Škoda, Josef

Born Dec. 10, 1805, in Pilsen; died June 13, 1881, in Vienna. Czech doctor of internal medicine.

Škoda moved to Vienna in 1825, and in 1831 he graduated from the medical faculty of the University of Vienna. From 1846 to 1871 he was a professor at the university. Skoda and K. Rokitansky were the leading representatives of the new Vienna school, which emphasized the advantages of observing the patient at his bedside and studying the physical symptoms of disease and the underlying changes in organs. The school played a prominent role in the development of clinical medicine. Skoda developed and substantiated the concepts of percussion and auscultation and helped promote these techniques of physical examination in clinical practice. He also showed the dependence of heart sounds not only on anatomical lesions of the valves but also on the rate of blood flow, and he described several symptoms revealed by auscultation. His activities and research contributed greatly to the development of cardiology, pulmonology, and dermatology. Škoda founded a clinical school (F. von Hebra and others).