The electronic reactions of Abrams through wire
Abrams wished to find out if the information from his specimens would pass through a six-foot length of flex wire. In the next experiment a metal disc, two inches in diameter and furnished with a wooden handle, was soldered to each end of the wire, the subject being told to place the disc he was holding in contact with his forehead: some bystander was to be ready to hold the other, the distal, disc immediately above a pathological specimen which would be placed, alone, on the glass-topped table. Abrams made ready to percuss, and was pleased to find that the interposition of six feet wire between the specimens and the "subject" in no way affected the definiteness of the induced reactions.
The problem of differential diagnosis remained. A cancerous specimen was detectable, so also was a syphilitic specimen, or a sarcomatous specimen, but the problem of DIFFERENTIATING one form of disease from another, that seemed for Abrams insoluble. Abrams' class of physicians however received a little thrill of excitement when Abrams pointed out that it made no real difference if the experimental pathological specimen was placed on the glass-topped table, or was contained within the body of a living man! He enquired if any member of the class had reason to suspect a focus of disease in either of his organs, whereupon one of the students volunteered the information that a year previously he had received sanatorium treatment for early pulmonary tuberculosis, and would be most interested to learn if, by means of the tubercle reaction, Abrams could detect the exact site of the infection. Abrams willingly consented. The doctor-patient took his place alongside the 'subject', who held the disc at his end of the wire against his forehead, Abrams sat ready to percuss that area of the "subject's" abdominal wall, just below the navel, an assistant grasping the handle attached to the distal disc would at a word from Abrams, place the distal disc over every part of the patient's chest while the members of the class, tense with excitement, awaited the tell-tale change in the percussion note which would (or should!) occur when the disc, picking up the tubercular radiations, reached and was held over the affected spot and the ringing, resonant percussion note did change to a dull dead note at the moment when the distal disc was placed over, as it happened, the extreme apex of the patient's right lung. The doctor-patient admitted that there was still tuberculosis in the apex of the right lung.