The stethometer : an instrument for ascertaining the difference in the mobility of opposite sides of the chest, and thus facilitating diagnosis / by Richard Quain.

  • Quain, Richard, 1816-1898.
Date:
[1850]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The stethometer : an instrument for ascertaining the difference in the mobility of opposite sides of the chest, and thus facilitating diagnosis / by Richard Quain. 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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    THE STETHOMETER: AN INSTRUMENT FOR ASCERTAINING THE DIFFERENCE IN THE MOBILITY OF OPPOSITE SIDES OF THE CHEST. It is well known, that the movements of the walls of the chest, during respiration, correspond to, and are influenced by, the state of the organs placed within or beneath them. Hence, then, in our investi- gations of the diseases of these organs, we invariably, and frequently in the first instance, examine these movements. In many cases, the modifications produced by disease are so great as to be at once evi- dent to the eye, or to the eye assisted by the hand. In other, and much more numerous cases, the eye and hand cannot detect these alterations. Indeed, nothing is more common than to find observers, at the same moment, differing in opinion as to the greater or less mobi- lity of a portion of one or other of the sides of the chest. Even the indefinite terms here used, “ greater” or “less”, become sources of fal- lacy and doubt. It is, therefore, very desirable that a mode of inves- tigation, admitted by all to be most important, should be exact for observation, and definite for description. I felt this more particularly some years ago, when engaged in clinical demonstrations to students, of the different modes of investigating diseases of the chest; and I at that time endeavoured by various contrivances, constructed chiefly on the principle of the callipers, to surmount the difficulty. My friend, Dr. Sibson, was, however, then more successful than myself; and he introduced an instrument which, in his hands, has afforded very important results in the investigation of the respiratory movements of the chest and abdomen, both in health and disease.1 Subsequent con- sideration led me to believe that an instrument, simple, portable and economical, capable of ready application and of affording very valuable