Heart Stethoscope
Heart Stethoscope
Heart Stethoscope
The heart stethoscope is mostly associated with the medical profession because doctors are identified with it hanging around their necks. Diagnostic advances have been achieved through time with the use of this lowly yet effective medical device. Today, this instrument continues to be an indispensable tool for medical practitioners in diagnosing cardiac, heart and even stomach related diseases, hence, it is named heart or cardiac stethoscope. But how exactly did this magnificent thing come about?
The invention of the stethoscope is credited to Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laennec, a French doctor who was involved in the restructuring and reorganization of the Necker-Enfants Malades Hospital located in Paris way back in 1816. His ingenuity fanned the invention when he discovered that sounds emanating from internal organs such as the chest and the lungs can help physicians in their diagnosis of diseases involving the heart and the lungs. Thus, he came up with a listening device that enabled the physicians to hear clearer, louder sound. With this device, doctors no longer needed to put their ears against the patient's chest.
His invention was highly instrumental in the diagnosis of diseases at the Hospital des Enfantes Malades, the first ever pediatric hospital in Europe. This device was later known as stethoscope, coming from the Greek word "stethos" meaning breast, and "skopeo", meaning look at. Laennec constructed the first stethoscope in France, composed mainly of a paper tube that later on evolved into a wooden tube. His monaural, single earpiece designs looked like the ear trumpets that were used mainly as crude hearing aids during those times.
The heart stethoscope underwent a series of evolutions. In fact, in 1851, another scientist, Arthur Leared invented the binaural stethoscope. Eventually in 1852, George Cammann came up with a more refined stethoscope that is exactly the one we have today. He fully backed up his invention with a scientific paper stating the milestones in the diagnostic process with the use of the new invention.
As efforts were made to further refine the stethoscope, another model was invented in 1873, which enabled doctors to collect sound data with a stereo effect. This however did not thrive in the market. Later into the 1940s, Rappaport and Sprague came up with a two-sided stethoscope to detect abnormalities in the respiratory system and in the cardiovascular system. This signaled the birth of the pediatric stethoscope bearing a chest piece appropriate for babies and small children. As the 1960s set in, Dr. David Littman of the Harvard Medical School made a lighter and more acoustic cardiac stethoscope. Soon into the 70s, 3M Littman came up with another advancement, the tunable diaphragm that accurately collected and recorded frequency of sound.
The heart stethoscopes our doctors have today are still the exact models created by Rappapport and Sprague in the 1940s but over the decades, the ownership rights were transferred from one entity to another. As the original makers bequeathed it to Hewlett-Packard, the latter later on became Agilent Technologies, Inc., which was later to become Agilent Healthcare. Soon, Philips took over it making it Philips Medical Systems. In 2004, the Rappapport and Sprague model finally vanished into obsolescence, giving way to finer versions of the cardiac stethoscope.
Another remarkable version of the cardiac stethoscope was made in 1999 where Richard Deslauriers earned the exclusive patent to the pioneering external noise-reducing stethoscope commonly known as DRG Puretone. Noise was blocked out with the aid of steel coils wrapped up in parallel lumens. It was in 2005, however, that TRIMLINE Medical Products bought DRG's diagnostics division.
With the rapid breakthroughs in the medical sciences today, more refined and more modern versions of the stethoscope are expected to flood the market. Likewise, with giant businesses and tycoon companies outsmarting and overcoming one another, the ownership of the stethoscope is sure to undergo a high turnover rate.
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