Heart studies, chiefly clinical. 1, The pulse-sensations : a study in tactile sphygmology / by Wm. Ewart.

  • Ewart, William, 1848-1929.
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Heart studies, chiefly clinical. 1, The pulse-sensations : a study in tactile sphygmology / by Wm. Ewart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    loss of the old belief in the finger. That, in this, tactile sphygmology had been wronged, we shall endeavour to show. Slow Advance made by Sphygmo^raphy. It must be acknowledged that, important as are the theories and facts for which we are indebted to it, the sphygmograph has been very slow to extend our practical knowledge of the subject, and has furnished the clinical method with relatively small practical assistance, hardly comparable with the advances effected by the stethoscope, indeed, not raising tactile sphygmology much above the level it previously occupied. This lack of helpfulness has its significance. There has been but a scanty supply of facts clinically available, in spite of a more abundant harvest in the field of physiology. Here again the sphygmograph has been rather disappointing, and we have cause to wonder that so short a curve as that of a pulse-wave should have puzzled men of science for fully forty years; and that after miles of sphygmographic tracings we should still be engaged in the work of analysing and of interpreting the elementary features of the sphygmo- gram. The conclusion is unavoidable that many a good thinker may have been delayed by sphygmo- graphic riddles ; and that we may have been kept from investing in the study of the tactile pulse some of that attention which may have been less profitably bestowed.