From THE ANNOTATED DRACULA by Leonard Wolf:
The phonograph was invented by Thomas A. Edison in 1877. What appears to be the first use of a phonograph in medical recordkeeping is described in Science where A. D. Blodgett a Massachusetts physican, is quoted as follows:
"We got a record from an actual patient in an actual examination which was reproducible and could be understood. I am sure that anyone with a little practice could use this machine as a way to obtain durable and trustworthy records from the lips of the patients. Any instrument of this kind might be made portable, and a visiting physician in a hospital might give his directions into a funnel, when they would be recorded on a small cylinder, which can be put on another machine, and a physician's directions as to treatment can thus be accurately recorded. This record is got by means of a graphophone, which is used a great deal in conjunction with the typewriter. In medico-legal cases I think it would be of great service because the utterances of the patient could be reproduced at an indefinite period afterward."
We've come a long way, haven't we?
2 comments:
That is cool. I love learning new thing.
Michele always finds cool information! I can't even comprehend how people thought of these inventions but I imagine that living back then was truly a wonder.
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