There are all sorts of things you might say about this device. I am not going to say

any of them.

It does, though, remind me of the old Chinese method of taking a lady’s

pulse. (Pulses, actually — in traditional Chinese medicine you have

several — nine, I think.)

Because a well-born Chinese lady could not be touched by any man other than

her husband, taking the pulse of a female patient presented problems for

Chinese doctors, who were exclusively male. Part of their training,

therefore, was the taking of a pulse remotely, using a chopstick. One end

of the chopstick rests on the lady’s pulse point, the other on the doctor’s

finger.

When I first read about this (it’s in one of Lu Xun’s short stories) I gave

it a try, but couldn’t feel anything. There must be some art there. Or

possibly traditional Chinese medicine was all a fraud — Lu Xun’s own

opinion was not far from that, I think.