First off, you should probably ask a medical student there. You got the wrong group of Rube Goldbergs here. But here's a kind of guess (I did pick up a bunch of random info having a doctor for a father-in-law for 20 years). They are used to check hearing (crude method) through bone conduction. That is, a diagnosis that differentiates between what you hear through conduction and what you hear through sound waves in the air. Ken Jankura ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert Goodale" <rrg@unlv.edu> To: <pianotech@ptg.org> Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2002 9:11 PM Subject: Tuning forks in the medical profession? > Being a university tech I sometimes wonder down to the union for lunch. > Today I took a detour and browsed the book store for a moment. Having > a large medical program the book store stocks an inventory of supplies > for med students labs and classes. In the display were stethoscopes, > forceps, kits for student nurses, sphygmomanometers, and so on. Along > with this were tuning forks! Huge ones, (very low frequency), with > sliding adjustable weights on the tines to adjust the pitch. There were > two different sizes and the label proudly announced them as "highly > accurate for the medical profession". > > I would find it hard to believe that these are used for testing hearing > since the objective of a university it to teach techniques using current > and modern equipment. So what would one use a tuning fork for if one > were studying modern medicine? Perhaps to scan a patient's credit for > paying the bill? > > Rob Goodale, RPT > Las Vegas, NV > >
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