ausculation

Osam Dazaiの小説 "The Setting Sun" (Donald Keen訳)を読んでいます。

He took three pears from a shelf in the corner of his reception room and offered them to me. He appeared a little after noon in his formal clothes. As usual he spent an interminable time in ausculation and percussion, at last turning to me with the words, "There is nothing to excite alarm. If your mother takes the medicine which I shall prescribe, she will recover."

"ausculation and percussion" は医者がすることを指していますが、まず "ausculation" を調べます。いつも使っている辞書検索のOnelookでは普通の辞書には載っていませんでしたが、次の辞典に説明がありました。

・Collins Discovery Encyclopedia: the diagnostic technique in medicine of listening to the various internal sounds made by the body, usually with the aid of a stethoscope
・McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms: The act of listening to sounds from internal organs, especially the heart and lungs, to aid in diagnosing their physical state.

聴診器で検査することですね。すると "percussion" は医者がよく手と指を使って体を叩いて調べることですね。

・Merriam-Webster: the act or technique of tapping the surface of a body part to learn the condition of the parts beneath by the resultant sound
・Wiktionary: The tapping of the body as an aid to medical diagnosis.

上記小説の引用文の少し後に次の文がありました。

The doctor, his ausculator dangling from his shoulders like a necklace, slouched in a wicker chair.

"ausculator" は "ausculation" をする為の道具なので聴診器ですが、聴診器は普通 "stethoscope" ですよね。 "stethoscope" は大分前に通訳ガイドの資格をとる時に覚えた単語です。