Stethoscope

I was at the doctor the other day for a check-up and notice that she was using a littman stethoscope. That got me to wondering - when were stethoscopes first invented.

The stethoscope was invented in 1816 by a Frenchman named René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laennec. It had a wooden tube and looked like an ear trumpet. In 1851, Arthur Leared perfected the instrument by making it binaural (which means there are two channels - one for each ear). Commercial production of the instrument came in 1852 when George Cammann perfected the design. In the 1940’s, Rappaport and Sprague designed a new stethoscope which is now the standard.

The stethoscope is used to listen to internal body sounds, such as the heart, breathing, intestines and blood flow. It has become one of the symbols of the medical profession.