What is A stethoscope?

A stethoscope is an auditory medical appliance mainly used by the health practitioners for auscultation or perceiving the internal vibrations of a creature or human body. In simple words, it contains small disc shape resonators which are put against the chest coupled with two other tubes connected to the earpiece.

History

In the year 1816, Rene Laennec invented stethoscope at Enfants Malades sanatorium located in Paris in France. Laennec being a doctor, he had some challenges positioning his ears every time on the chests’ of women to perceive heart hums. For this reason, he formulated an idea to invent a stethoscope that would help decipher the situation.

In his first invention, he tried out by rolling a notebook then positioned it between his ear and the patient’s chest to intensify heart sounds without any bodily contact. Time back, the use of ear trumpet to aid in perceiving audio can then be attributed to his first innovation.

The first flexible stethoscope was the binaural instrument which had the uttered dual. By 1840, Golden Bird published his first description on the stethoscope. Bird proved to be the first publisher of this prominent stethoscope but acknowledge the previous invention of earliest design which in his paper he published as of very little importance.

In the year 1851, an Irish doctor by the name Arthur Leared came up with another stethoscope design which was presented in the form of the binaural stethoscope. A year later, George Philip Cammann improved its design. Cammann researched and wrote about the excellent theory on the examination by auscultation, which in his script he attributed as the achievement of the advanced binaural stethoscope.

By the year 1873, several inventions, as well as descriptions of different types of the stethoscope, had come up. It could be quickly noticed that the main stressing points for all the inventions were the ability to generate the binaural effect. However, this innovative struggle never emerged as the best apparatus in the clinical practice.

In the year 1940s, Rappaport along with Sprague devised another brand which emerged the best among all other stethoscopes. This brand was constituted of two sides; one side for respiratory while the other hand was used for blood mechanisms.

Some improvements were then made to the stethoscopes until in the early on years of the 1960s when David Littmann a professor from Harvard Medical School invented another brand of the stethoscope that was lighter in weight and design as compared to the previous brands.

In the year 1999, Richard Desclauries invented another stethoscope that was in demand in spite of its uproar. This fantastic stethoscope had two matching lumens as well as the same number of steel coils designed to dispel sensitive noise.

Common Uses of Stethoscope

Typically a stethoscope is used to perceive sounds from the lungs as well as a heart. On the other hand, this fantastic instrument helps the medical practitioners  to understand noises in the intestines along with the flow of blood in arteries and veins.

This implausible device is made up of sphygmomanometer which is mainly used to take the measurements of blood pressure.

So it can be seen that stethoscope gives the medical practitioners the ability to perceive internal sounds, and the ability of every stethoscope to deliver clear and precise sound depends on its design.