A manual of percussion and auscultation : of the physical diagnosis of diseases of the lungs and heart, and of thoracic aneurism / by Austin Flint.
- Austin Flint I
- Date:
- 1876
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A manual of percussion and auscultation : of the physical diagnosis of diseases of the lungs and heart, and of thoracic aneurism / by Austin Flint. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
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![clearly indicated certain characters derived from this source.^ Differences relating to qnalitj^^^re apt, at first, to be confounded witli those relating to pitch; hence the distinction between pitch and quality must be clearly understood. We may say of the quality of a sound, that it embraces whatever is not embraced in the terms intensity and pitch. This is true as a general statement. The sense of the term quality, in distinction from intensity and pitch, may be most readily made clear hy an illustration. Let it be supposed that we hear the notes of an instrument which is unseen—the performer, for example, being in another room. We recognize at once the instru- ment hy the notes, provided it be one with which we are familiar, such as a violin, a flute, a clarionet, etc. We do not need to see the instrument; we recognize it by the sounds. ]!^ow, how do we recog- nize it? Certainly not by the intensity of the sounds ; it matters not whether these be loud or weak, so that we hear them. Certainly not by the pitch ; for if a piece of music be performed, we get both high and low notes. We recognize the instru- ment by the quality of the sounds. Each musical instrument, owing to its peculiarity of construction, yields sounds which are peculiar to it; and after w^e have become familiar with the quality of sounds peculiar to any instrument, we immediately thereby recognize it. Precisely in the same way we may ' Vide Prize Essay on Variations of Pitch in Percussion and Respiratory Sounds, and their Application to Physical Diag- nosis. Transactions of the ximcrican Medical Association, 1853.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21052311_0034.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
