THE HISTORY OF THE STETHOSCOPE, STARTING WITH THE DISCOMFORT OF STICKING THE EAR TO THE CHEST

THE HISTORY OF THE STETHOSCOPE, STARTING WITH THE DISCOMFORT OF STICKING THE EAR TO THE CHEST

The stethoscope is one of the most widely used by health workers. In fact, this tool is easily found in stores freely.

However, do you know when and how the stethoscope was invented?

The stethoscope was invented by a French doctor named René Laennec in 1816. At that time, he was having a patient, a woman with heart problems who was overweight.

Quoted from the Brought to Life page, before the stethoscope was invented, doctors examined patients by placing their ears directly on the chest or back. This practice is called auscultation.

Laennec at that time felt uncomfortable examining the woman with the traditional practice. In addition, obesity also makes the examination difficult to do.

In his writings in De l'Auscultation Médiate published in August 1819, Laennec recounted his experience.

"The other method just mentioned (direct auscultation) was deemed unacceptable by the age and sex of the patient," Laennec wrote as quoted from Past Medical History.

However, the doctor who was born in 1781 remembered a simple technique he had learned. Laennec immediately rolled a piece of paper into something like a cylindrical tube and stuck it to the heart area on one side, while the other side on his ear.

"And I was not the least bit surprised and delighted to find that I was able to feel the movement of the heart in a much clearer and different way than I had ever done with direct application of the ear," he said.

Laennec then continued his discovery by making a version made of wood that could be used every day. He called it a stethoscope which comes from the Greek words 'stetos' for chest and 'scopos' or examination.

In 1819, he presented his findings at the Académie de Médecine. There, the stethoscope was welcomed and began to be used by doctors throughout Europe, then continued to the United States and the rest of the world.

In 1840, the British physician Golding Bird invented a more flexible stethoscope with a "hose." The design continued to be changed by doctors around the world until in 1851, Irish physician Arthur Leared created the first binaural stethoscope.

Meanwhile, the first electronic stethoscope was produced in the 1970s and continues to be refined. How about Laennec?

The inventor of the stethoscope died in 1826 at the relatively young age of 45 years. Ironically, Laennec died of tuberculosis.

Before his death, Laennec said that the stethoscope was the greatest legacy in his life.