AUS'CULTA'TION (Lat. ausrultare, to lis ten). A mode of exploration—by listening—of the condition of the heart, the lungs, the pleura, the (esophagus, certain arteries and veins, the abdominal organs, the gastrointestinal tract, and the gravid uterus. Diseases, especially those of the heart and lungs. may be detected by listen ing to the sounds produced in the cavity of the chest. This is done either by the unassisted ear (immediate auscultation) or by the aid of a simple sound-•onveying instrument, the stetho scope (q.v.) (mediate auscultation). The nor mal sounds produced by respiration and the beating of the heart are readily distinguished by the trained ear from the several abnormal sounds indicating disease. Auscultation is one of the most important means of diagnosis. ip pocra tes had observed the friction-sound in dry pleurisy as well as suc•ussion in pyopneumo tho•ax. Auenbrugge• (q.v.) of Vienna, in 1761, introduced percussion (q.v.), and Piorry (q.v.) of France invented the pleximeter. Both proba bly appreciated some of the facts of auscultation.
lint Laijunee (q.v.), in 1316, was the first to demonstrate the great value of auseulation and to introduce it into general use. Raynaud, in 1829, and Collin, in 1831, added respectively to our knowledge of pleuritic friction and pericar dial friction. (See PEacussmx.) According to the views, however, then generally held by physi cians, the sounds produced by auscultation and permission were capable of directly revealing the nature of diseases. In 1839 Skoda (q.v.), in his Abhandlunq tiler.ta.sknitatian and Perkussion, demonstrated that those sounds were in the first instance only manifestations of peculiar phys ical states in the body. Being directly produced by certain diseases, those states, and not the sounds caused by them, must be considered as the true symptoms from which the character of diseases can lie inferred. Consult: Guttmann, Handbook of Physical Diagnosis, translated by Napier (New York, ISM) ; Flint, Manual of Auscultation and Percussion (Philadelphia, 1883).