To the Editor:
—Apropos of the noteby Dr. Goodman, referring to the short life of rubber bulbs, in The Journal, Jan. 14, 1911, p. 113, and the letter on the same subject by Dr. Albert Robin, in The Journal, Feb. 4, 1911, p. 367, it occurs to me that it might be of general interest to note that the perishability of rubber bulbs, such as are used with sphygmomanometers, has been known for many years. Hill and Barnard, as early as 1897, employed a metal pump similar to that used for inflating bicycle tires on a sphygmomanometer devised by them, and reported it in the Brit. Med. Jour., 1897, ii, 904.Having encountered the same difficulty in my work with sphygmomanometers, I have had made pumps of two varieties which may now be obtained from instrument dealers at small cost. These pumps are small and are each fitted with a