Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1941-11-25
Diagnosis
Starts Drop
In Ph+hisis

Rise Of Doctors Esteem
Linked TO Scientific Act
BY LOGAN CLENDENING, MD.
\ T THIS time Of the year
"A when we are trying 10 help
out the sale OF Christmas seals
10 further the work OF the
National tuberculosis Associa-
ton, L should like TO quote
remarkable address l heard
doctor make TO other doctors
called, The Historical I'm
portance of Removing the Shirt"
He pointed out that in the
pictures, cartoons and the gen.
eral literature Of the Sixteenth.
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Cen
turtles the doctor was depicted
as a very low fellow.
In Hogarth's cartoons, Mo
Heres plays. in the novel Gil
Bias" the doctor is shown as a
funny. ignorant, dirty, grating
quack.
They made fun Of his pratings,
preacninss,, ~bumptious manner
and especially his ignorance.
At the beginning of the nine
teenth century. however, the
doctor suddenly assumes a char
acter of dignity and nobility in
literature and art.
STEVENSON and Thackeray,
~ John Brown, Conan Doyle
and Eakins show the doctor at
work. and he is turned into
fellow of high principles and
usefulness.
What was the cause OF the
sudden change?
DR.. w. NJ. Dock of New York
assigns that change 10 two dis
coveries. one being that of the
Austrian, Auenbrugger, who in
vented a method Of tapping the
chest with the fingers per
cussion) and that OF the French
man. Laennec. who invented the
stethoscope 10 listen TO the
chest.
In order TO do this, the
patient had TO take off his shirt
so the doctor could examine him.
These discoveries put the
examination OF the patient on
scientific basis. Z=
Before that the patient told
the doctor what was the mat
ter: after the doctor made the
patient remove his shirt and
examined him, the doctor told
the patient what was the
matter.
Before that. all the doctor did
was listen 10 the pulse and look
at the tongue.
He left the shirt on.
THESE two discoveries really
L initiated modern scientific
medicine.
Besides that, the doctor both
literally and figuratively got
closer to his patient.
They are probably more i'm
portant in the history OF tuber-
culosis than any other disease.
Actually the beginning of the
conquest of the age-old disease
of tuberculosis began at the
time when doctors began TO re-
move the patients shirt.
The decline in the death rate
OF tuberculosis has been steady
since that time and step by
step with this increase in con-
troll of the disease has been an
increase in the knowledge of
objective methods Of studying
the human being who Is a sick
patient.
FOLLOWING Auenbrugger and
L Laennec there came the dis
covery OF the tubercle bacillus
by Koch and following that, the
use of the X-ray, discovered by
Roentgen.
And from these there came
our modern methods of treat
ment by rest. fresh air and coll
lapse of the lung
Only after we knew the cause
Of the disease and the nature
of its spread, could we initiate
methods of prevention which
consist in detecting all carrie
and the removal of all pate S
from a household where they
might infect others.
QUESTIONS, ANSWERS
Office Staff. Brookfield, Mo-:
We understand that a girl in a
city not far from here was in
an automobile accident and is
now in the hospital in that