File:The early history of instrumental precision in medicine - an address before the second Congress of American Physicians and Surgeons, September 23rd, 1891 (1892) (14774623424).jpg

Identifier: earlyhistoryofin00mitc (find matches)
Title: The early history of instrumental precision in medicine : an address before the second Congress of American Physicians and Surgeons, September 23rd, 1891
Year: 1892 (1890s)
Authors: Mitchell, S. Weir (Silas Weir), 1829-1914
Subjects: Medical instruments and apparatus Equipment and Supplies
Publisher: New Haven : Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor
Contributing Library: Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine
Digitizing Sponsor: Open Knowledge Commons and Harvard Medical School

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f making the record complete, but cannot refrainfrom the following brief mention of Hunter : The works of John Hunter showthat he was experimenting as early as 1770 upon man and the lower animalswith a crude thermometer. The description of the thermometers made forhim by Ramsden is interesting; they were very small, six or seven incheslong; not above two-twelfths of an inch thick in the stem, having the ex-ternal diameter of the ball very little larger than that of the stem on whichwas marked the freezing point. The stem was embraced by a small ivoryscale so as to slide upon it easily and retain any position. He uses it in themouth, the rectum, the urethra, and on the surface, and extends his experi-ments to dogs, rabbits, and even fowls and vipers. But in spite of his partialenlightenment he clings to the doctrine of specific heats and combats the viewthat the temperature is produced by the circulation of the blood. § Medical Reports on the effect of Water, Cold and Warm Baths, etc.
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The mouth thermometer of Sanctorius. PRECISION IN MEDICINE. IT Tig 10 And now I turn to a not less amazing story of the early applicationof instrumental accuracy to the study of the pulse. I can imaginethe discomfort with which you look forward to an essay on the pulse.I can promise that it shall not be very dull, and can assure you thatnowhere else is it told in full. An astronomer gave us the first rude thermometer, and it seems tohave been another, Herman Kepler, who first, and certainly before1600, counted the human pulse, or at least lefta record of having done this memorable thing.The publications in which he mentions the pulsedate from 1604 to 1618. Does it not seem in-credible that of the numberless physicians whosat by bedsides, thoughtful, with fingers laidupon that bounding artery, none should havehad the idea of counting it ? I quote in Eng-lish what he (Kepler) says.* This great butfanciful man seems to have believed the pulseto have some relation to the heavenly motions,

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