Stethoscopes are acoustic listening devices used by medical professionals to listen to sounds inside the body. The first stethoscope was invented in 1816 by French doctor René Laënnec. He rolled up a piece of paper and on one end placed his ear, and placed the other end against his patient’s chest to listen to the sounds coming from within. They can help physicians hear different sounds coming from many areas including the heart, lungs and bowels. The act of listening to the internal sounds of the body, usually using a stethoscope is called Auscultation (based on the Latin verb auscultare (to listen).
The word stethoscope comes from two Greek words: stethos (chest) and skopein (to view or see).
Made of wood and brass, this is one of the original stethoscopes belonging to the French physician Rene Theophile Laennec (1781-1826) who devised the first stethoscope in 1816. It consists of a single hollow tube. The familiar binaural stethoscope, with rubber tubing going to both ears, was not developed until the 1850s. Regarded as the father of chest medicine, Laennec demonstrated the importance of the instrument in diagnosing diseases of the lungs, heart and vascular systems.
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