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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![recognize certain sounds produced by percussion and auscultation in health and disease. The signs differ in quality according to the physical conditions which they severally represent; and differences in quality will be found hereafter to constitute essential and obvious distinctions by which the signs of health and disease are recognized and discriminated. This is a source of some of the most distinctive of the characters of some of the physical signs. Of the peculiar quality of any particular sound one can form no definite idea otherwise than by direct observation. That is to say, uo one could describe to another the peculiar quality of a particu- lar sound so that it would be clearly apprehended without the sound having been heard. Imagine the attempt to describe the sound of a violin to a person who had never listened to the notes from that instrument—it would be impossible to give a cor- rect idea of it in language.' The only way in which an approximative idea could be conveyed in words, would be by comparing the quality to that of some other instrument to the notes of which there was some resemblance—that is, by analogy. To attempt to describe the quality of sounds to one who had never heard then], would be like describing colors to one blind. It will be seen hereafter that the quality of certain sounds obtained by percussion and auscultation is peculiar to them, and their distinc-; tive characters in this aspect can be known only by, direct observation ; they cannot be learned by means i of any verbal description, nor by any comparisons^* that is, by analogy. Appreciable variations in the quality of sounds](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21052311_0035.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
