Medicine: Sounds of Sickness

Many mothers believe that they can determine whether a baby is ill or merely hungry by the way it cries. A South African pediatrician believes that doctors can often diagnose an infant's illness or defect from the sound of its crying. With this in mind, Dr. Eugene Weinberg catalogued 20 characteristic sounds and identified the conditions that cause them. Now he has produced a recording of these cries to help other physicians recognize and understand them.

Titled Sound Diagnosis, Dr. Weinberg's record is a heart-rending collection of the sounds of sickness. On it is the grunting cough of a child with hyaline membrane disease, a frequently fatal condition that occurs in premature infants. Also included is the feline mewing of a baby with cat-cry syndrome, a congenital defect that produces abnormal development of the brain, and the wheezing gasp of an asthmatic infant. Only one of the sounds on the 45-r.p.m. disk makes for pleasant listening. Obviously included for purposes of comparison, it reproduces the lusty cry of a healthy newborn.

Weinberg believes that his record will help to fill a definite medical need. "A baby can't tell you what's wrong with it," he explains. "A doctor has to use every sign he can to make a diagnosis." He hopes that doctors and nurses will familiarize themselves with the sounds on the record and learn to recognize the telltale cries of infants. So apparently does Pfizer Laboratories, one of the world's largest drug producers. The company has ordered 3,000 copies of the record for distribution in South Africa, and plans soon to make the record available on request in European and other African countries.