The Genesis of Heart Sounds

Abstract

IT IS possible that the existence of the heart sounds was known to Hippocrates¹ and even that he made use of his knowledge for diagnostic purposes, but William Harvey² seems to have been the first to make specific reference to them: "With each movement of the heart as a quantity of blood is delivered from the veins to the arteries, a pulse takes place, which may be heard in the chest."It is rather astonishing that the physicians of that time had thus far paid no attention to the heart sounds, but it is even more astonishing that their existence, . . .