"Phonograph in Medicine," New York Times, March 5, 1889.

"The advantages of the phonograph," said a physician yesterday, "are very great to medicine, and may be of incalculable importance to surgery. A prominent practitioner, J. M. Bleyer, has demonstrated its value. It seems that, while the deepest tone that our are capable of recognizing is one containing 16 vibrations to the second, the phonograph will record 10 vibrations or less, and can then raise the pitch until the ear can distinguish a repetition of them. So, inversely, the vibrations which are above the highest rate audible can be produced in like manner by lowering the pitch.

"The phonograph, because of these qualities, is used in this way: It is placed on a table near the operator. An apparatus, somewhat similar to the trumpet used for deaf persons, is fixed to the recording cylinder of the phonograph, and the other, or larger end of the trumpet is placed against the part of the chest to be explored. Then the phonograph is set in motion, and the work begins. In order to register upon the wax cylinder that part of the chest which is intended to be examined it is necessary to register its anatomical name--like the supraclavicular region. Then the tube is placed upon the chest, and the slightest noise accompanying the breathing is registered with an accuracy which would be impossible to attain in any other way. In receiving the sound from the instrument the operator places a stethoscope, which is attached to the phonograph, to his ears, and all the tones are heard in their varied pitch and tone, as they come along, with clearness. The anatomical terms serving to indicate the regions bounding certain sounds are also accurately reproduced."