CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN SCIENTIFIC MEDICINE 



this simple and useful procedure. Hence Napoleon's 

 surprise when, on calling in Corvisart, after becoming 

 somewhat dissatisfied with his other physicians, Pinel 

 and Portal, his physical condition was interrogated in 

 this strange manner. With characteristic shrewdness 

 Bonaparte saw the utility of the method, and the physi- 

 cian who thus attempted to substitute scientific method 

 for guess-work in the diagnosis of disease at once found 

 favor in his eyes, and was installed as his regular medi- 

 cal adviser. 



For fifteen years before this Corvisart had practised 

 percussion, as the chest-tapping method is called, with- 

 out succeeding in convincing the profession of its value. 

 The method itself, it should be added, had not origi- 

 nated with Corvisart, nor did the French physician for a 

 moment claim it as his own. The true originator of the 

 practice was the German physician Avenbrugger, who 

 published a oook about it as early as 1761. This book 

 had even been translated into French, then the language 

 of international communication everywhere, by Roziere 

 de la Chassagne, of Montpellier, in 1770 ; but no one 

 other than Corvisart appears to have paid any attention 

 to either original or translation. It was far otherwise, 

 however, when Corvisart translated Avenbrugger's work 

 anew, with important additions of his own, in 1808. By 

 this time a reaction had set in against the metaphysical 

 methods in medicine that had previously been so allur- 

 ing; the scientific spirit of the time was making itself felt 

 in medical practice; and this, combined with Corvisart's 

 fame, brought the method of percussion into immediate 

 and well-deserved popularity. Thus was laid the foun- 

 dation for the method of so-called physical diagnosis, 

 which is one of the corner-stones of modern medicine. 



355^ 



