When a boy, Auenbrugger, the son of an inkeeper, is said to have learned to establish the level of wine in a cask by putting his ear to the wood and tapping it. Applying the same technique to the human chest, this musically-gifted doctor noticed that abnormal sounds -- tympanitic or dull and obscure, as opposed to the "drum" sound of a healthy chest -- gave an indication of an underlying disease of the heart or lungs. He used his "New Discovery of Detecting from Percussion of the Human Chest obscure Diseases within the Breast" while practising at the Spanish hospital in Vienna, having "carefully verified his findings by dissection before committing them to paper ... Although he gave notice 'to all doctors' that percussion 'deserves first place after examining the pulse and respiration,' his method was not adopted by van Swieten -- the leading Viennese physician -- his former teacher, nor by de Haen, physician to the Vienna Clinic. De Haen's successor, Maximilian Stoll, took it up but died prematurely ... Auenbrugger retired from his hospital in 1762, had a distinguished career in private practice, and was ennobled in 1784 for his medical achievement. In 1783, he published a psychological study of the urge to commit suicide ... Unassuming and sedate, he did not appear concerned that his new method of diagnosis remained almost unnoticed until a year before his death" [Lilly]