The early history of instrumental precision in medicine : an address before the second Congress of American Physicians and Surgeons, September 23rd, 1891 . neered at and neglected. As late asIzes, BordeuJ dismisses Floyer with something like contempt, andFouquet qualifies all pulse-numeration as a mere useless curiosity, andsphygmometric instruments as idle toys. Falconer,§ as late in thecentury as 1796, says, Floyers methods were unused until this was nearly true. In the 18th century one finds now andthen a pulse count, as when Morgagni describes a pulse which beattwenty-two times in
The early history of instrumental precision in medicine : an address before the second Congress of American Physicians and Surgeons, September 23rd, 1891 . neered at and neglected. As late asIzes, BordeuJ dismisses Floyer with something like contempt, andFouquet qualifies all pulse-numeration as a mere useless curiosity, andsphygmometric instruments as idle toys. Falconer,§ as late in thecentury as 1796, says, Floyers methods were unused until this was nearly true. In the 18th century one finds now andthen a pulse count, as when Morgagni describes a pulse which beattwenty-two times in the sixtieth of an hour. Evidently the minutehad not yet gotten into the daily life of man. * He wrote various other books, notably Gerocomica, 1724. In this healludes to the pulse watch to be made by making the middle finger of thewatch large, and to run round the plate. He gives in this book also tablesof his pulse and of weights of urine. t Save the queer chapter on the Chinese art of feeling the pulse, whichseems to have taken the fancy of many able men. X Ed. of 1768, p. 13. § Falconer, 1796, who quotes Kepler as to pulse of man 70, woman PEECISION IN MEDICINE. 23 If any man wishes to nourish a taste for cynical criticism, let himstudy honestly the books of the 18th century on the pulse down toHeberden and Falconer, or even beyond them. It is observationgone minutely mad ; a whole Lilliput of symptoms ; an exasperatingwaste of human intelligence. I know few more dreary deserts inmedical literature, from the essay on the Chinese Art of Feeling thePulse, with which Floyer loaded his otherwise, valuable essay, toMarquets method of learning to know the pulse by musical notes, anart in which he was not alone.* And error died hard. The doctrine Fig. 15,
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