Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Auscultation

  • Mandarin doctor examines the patient’s pulse

    This nineteenth century Mandarin doctor is flouting the traditionally accepted rules of medical examination of inspection, palpation, percussion, and auscultation. He is intently focusing on the patient’s pulse but seems to have omitted the preliminary step of inspection in that he is looking away from his patient instead of looking at her. Credit: A doctor…

  • Portrait of Sir John Forbes as a young man

    Robin Agnew Liverpool, United Kingdom     Portrait of John Forbes MD as a physician in Chichester Courtesy of the Postgraduate Medical Centre St. Richard’s Hospital, Chichester, West Sussex Introduction Sir John Forbes, the remarkable Scottish royal physician and medical journalist, died on 13 November 1861. He was not an innovator like the great French…

  • The history of the stethoscope

    MAS Ahmed Romford, United Kingdom Victoria Turnock London, United Kingdom Laennec’s stethoscope circa 1819. No other symbol is as entwined with the concept of being a doctor as the stethoscope. It is currently one of the most widely used tools that doctors and nurses use for diagnostic purposes. Before its invention auscultation was done by…

  • Auscultation

    Daly Walker Boca Grande, Florida, United States   Arterial Nests, 2009 (detail) Michelle Frick, New York Cast silicone, intravenous line, ceramic, 30 x 18” silkscreen lightbox, sound In the hospital’s x-ray department, Dad and I entered a small room with a wall of lighted boxes. A man with dyed reddish hair sat, sipping at a…