Monday, July 06, 2020
Telemedicine in 1855
From Dionysius Lardner's 1855 book on the telegraph.
The main users of telegraphy, based on a sample of 5000 messages:
General merchants 1954
Stock and share transactions 1441
Ship insurers, brokers 339
Banking messages 315 .
Corn dealers 272
Betting 233
Personal and domestic 201
General brokers 117
Tradesmen 50
Cotton brokers, & c. 34
Law 31
Political 6
Always the same, from Chappe's semaphore to the electric telegraph to the web to HFT. Stock swindlers are the main users of fast communication.
Here's a much less famous usage that surprised me:
Nothing is more frequent in the United States than electric medical consultations. A patient in or near a country village desires to consult a leading medical practitioner in a chief city, such as New York or Philadelphia, at four or five hundred miles distance. With the aid of the local apothecary, or without it, he draws up a short statement of his case, sends it along the wires, and in an hour or two receives the advice he seeks, and a prescription.This was supposedly common!
Labels: Morsenet of Things
¶ 4:09 PM
