Prior to 1907, little or no use was made of the sphygmomanometer except in clinical cases. Three years ago in a paper delivered before the Medical Directors Association, I said:
No practitioner of medicine should be without a sphygmomanometer. He has in this instrument a most valuable aid in diagnosis. The sphygmomanometer is indispensable in life-insurance examinations, and the time is not far distant when all progressive life-insurance companies will require its use in all examinations of applicants for life insurance.
To-day this prediction is practically fulfilled, and no up-to-date practitioner is without this very valuable aid in diagnosis, much of which has been due to the requirements of life-insurance companies in insisting on their examiners using the sphygmomanometer in examinations for life insurance. I have received hundreds of letters thanking me for insisting on its use in examinations for the company and testifying to its very great value in