HOW THE DOCTOR BEGAN TO TAP

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 78, 29 September 1934, Page 25

HOW THE DOCTOR BEGAN TO TAP

Possibly 110' aspect 'of tho medical practitioner's art intrigues the patient more thau the preliminary chest-tap-ping, and the application of the stethoscope, says the Sydney "Telegraph."

Two centuries ago, neither tapping nor tho use of the stethoscope was known to medical science. Indeed, the latter ait came into vogue only in the last century. Like many other contributions to the world's discoveries, both had a humble origin.

In tho early eighteenth, century, one of the duties of Leopold Auenbrugger, tho small sou. of an innkeeper of Southern Austria, was to keep his father informed as to tho liquor stocks.

On the collar floor, little Leo would squat, and by tapping on tho casks with hia fingers could ascertain accurately how much wino was within. A hollow, ringing sound denoted empty space; a dull, wooden one, the presence of wine.

The respective clinical counterparts of these aro tho lung and tho heart sounds of a healthy individual. An ambitious father sent an enthusiastic son to Vienna, and young Auenbruggcr became a clever physician. •

At thirty-nine he published in Latin his "Inventum Notum"—a volume which described a new method for diagnosing internal chest diseases. Unhonourod and unsung, Auenbrugger 's gem of medical literature remained in obscurity. For twenty years its priceless worth was ignored. But Corvisart, Napoleon's brilliant medical adviser, translated it into

French, and Aucnbrugger, now in his eighties, was famous. Due to Corvisart's sponsoring "luveutum Notum" won merit of recognition as a classic.

In 1781, Rene Theophilo Hyacinthe Laonnec —a puny child—was bom in Quimper, a small French town of Brittany. -At. the. University of Nantes ho swiftly became a doctor, and at thirty had won fame and a rich practice. It was in 1816 that he made a discovery which has immortalised him.

Pondering on the- heart condition of a patient as he strode through, the courtyard of the Louvre at Paris, his attention was drawn to the antics of. several laughing children. One child was holding a ligh piece of timber to an ear, whilo a second busily scratched tho other end. Laennee sprinted to the patient's home!

Rolling a piece of paper into a tight rod, he applied it over the patient's heart, and was surprised and delighted at tho clarity with which he could hear the heart sounds. The prototype of the modern stethoscope had been born! He was soon experimenting with little paper cylinders—called them "chest examiners," or stethoscopes—and, purchasing a lathe, began to fashion wooden ones. Some wore hollow, some solid, but Ms final production ■ was a foot long, slender, and hollow. Tho voices of the lungs and heart could be heard! '

To tho patience, skill, and ingenuity of Auonbrugger and Laennee, : tho world's physicians and their patients should feel a deep sense of gratitude.