The spirometer, the stethoscope, & scale-balance : their use in discriminating diseases of the chest, and their value in life offices; with remarks on the selection of lives for life assurance companies / by John Hutchinson.

Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The spirometer, the stethoscope, & scale-balance : their use in discriminating diseases of the chest, and their value in life offices; with remarks on the selection of lives for life assurance companies / by John Hutchinson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    long, it weighs little more than ] 00 grains. It is trumpct-sh.npod the ear-piece moveable : so that one end (which is smaller than the other) can be applied to the supra-clavicular fossa, and the larger end to other parts of the chest. The lightness of the instrument also prevents the car-piece chipping by a fall; an accident as common as it is inconvenient. This Stethoscope may be obtained of Mr. Wm. ITenby ' Spratt, Truss Manufacturer, &c., 2, Brook Street, Hanover Square, London. CONCLUSION. 151. We lastly add, that it is with some timidity we venture these few sheets before the public, because, not professing peifection, we do feel that the more we labour, the more we experience the lack of knowledge. The remarks upon t!ie Spirometer are chiefly a collection of facts gathered by years of labom', especially arranged, to answer the common questions put to us upon the subject; if these prove as useful to the reader in examining the chest, as the facts themselves are true, we shall be pleased. Our obsen'ations upon the Stethoscope may be viewed as neither new nor yet original; but indeed it is not our object to seek the new, nor yet to be original, but more to -work out that which has already been considered. The Stethoscope was formerly to us the most confused and complex subject; or probably it would be more coiTCct to say, that we, were the confused and complex subject. Nevertheless, wherever the complexity was, it is now gone; and by this we wish it to be understood that the application and value of the Stethoscope can be thoroughly comprehended by any one. The few pages upon selecting lives for assurance, contain that only which we have derived from experience ; and our having committed such to paper, was induced by feehng a certain want of unity of system, particularly amongst non-Army medical referees, in the method of selecting lives. Believing at the same time a nucleus is a nucleus, though never so impexfect, upon which others can improve, so that in time, an unity of system, may be obtained amongst medical referees, as perfect as in any other branch of life assurance, is what the Author begs to offer as an apology for his impeifcctions.