A stethoscope is a dependable clinical tool used for the physical assessment and monitoring of a patient. The stethoscope was invented in 1816 by a French scientist, Rene Laennec. He placed a rolled piece of paper between the patient’s chest and his ear; he found that this could amplify the sound of the beating heart. This was readily accepted, as it did not require physical contact.
In 1851, Irish physician Arthur Leared invented a basic binaural stethoscope. In 1852, George Philip Cammann introduced the modern binaural stethoscope for commercial production. Rappaport and Sprague designed a new stethoscope in the 1940s, which became the standard by which other stethoscopes are measured.
In the early 1960s, an improved model was developed by David Littmann. Later, in 1999, Richard Deslauriers patented the first external noise reducing stethoscope, named DRG Puretone.
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