On stethometry : being an account of a new and more exact method of measuring & examining the chest, with some of its results in physiology and practical medicine : also an appendix on the chemical and microscopical examination of respired air / by Arthur Ransome.
- Date:
- 1876
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On stethometry : being an account of a new and more exact method of measuring & examining the chest, with some of its results in physiology and practical medicine : also an appendix on the chemical and microscopical examination of respired air / by Arthur Ransome. 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.
35/228 (page 19)
![n.] frame were the result of still fewer observations, and yet they were found to be accurate by those who followed him. Even if the tables which follow are insufficient to afford trustworthy averages they at least give the extreme measurements as met with among the persons examined, and these will be found to present some very interesting points for remark. In one sense only are the examples selected—that is, they are drawn from the class to be met with in a work- house hospital, and therefore represent neither the strongest nor the healthiest of their kind ; otherwise as may be seen they were taken without discrimination of height or make. It may be stated however that cardiac cases were purposely excluded, since it was deemed desirable before passing to this class of cases, that the ordinary standard amongst other sick persons should be ascertained. Moreover, in order to obtain any practical result from such measurements, in cases of heart disease, it would be necessary to accompany them with careful notes of other physical signs and with ome history of the symptoms. The method employed in taking the measurements, was to ascertain by careful touch the position on the chest-wall, where the strongest beat of the heart was to be felt, and at this point a mark with ink, or what is better, coloured collodion, was made. This search was first made in the recumbent posture on the back, next when the patient was sitting or standing up, then when he was lying on the left side, and finally when he lay on the right side. It will be found from the tables that the last-named observation was often doubtful and therefore omitted, and as might have been expected the omissions of this observation are most frequent in the larger and stronger made of the subjects. After each of these points had been ascertained and marked with the pigment, it was very easy afterwards to C 2](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21952863_0035.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
