Physiologic Basis for the Heart Sounds and Their Clinical Significance

A SEARCH for cardiac murmurs is frequently the major objective of cardiac auscultation, and all too often insufficient attention is given to the heart sounds. In the past few years there has been a new awareness of the importance of these sounds and of the clinical information that can be obtained from careful study of their component parts. In clinical auscultation the presence or absence of cardiac murmurs is, of course, of great diagnostic importance. It is our purpose in this report, however, to review briefly some of the recent knowledge of the physiology of the heart sounds and to . . .