Palpation is the practice of feeling the stiffness of a patient's tissues with the practitioner's hands.
Manual palpation dates back at least to 1500 BC, with the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus and Edwin Smith Papyrus both giving instructions on diagnosis with palpation.
In ancient Greece, Hippocrates gave instructions on many forms of diagnosis using palpation, including palpation of the breasts, wounds, bowels, ulcers, uterus, skin, and tumours.
In the modern Western world, palpation became considered a respectable method of diagnosis in the 1930s.
Since then, the practice of palpation has become widespread, and it is considered an effective method of detecting tumours and other pathologies.

Manual palpation, however, suffers from several important limitations: it is limited to tissues accessible to the physician's hand, it is distorted by any intervening tissue, and it is qualitative but not quantitative.
Elastography, the measurement of tissue stiffness, seeks to address these challenges.
Palpation is the practice of feeling the stiffness of a patient's tissues with the practitioner's hands. Manual palpation dates back at least to 1500 BC, with the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus and Edwin Smith Papyrus both giving instructions on diagnosis with palpation. In ancient Greece, Hippocrates gave instructions on many forms of diagnosis using palpation, including palpation of the breasts, wounds, bowels, ulcers, uterus, skin, and tumours. In the modern Western world, palpation became considered a respectable method of diagnosis in the 1930s. Since then, the practice of palpation has become widespread, and it is considered an effective method of detecting tumours and other pathologies.
Manual palpation, however, suffers from several important limitations: it is limited to tissues accessible to the physician's hand, it is distorted by any intervening tissue, and it is qualitative but not quantitative. Elastography, the measurement of tissue stiffness, seeks to address these challenges.
Elastography