Who Invented Stethoscope And When?

Stethoscope is a medical device that is used by medical professionals in their pre-diagnosis treatments of a medical patient. It is used to listen to the internal sounds, like heartbeats in the body. It is also used to listen to the intestines and also the blood flow in the arteries, veins and capillaries. This device was invented in France in 1816 by Rene Lannec at the Necker-Enfants Maledes Hospital in Paris. His earliest device consisted of a wooden tube and was monaural, like an ear trumpet. This kickstarted many more inventions to come.

The stethoscope is a device used in medical science to listen to internal sounds in the human body, called auscultation in medical terminology. It was invented in 1816 by a French Physician René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laennec. His design consisted of a single wooden tube and is known today as the monaural stethoscope.

In the early 1850's there was a rush of designs for a new stethoscope that used both ears. This new binaural (bi-aural) instrument was felt to be the future of auscultation. Arthur Leared presented a model of a 'double' stethoscope made of gutta-percha at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851 The first commercially marketed model was that of Nathan Marsh of Cincinnati in 1851.

In 1852, Dr. George Cammann of New York produced the first recognized usable binaural stethoscope. He was working as a physician at the Northern Dispensary in New York City and had seen Marsh's model. And Charles J. B. Williams claims to have made a binaural stethoscope with lead tubes in 1843.

Dr. George Cammann of New York produced the first recognized usable binaural stethoscope.