Understanding Lung Sounds

Abstract

How long has it been since you have heard bronchial breath sounds over the chest of a patient with pneumonia? How long since you have heard amphoric breath sounds, late inspiratory crackles, monophonic wheezes, inspiratory and expiratory squawks, and egobronchophony? Well, here is your chance to hear them. Steven Lehrer's cassette tape has these as well as a lot of the other sounds that sick lungs make. And if for some mysterious acoustical reasons, best known to himself, Dr Lehrer recommends listening to the tape through a stethoscope while holding its bell 2 to 3 in from the speaker of the tape player, I shall not gainsay him. Accompanying his cassette tape, Dr Lehrer's paperback gives a bird's eye view of contemporary pulmonology. He discusses, for example, both normal and abnormal breath sounds. Turbulent air flow in lobar and segmental bronchi produces the normal breath sounds. In the alveoli, he