Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Lectures on subjects connected with clinical medicine / by P.M. Latham. 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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![Summarily, then, concerning auscultation, my experience (I think) warrants me in saying thus much : — 1. That there are some diseases of the chest which in their kind entirely elude it; 2. That there are some which elude it not in their kind but in their situation; 3. That there are some in which auscultation is only a help to diagnosis, but still a very great help; 4. That there are] some (and perhaps the larger number) in which the con- clusions of auscultation are as unerring as those of sight itself. Certainty is a big and portentous word, applied to any the smallest portion of our art. Yet still there is a small district of the whole field of dia- gnosis, but a large district as it respects particular organs, which auscultation has rendered absolutely certain. With auscultation I almost always use percus- sion ; and the results of the one perpetually correct or confirm the results of the other, and strengthen the diagnosis. But does all clinical instruction consist in direct- ing the mind how to ascertain mere particulars, whether by auscultation or pei’cussion, or by what- ever other method is adopted for their discovery in different organs ? No. Clinical instruction is not merely occupied in directing observation to facts, but it assists the mind in estimating their va.ue. Thus, when the record of the case has](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28042256_0073.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
