VIII 



NINETEENTH-CENTURY MEDICINE 

 PHYSICAL DIAGNOSIS 



ALTHOUGH Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul, 

 J\ was not lacking in self -appreciation, he probably 

 did not realize that in selecting a physician for his own 

 needs he was markedly influencing the progress of 

 medical science as a whole. Yet so strangely are cause 

 and effect adjusted in human affairs that this simple 

 act of the First Consul had that very unexpected effect. 

 For the man chosen was the envoy of a new method in 

 medical practice, and the fame which came to him 

 through being physician to the First Consul, and sub- 

 sequently to the Emperor, enabled him to promulgate 

 the method in a way otherwise impracticable. Hence 

 the indirect but telling value to medical science of Na- 

 poleon's selection. 



The physician in question was Jean Nicolas de 

 Corvisart. His novel method was nothing more star- 

 tling than the now-familiar procedure of tapping the 

 chest of a patient to elicit sounds indicative of diseased 

 tissues within. Every one has seen this done com- 

 monly enough in our day, but at the beginning of the 

 century Corvisart, and perhaps some of his pupils, were 

 probably the only physicians in the world who resorted 



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