502 Proceedings of Societies . [July, 
made of other material. The inquiry has led me to test different 
metals for this purpose, and to find in fine gold the substance 
for making the most useful and effective artificial drum.” 
“ Note on the Invention of a Method for making the Move- 
ments of the Pulse audible by the Telephone : the Sphygmo- 
phone,” by Benjamin Ward Richardson, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S. 
While experimenting with the audiometer it occurred to me that 
I might get a secondary or telephonic sound from the movements 
of the pulse at the wrist. I have effected this in a very simple 
manner, by adding a microphone to a Pond’s sphygmograph. I 
mount on a slip of talc a thin plate of platinum. I place the 
talc slip in the sphygmograph as if about to take a tracing of 
the pulse. I connedt one terminal from a Leclanche cell to the 
slip of platinum on the talc, and the second terminal from the 
cell to a terminal of the telephone. Then I connedt the other 
terminal of the telephone with the metal rod of the sphygmo- 
graph which supports the talc. The instrument is now ready 
for use. It is placed on the pulse, in the ordinary way, and is 
adjusted, with the writing needle thrown back, until a good 
pulsating movement of the needle is secured. When the move- 
ment is in full adtion the needle is thrown over to touch the 
platinum plate, which it traverses with each pulse-movement, 
and completes the connexion between the telephone and the 
battery. The needle, in passing over the metallic plate, causes 
a distindt series of sounds from the telephone, which correspond 
with the movements of the pulse. When all is neatly adjusted 
the sounds heard are three in number, one long sound and two 
short, corresponding to the systolic push, the arterial recoil, and 
the valvular check. The sounds are singular, as resembling the 
two words “ bother it.” The sounds can be made very loud by 
increasing the battery power. This little instrument is not so 
good a recorder of the pulse as the sphygmograph, but it may 
be made very useful in class, for illustrating to a large number 
of students, at one time, the movements of the natural pulse 
and the variations which occur in disease. I call the invention 
the Sphygmophone. 
“ Note on a recent Communication by Messrs. Liveing and 
Dewar,” by J. Norman Lockyer, F.R.S. In a paper of last 
December the author called attention to the importance of dis- 
cussing Young’s observations of the chromospheric lines in 
connexion with the spedtra of the metallic elements. Since his 
paper was read Messrs. Liveing and Dewar have given a table 
which professes to state the number of times various lines in 
certain metals were seen by Young in connexion with certain 
reversal phenomena observed by themselves. The statements, 
however, made in this table with regard to the visibility of cer- 
tain lines in the chromosphere do not appear to the author to be 
in accordance with Young’s published tables, and he considers 
that a higher degree of accuracy than that employed by Messrs. 
Liveing and Dewar is necessary to determine such coincidences. 
