FEELING YOUR PULSE BY TELEGRAPH.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 717, 31 October 1914, Page 3

FEELING YOUR PULSE BY TELEGRAPH.

->A wonderful instrument has been perfected, called the "electro cardiograph," by means of which a physician is able to see and count the patient's heart-beats from a distance of a mile-or more. . The progress 1 of several common diseases as plainly indicated by ' the frequency and force of the patient' 3 heart-beats. By the use of this, new instrument a doctor, while sitting in his office,' may watch the progress of the diseases of several patients, hour' j by hour, and so avoid unnecessary personal visits. This instrument .is,' in effect, a heart telephone, which shows the doctor to the minutest fraction of a second how the heart is beating. In the hospital ward the patient places each hand in a dish of salt water, to which conducting wires are connected with the instrument in the laboratory. Every time the' heart beats it produces an electric current, and this current is conducted to a fine threadsuspended between the poles of a very powerful electm-magnet. The . thread is so thin as to be almost, invisible to the naked eye. It is made from drawn glass, and is 7-1000 of a millimetre in diameter. As the . patient puts his hands in the dish of salt water by the bedside, the action of the heart is electrically' telegraphed to the thread, which is deflected with every heart-beat. On the principle of the magic lantern—the thread - is practically the "slide"—a powerful arc light throws the thread's magnified reflection on ' a screen, and by a cunning contrivance it-is aivto'matically photographed on a moving plate. In this way an "elec-tro-cardiograph," or heart-beat picture, is-.obtained. _ , "It is possible," said a doctor- who explained the apparatus, "to record heart-beats a mile distant. Indeed, I think it might be possible to bring the .telephone into use and record the throbbing of the heart over greater distances." . Some interesting experiments have been made by the authorities at a London hospital. An elephant was taken into the yard and made to stand with his feet in hip baths of the salt solution while his heart-beats were photographed in a room upstairs. The cardiograph showed that his heart was beating forty time to'the minute. A rat was also experimented on, with small glass dishes for his feet. His heart beat 600 times in a minute. The normal heart-beat of a human being is at the rate of sixty a minute.