1851 Great Exhibition: Official Catalogue: Class X.: William Matthews
181. MATTHEWS, WILLIAM, 10 Portugal Street — Manufacturer.
Stethoscope—the ear-piece, subserving the uses of both a conductor and sounding board, is of large dimensions, so as to transmit the vibrations of the instrument undiminished.
[The science of medicine is indebted to Laennec, a French physician, for the discovery of the stethoscope. This physician first made known the important fact, that diseases of the heart and lungs might be rendered perceptible to a practised ear by the intervention simply of a hollow cylinder of wood. The instrument in all its forms is merely a medium for the conveyance of sound, healthy or morbid, to the ear of the physician. Stethoscopes are made in various materials; those of light deal are to be preferred.—R. E.]
Specula for the ear, etc., made of glass, silvered with silver leaf, and covered with cotton cloth and elastic gum.
Gilbert's patent fulcrum and chair, for extracting teeth.
New swinging apparatus for the treatment of fractures of the leg; to prevent the bed-clothes from interfering with the motion of the leg.
Inhaler, for opium and other medicines requiring the aid of heat for their inhalation.
Inhaler, for administering chloroform in surgical operations, with water-bath to regulate the evaporation. Inhaler, for hydrocyanic acid, conicine, and other medicines.
Table knives.