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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



strument still more elegant and slender we have the modern stetho- 

 scope in endless variety, as in Fig. 5. It is thus very evident how the 

 modern instrument has been framed out of the original block of wood 

 which was made the counterpart of Laennec's roll of paper. 



I know not who invented the instruments with flexible tubes, but 

 I have no doubt that a search into medical history could tell us. I 

 remember, however, that the first flexible stethoscope which I ever 

 saw was the one depicted in Fig. 6, and used by Dr. Golding Bird 

 when he saw out-patients in the year 1843. Being much crippled with 

 rheumatism, and therefore not wishing to rise from his chair, he found 



Fig. 6. 



Fig. 7. 



Fig. 8. 



this instrument very convenient ; he also was enabled to pass the ear- 

 piece to gentlemen standing near him, while he held the cup on the 

 part to be examined. I always thought it was his own invention. 

 But, whether so or not, I do not think any great effort of genius was 

 required to frame a flexible instrument, and then adapt it for the use 

 of one or two ears. This being done, the next step would be to make 

 two mouth-pieces to apply to the chest at different spots. Various 

 modifications of these instruments have been made of late years, but 

 the first notice of them I have any knowledge of in my reading is to 

 be found in a letter to the " Lancet " of August 29, 1829, by Mr. 

 Comins, of Edinburgh, headed "A Flexible Stethoscope." This was- 

 only twelve years after Laennec's invention. It is difficult from his 

 description to picture the instrument, but it seems to have been com- 

 posed of jointed tubes, and made for two ears as well as one. Mr. 

 Comins expresses his surprise that the discoverer of mediate ausculta- 

 tion did not suggest a flexible instrument, as he says " it can be used 

 in the highest ranks of society without offending fastidious delicacy." 

 A very interesting fact was first pointed out to me by Dr. Andrew 

 Clark, with respect to a pecidiarity of the binaural in the objective 

 appreciation of sounds ; that if each ear-piece be separately used, and 



