Listening to the Body Electric - continued...

Conclusion

Apparatus for the electro-acoustic amplification of heart sounds (K recording capsule, M microphone, TK microphone transformer, I, II, III amplifier stages, L speaker, V valve). Taken from: Scheminsky. 1927. Untersuchungen über die Verstärkung und graphische Registrierung von Schallerscheinungen über Herz und Lunge mittels Elektronenröhren, p. 480

The use of telephones in 19th-century electrophysiology exemplifies the productive power of the ambiguous notion of the "sounding body." In an emerging world of technologies for sound reproduction and sound transmission, "sounding bodies" do not have to actively sound by themselves; instead, various sources of oscillations can be transformed into a "virtual sounding body" and can then be analyzed by listening scientists. As we have seen, in electrophysiology, there is no sound in muscular and nervous activity. However, coupled with the phenomeno-technology of the electric telephone, "bodies" begin to aurally express themselves through a mediated form of electrical auscultation. Therefore, the use of the telephone as an auditory display challenges our understanding of sight and sound and their respective roles in the history of science. Sound is obviously able to provide answers to scientific questions and thus can form a sound knowledge – in both senses of the word "sound."