RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 The history of reflex hammers
JF Neurology
JO Neurology
FD Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
SP 1542
OP 1542
DO 10.1212/WNL.39.11.1542
VO 39
IS 11
A1 Lanska, Douglas J.
YR 1989
UL http://n.neurology.org/content/39/11/1542.abstract
AB Following the simultaneous description of muscle stretch reflexes by Heinrich Erb and Carl Westphal in 1875, neurologists used direct finger taps or chest percussion hammers to elicit these phenomena. Because of inadequacies of chest percussion hammers for eliciting muscle stretch reflexes, a variety of hammers were developed specifically for this purpose. In 1888, J. Madison Taylor, working for S. Weir Mitchell at the Philadelphia Orthopedic Hospital, designed the first such “reflex hammer.” Taylor's hammer had a triangular rubber head and a short, flattened metal handle. Krauss (1894), Berliner (1910), Troemner (1910), Babinski (1912), and Wintle (1925) also designed popular reflex hammers. Many of these hammers and several others are still in use.