When people go to the doctor, they often have their lungs and hearts looked at using a stethoscope. It is easy to overlook this as a common doctor’s tool, but it has Celtic roots. Before the invention of the stethoscope, doctors put their ears to their patients’ chests, but that was not effective for some patients.
The original stethoscope was invented by Rene Leannec. Leannec was born in
Quimper, Brittany, on February 17, 1781. His mother died of tuberculosis when
he was six, and his father sent him to live with his granduncle. When he was 12,
he visited Nantes, where his uncle was a physician and a professor.
This inspired Leannec to go to Paris to obtain an education
in medicine at the age of 19. During his time at the Hôpital de la Charité, he studied
under several well-known physicians. As a student, he gave one of the world’s
first lectures on melanoma, and the lecture was published later that year.
Leannec became a physician in 1804 and a musician who carved
his own flutes. He realized, with one of his patients, that the typical method
of putting an ear to his patient’s chest to hear their heartbeat and lungs was ineffective.
It was hard to hear the heart and lungs of those who carried excess weight, and
it was awkward (or even impermissible) to place his ear on the chest of women. He thought about
playing with a hollow tube as a child and how this amplified sound.
In 1816, in order to simulate the tube, he rolled up a stack
of paper and was shocked that this method was effective in amplifying the sound
of the patient’s lungs and heart. As time went on, he fine-tuned his method by
incorporating brass and wood, which became the first stethoscope.
Throughout the years, the stethoscope has slowly evolved
into the model doctors use today. In 1851, NB Marsh created a stethoscope that
had two earpieces, which helped block out background noise so patients’ hearts
and lungs can be heard more easily. In 1960, Dr. David Littmann designed and
patented a new model that was bought by 3M. This model is the closest to what
we use today. In 1999, a stethoscope was created that could replay heart and
chest sounds.