What is the history of the Stethoscope?

Answer 1

For decades, physicians relied almost solely on the stethoscope

From the time it was invented in 1816 until early this century, the stethoscope was the most reliable and informative tool available for diagnosing cardiovascular disease. Although other, more sophisticated diagnostic methods have come into use since then, the stethoscope has never been discarded.

"At the turn of the century...diagnosis relied on taking a history and examining the heart with a stethoscope, and treatment consisted mainly of rest and a few standard oral medications." said W. Bruce Fye, a University of Wisconsin cardiologist and historian.

The stethoscope battles embarrassment

Since the time of Hippocrates, physicians listened directly to patients' chests as they tried to assess cardiac health. The inventor of the stethoscope, Rene Theophile-Hyacinthe Laennec, relied on this method, too.

One day, when he needed to examine an obese young woman, Laennec hesitated to put his head to her chest. Remembering that you can hear a pin scraping one end of a plank by putting your ear to the other end, he came up with the idea for a stethoscope prototype. He rolled a stack of paper into a cylinder, pressed one end to the patient's chest, and held his ear to the other end.

"I was surprised and pleased to hear the beating of the heart much more clearly than if I had applied my ear directly to the chest," Laennec said in 1816.

Laennec's first manufactured stethoscope was a simple wooden tube. A succession of different designs followed his, including, eventually, a "binaural" type with two ear pieces. In 1850, George Camman substituted rubber for stiffer materials and made a more comfortable model-the forerunner of today's stethoscopes.