Skoda

Skoda Josef (Josef Skoda; 1805-1881), known German clinician, one of the foremost representatives of the so-called 'young' ('new') Vienna school. Graduated from the medical faculty of Vienna University in 1831. From 1833, junior physician at Vienna's Allgemeines Krankenhaus hospital. From 1846 to 1871, ordinary professor and head of the therapeutic clinic at Vienna University. The first in Vienna to begin lecturing in the German language. Skoda's main contribution to medi-

cine was the treatise on percussion and auscultation - "Untersuchung über Perkussion und Auskultation" (Vienna, 1839), which gives him the right to be considered one of the founders of physical diagnosis. Skoda attempted to classify sound phenomena in percussion of the chest according to their pitch and timbre: dull - clear, tympanic - muffled, high - low, etc. He also described the so-called Skoda's sound (in pneumonia and effusion in the pericardium). Although the physical basis of the theory of sound was little known in Skoda's time, his detailing and acoustic clarification of sound phenomena represented a significant step forward compared to the vague descriptions of his French contemporaries. Not seeing particular benefit from the widely used bloodletting, cupping, and other measures of his time, he abandoned them, but fell into another extreme - therapeutic nihilism. He is credited with the words: 'We can recognize, describe, and understand disease, but we must not even dream of the possibility of influencing it by any means.' Based on this, Skoda believed that all medical activity should be limited to establishing the most accurate diagnosis possible, based on all physical methods of investigation.