[Reprinted from The Medical News, July 13, 1895.] 
4 NEW PLEXIMETER. 
BY BOARDMAN REED, M.D., 
OF ATLANTIC CITY, N. J. 
In determining the position, size, and exact boundaries 
of the accessible abdominal organs, indirect percussion 
offers distinct advantages over direct percussion. It 
enables the physician to detect more delicate shades in 
the percussion-note, such as those between the reso- 
nance over the stomach and that over the empty colon, 
and in determining the boundaries between the colon 
and the small intestine. 
For the new specialty of diseases of the digestive 
organs, which is now assuming such great importance 
in the medical world, a good percussor and pleximeter 
are therefore indispensable. The percussors found in 
the instrument-stores are generally satisfactory, but not 
so the pleximeters. All that I have seen hitherto are 
inconvenient to use, and very awkward to carry in the 
pocket. The following cut represents a pleximeter I 
have devised to overcome these defects: 
CO. P///ZA. 
It is made of rubber of medium hardness, so as to be 
moderately elastic and yet rigid enough to permit of 
being pressed firmly against the part percussed. The 
ends are of unequal size, the smaller end usually serv- 
ing as the handle, but in percussing between the ribs of 
children, above the clavicle, or in any place where very 
delicate percussion is necessary, the larger end may be 
used as the handle, whitey the .smaller serves as the 
pleximeter.