Historical steps of modern medicine : an address delivered before the St. Andrews Medical Graduates' Association at the annual session held on December 2, 1871 / by Henry Day.
- Day, Henry, 1814-1881.
- Date:
- 1872
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Historical steps of modern medicine : an address delivered before the St. Andrews Medical Graduates' Association at the annual session held on December 2, 1871 / by Henry Day. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![An instrument of our time, now very much neglected, except at quiet corners of great metropolitan thoroughfares, where it may be tried for a penny, is the Spirometer, invented by the late Dr. Hutchinson. This instrument, as a measurer of vital capacity, and as a by no means indifferent measurer of vital power, has passed, I think, into disuse without deserving the neglect. It is a good instrument; too clumsy, I doubt not, in construction, and, in this respect, unpopular, but most valuable when correctly employed. Like the thermometer it is a most important aid in the discovery of tubercle in doubtful cases. It affords the most telling record of the amount of pulmonary damage in cases of emphysema, and it has developed some singular physiological facts which have yet to be properly worked out: one specially; that capacity of respiration is greater in tall than it is in short persons, although, in the latter, the circumference of the chest may be relatively larger. The Sphygmograph, introduced amongst us in recent years, has yielded readings infinitely curious, if not, as yet, peculiarly practical. Its application, generally, is limited by its complexity, and, if I may be so bold as to say it, it gives us what we do not always want, and it does not give us what we always do want. If it could be sim- plified in construction, and could be so arranged that it would register for us the precise number of strokes of the pulse per quarter minute, together with the exact power, or force, of the pulse, so that from visit to visit we could be accurately taught on these two points, we should have an aid of great value. But it may be, that, as it is] some leading discoveries have to be made with it for the benefit of the working practitioner. For these we must wait. Electricity, as an aid to diagnosis, is one of the latter day im- provements to which I need to direct attention. The use of the minor telegraphic arrangement for the detection of metallic sub- stances m gun-shot wounds ; the use of the metallic brush and dry conductor for testing degrees of sensibility of the surface of the body ; of the interrupted current for proving the continuance of muscular contractility; the employment of moist conductors for determining the relative failure of particular muscles in paralysis -these are advances simple, but ready to hand, and often satisfac- toiy m the lessons they teach. Lastly, there is the most recent improvement in the art of diagnosis the application of Elba- Spmy for testing the vascular ten ion of parts of the body, or of the body as a whole. Tetv y this method, what resistance the nervous surface can offer to an](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22443265_0019.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
