JHOLLAND1
Titanium
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2005
- Location
- western washington state
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Capillary electrometer
- Thread starter JHOLLAND1
- Start date
- Replies 1
- Views 1,162
Joe Michaels
Diamond
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2004
- Location
- Shandaken, NY, USA
JHolland:
Thank you for posting the youtube & accompanying pictures. The instrument in the youtube looks like something from an old physics laboratory, and seeing it work was quite interesting. While I was an undergraduate in engineering school, I worked in a variety of machine shops part time. One such shop, at the end of my undergraduate years, was the medical instrument shop at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Research Hospital in NYC. It was an opportunity to work on "fine work" rather than the heavier work I had been doing in other machine shops, and an exposure to working on surgical instruments as well as some of the radiation treatment and lab equipment.
By that point in time (1971), medical instruments had already come a long way from the instrument in this thread. Normally, if one sees photos of old medical instruments or diagnostic equipment, it is usually of "Roentgen" X-Ray apparatus. This instrument came as a bit of a surprise to me as I did not think the beginnings of electrocardiograms dates back as far as this thread describes. Seeing "Jimmy", the bulldog in the photos, he looks less than thrilled, but apparently produced a good and recognizable electrocardiogram on the greeting card.
Seeing this thread also reminds me of our family doctor back when I was in HS and college. Our doctor was an older man who had been born, raised, and educated in Austria. He served and was wounded in WWI, fighting on the Austrian side, while already a young resident. When the Nazis came to power, he fled to the USA. Our doctor was a neighborhood character, with his office in his home. He did not care if he had a waiting room full of patients and patients standing due to a lack of seats. If you were in the office with him, he had all the time in the world. The doctor always spent time with each patient, knew their comings and goings, and caught up with each patient on what they were doing, and usually tied it in to some story or old-country tale. In my case, being an engineering student, the doctor had plenty to talk about when I'd see him. On one occasion, he told me about his first exposure to an electrocardiogram instrument. It was in the 1920's, and I believe he said it was Siemens who demonstrated the instrument in the hospital he was working at. He said the instrument was quite fragile, as it used a "glass filament" as a kind of spring, and was cumbersome and tricky to setup and use. Whenever I have an electrocardiogram- which is routine in our family practitioner's office- I think of our old neighborhood doctor and the story of that early electrocardiogram instrument. Your thread predates even that, and it is interesting to see the evolution of the instrument.
Recently, I had an echocardiogram done. It was because the family practice doc thought she heard a murmur when she listened to my heart with her stethescope. As luck would have it, the tech who was going to my echocardiogram was training another tech, and asked if it was OK to have him observe, and OK if he explained what the echocardiogram was showing. I said OK, but only if I could watch as well. The echocardiogram was quite interesting to watch- literally looking at imaging of my own heart in real time. The senior tech was quite learned and delivered what amounted to a lecture that likely could have been presented in a medical school. I enjoyed seeing the workings of my heart, watching the valves and effectively "walking through my own heart", aside from hearing the sound of the beating and blood flow.
Of course, the tech could not tell me anything as to what the echocardiogram showed. I had a feeling I was OK, but had to wait awhile until the doctor got back to me. She then said if I did have a murmur, it was nothing to be concerned over, and said it was probably because her office had done their electrocardiogram in the morning when I was likely running on a good load of strong black coffee.
It is quite an evolution from the instrument in this thread to the modern compact electrocardiogram instruments in doctor's offices, let alone an echo cardiogram. Thank you again for posting this thread.
Thank you for posting the youtube & accompanying pictures. The instrument in the youtube looks like something from an old physics laboratory, and seeing it work was quite interesting. While I was an undergraduate in engineering school, I worked in a variety of machine shops part time. One such shop, at the end of my undergraduate years, was the medical instrument shop at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Research Hospital in NYC. It was an opportunity to work on "fine work" rather than the heavier work I had been doing in other machine shops, and an exposure to working on surgical instruments as well as some of the radiation treatment and lab equipment.
By that point in time (1971), medical instruments had already come a long way from the instrument in this thread. Normally, if one sees photos of old medical instruments or diagnostic equipment, it is usually of "Roentgen" X-Ray apparatus. This instrument came as a bit of a surprise to me as I did not think the beginnings of electrocardiograms dates back as far as this thread describes. Seeing "Jimmy", the bulldog in the photos, he looks less than thrilled, but apparently produced a good and recognizable electrocardiogram on the greeting card.
Seeing this thread also reminds me of our family doctor back when I was in HS and college. Our doctor was an older man who had been born, raised, and educated in Austria. He served and was wounded in WWI, fighting on the Austrian side, while already a young resident. When the Nazis came to power, he fled to the USA. Our doctor was a neighborhood character, with his office in his home. He did not care if he had a waiting room full of patients and patients standing due to a lack of seats. If you were in the office with him, he had all the time in the world. The doctor always spent time with each patient, knew their comings and goings, and caught up with each patient on what they were doing, and usually tied it in to some story or old-country tale. In my case, being an engineering student, the doctor had plenty to talk about when I'd see him. On one occasion, he told me about his first exposure to an electrocardiogram instrument. It was in the 1920's, and I believe he said it was Siemens who demonstrated the instrument in the hospital he was working at. He said the instrument was quite fragile, as it used a "glass filament" as a kind of spring, and was cumbersome and tricky to setup and use. Whenever I have an electrocardiogram- which is routine in our family practitioner's office- I think of our old neighborhood doctor and the story of that early electrocardiogram instrument. Your thread predates even that, and it is interesting to see the evolution of the instrument.
Recently, I had an echocardiogram done. It was because the family practice doc thought she heard a murmur when she listened to my heart with her stethescope. As luck would have it, the tech who was going to my echocardiogram was training another tech, and asked if it was OK to have him observe, and OK if he explained what the echocardiogram was showing. I said OK, but only if I could watch as well. The echocardiogram was quite interesting to watch- literally looking at imaging of my own heart in real time. The senior tech was quite learned and delivered what amounted to a lecture that likely could have been presented in a medical school. I enjoyed seeing the workings of my heart, watching the valves and effectively "walking through my own heart", aside from hearing the sound of the beating and blood flow.
Of course, the tech could not tell me anything as to what the echocardiogram showed. I had a feeling I was OK, but had to wait awhile until the doctor got back to me. She then said if I did have a murmur, it was nothing to be concerned over, and said it was probably because her office had done their electrocardiogram in the morning when I was likely running on a good load of strong black coffee.
It is quite an evolution from the instrument in this thread to the modern compact electrocardiogram instruments in doctor's offices, let alone an echo cardiogram. Thank you again for posting this thread.
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