diameter. It has_ been silver-plated *nd polished. There is also a heavy iron disk suspended by springs and wires, which ie a microphone—the came sort of thing used in a telephone, but which bear& no outward resemblance to that instrument. Besides, there ie a great spluttering maohin& with carbon rods producing a etrong lighv, a ttucroscope attachment, and an ♦ improvised camera with a film revolving wl a drum. The camera is tho greatest surprise of all tho apparatus, and is revealed to the astonished beholder at the point where he., thinks he ha« gathered come idea of what is being done.