NEW METHODS OF DIAGNOSIS, AND FIRST APPEARANCE OF INSTRUCTORS IN SPECIAL DEPARTMENTS OF MEDICINE AT VIENNA.—It was during van Swieten’s lifetime that Auenbrugger’s new invention “for detecting, by means of percussion, the obscure diseases of the chest,” was published for the first time (1761) in Vienna. The value of this discovery, which was termed by him “Novum Inventum,” was not appreciated by physicians at that time. Even van Swieten and de Haen rather looked down on the method; and its importance was not fully recognized until Corvisart, the celebrated Paris physician, published a French translation of Auenbrugger’s book in 1808. This work, in which Corvisart gave his own experience and added many notes and comments, served to popularize Auenbrugger’s method as a valuable aid to diagnosis in affections of the chest. In his preface Corvisart announced that he was well aware of the small glory that came to translators and to those who simply comment on the work of others, but notwithstanding this fact he preferred that the major part of the glory should go to Auenbrugger who had rendered such a great service to the Profession by his invention. Auenbrugger, who died in 1809 at the age of 87, lived long enough to enjoy the pleasure of this triumph. His private practice grew to be very large, and he performed, more often than any other physician of his time, the operation of thoracentesis. He was universally loved and respected in Vienna. One of the first specialties to take root in Vienna toward the end of the eighteenth century was that of ophthalmology, and the physician who first succeeded in bringing it to a high stage of development was GEORGE JOSEPH BEER, who was born at Vienna in 1763. During his student days and for a short time subsequently he acted as a draughtsman for Joseph Barth, the professor of anatomy and physiology in the Vienna University, and in this way he obtained unusual opportunities for acquiring a knowledge of both the normal and the pathological anatomy of the eye. Already in 1793 he applied for, and was granted, permission to treat, in the _Allgemeine Krankenhaus_, such poor people as were suffering from cataract, and to perform the requisite operations. Each year, during the months of May and June, a suitable room was gotten ready for Beer in the hospital, and here, during this most favorable season of the year, he performed many cataract operations.