René Laennec (1787–1826) and his pupils Pierre Adolphe Piorry (1794–1879) and Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud (1796–1881) added auscultation to this method. Škoda began his clinical studies in close connexion with pathological anatomy while assistant physician of the hospital, but his superiors failed to understand his course, and in 1837, by way of punishment, transferred him to the ward for the insane, as it was claimed that the patients were annoyed by his investigations, especially by the method of percussion. His first publication, "Über die Perkussion" (About Percussion) in the "Medizinische Jahrbücher des k.k. österreichen Kaiserstaates", IX (1836), attracted little attention. This paper was followed by: "Über den Herzstoss und die durch die Herzbewegungen verursachten Töne und über die Anwendung der Perkussion bei Untersuchung der Organe des Unterleibes" (About the Percussion of the Heart and the Sounds Originated by Heart Movements, and Its Application to the Investigation of Organs of the Abdomen), in the same periodical, vols XIII, XIV (1837); "Über Abdominaltyphus und dessen Behandlung mit Alumen crudum" (About Abdominal Typhus and Its Treatment with Alumen), also in the same periodical, vol. XV (1838); "Untersuchungsmethode zur Bestimmung des Zustandes des Herzens" (Methods of Investigation of the Conditions of the Heart), vol. XVIII (1839); "Über Pericarditis in pathologisch-anatomischer und diagnostischer Beziehung" (About Pericarditis in Pathological Anatomic and Diagnostic Relationships), XIX (1839); "Über Piorrys Semiotik und Diagnostik" (About Piorry's Semiotic and Diagnostics), vol. XVIII (1839); "Über die Diagnose der Herzklappenfehler" (About the Diagnosis of Defects of Heart Valves), vol. XXI (1840). His small, but for many years afterwards, unsurpassed chief work, "Abhandlung über die Perkussion und Auskultation" (Vienna, 1839), was repeatedly published and translated into foreign languages and established his universal renown as a diagnostician. In 1841, after a journey for research to Paris, he made a separate division in his department for skin diseases and thus gave the first impulse towards the reorganization of dermatology by Ferdinand von Hebra. In 1848 at the request of the Ministry of Education he drew up a memorial on the reorganization of medical education, and encouraged later by his advice the founding of the present higher administration of the Medical School of Vienna. As regards therapeutics the accusation was often made against him that he held to the "nihilism" of the Vienna School. As a matter of fact his therapeutics were exceedingly simple in contrast to the great variety of remedial agents used at that time, which he