Questions
Reading 1/1:
and describe the sounds associated with diseases that were the scourges of his time. Continuing to study patients from hospital ward to autopsy table, the dedicated doctor tried to match the sounds he had heard in the clinic to the physical signs of disease found after death. For example, the large cavities noted in lungs ravaged by tuberculosis produced one type of sound, while the solidified lung tissues of pneumonia yielded another.The names he applied to these distinctive sounds - rales, bruits, and egophony - are still used.
2345678
The stethoscope did not remain a stiff unwieldy tu me for long. To make it more compact, Laennec divided the cylinder into sections that could be carried more easily in an inside pocket. Other European doctors later developed flexible versions, and in 1855 an American doctor named George Cammann devisee a binaural stethoscope that had two ivory-tipped earpieces connected to an ebony chest plate by cloth-covered, spiral-wire tubes.This version, which cost about £2, allowed doctors to listen to a patient's chest with both ears.
Since then, the stethoscope has changed only modestly. Today it is a precision-engineered instrument (often costing £80 or more), with two plastic earpieces attached by rubber tubes to a chest piece with interchangeable 'heads': a flat diaphragm, used to hear distinct, high-frequency sounds such as the clicks characteristic of mitral valve prolapse, and a domelike bell, which allows the listener to detect soft, low-frequency noises such as the rumbling murmur of blood flowing through a narrowed mitral valve. To hear these various heart sounds, doctors will often use the diaphragm to listen to several areas of the chest and then apply the bell to the same areas.
Next Question
Beyond providing insights into heart and lung diseases, Laennec's invention encouraged doctors to pursue objective data investigating these and other conditions, instead of relying solely on a patient's often misleading account of his or her complaints. Doctors not only attended more carefully to sounds emitted by the chest, but - in the interest of correlating their findings on physical examination with what they had learned at autopsy - they also began what has been referred to as "laying on of hands": probing more deeply. palpating the abdomen and other areas of the body, and using the sense of touch to detect abnormalities such as tumours.
Next Reading
>
vant) fini
EQ: 1
Laennec's discovery reflected the impact of the French Revolution on the field of medicine. As the Old Regime was driven out, new ideas could be explored that emphasized observation rather than reason alone. These philosophical shifts helped make Paris the centre of medical science in the early 1800s. Whether Laennec started a revolution or "simply rode on the wave of change", the trend toward collecting information by more objective means and correlating physical findings with laboratory data continues today with the widespread use of x-rays, echocardiography, and other diagnostic tests. With his invention, medicine moved closer to becoming a science.
<
