This book was written as the result of experiences in teaching physical diagnosis to medical officers of the Reserve Corps in the late war. That work demonstrated that many physicians were lamentably unskilled in methods of examination and in interpretation of examinations, and the writers of this volume begin with fundamentals—physical laws of sound formation and transmission— apply these to normal cases and later compare the deviations from normal with their causes and interpretations.
Palpation, percussion, auscultation, resonance and fremitus are considered, first in normal, later in pathologic cases, with separate chapters devoted to diseases of the lungs and pleura and a special chapter on pulmonary tuberculosis.
The physiology and anatomy, normal and abnormal, of the heart are considered; next, general procedures of diagnosis, inspection, palpation, percussion and auscultation of the heart, with discussion of normal and abnormal observations as well as of information to be gained from the condition