ON PERCUSSION OF THE CHEST being a translation of Auenbrugger's original treatise.

AUENBRUGGER.Lepold [1722-1809] John Forbes,M.D.:

Published by Baltimore The John Hopkins Press, 1936

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"The book remains one of the classics of medicine".Garrison-Morton. 2672: "The greatness of Auenbrugger`s discovery is of the value of immediate percusion of the chest as a diagnostic measure was not first recognized. His little book met with a cold reception, while a French translation by Roziere de Chassagne in 1770 attracted little notice. But Auenbrugger lived to see the appearence in 1808 of J. N. Corvisart`s classical translation of the book, after which the value of percussion was unversally recognized. Auenbrugger was the son of an innkeeper, and legend has it that it was his experience thumping wine casks to determine their fullness that led him to attempt an analogous diagnostic technique on his patients. It is certain that he was aided in developing this diagnostic technique by musical knowledge (he wrote a libretto for a comic opera by Antonio Salieri), which enabled him to perceive differences in tone when the chest was tapped. For seven years he had observed the changes in tone caused by the diseases of the lungs or the heart in patients at the Spanish Hospital, checking and controlling his findings by dissections of corpses and by experiments. In the Inventum novum he presented his findings . Auenbrugger s method permitted the determination of disease-caused changes in the lungs and heart of a live patient and thus gave a new, dependable foundation to the diagnosis of chest diseases' (DSB A very good copy of the Hopkins reprint of the 1824 London edition. Seller Inventory # 5961

Bibliographic Details

Title: ON PERCUSSION OF THE CHEST being a ...

Publisher: Baltimore The John Hopkins Press

Publication Date: 1936