PERCUSSION NOTE OF THE MAXILLARY SINUS

The introduction of a problem of physical diagnosis to otolaryngologists may seem like turning back a number of pages in the history of medicine. In reality, the urge to present this subject comes from a realization that much of the art of medicine is being lost with the development of other diagnostic methods. Younger practitioners are reported to be deficient in physical diagnosis by chiefs of tuberculosis sanatoriums. Graduate students in otolaryngology are entering the specialty with less of the background of general medicine than formerly. The time of the otolaryngologist is so limited in studying his patients that short cuts are used and the opinions of others are too often taken at face value. Except by a comparative few, practitioners in internal medicine, the art of physical diagnosis is being neglected, and its loss is not fully compensated for by the substituted methods. Of the classic methods of physical