The Stethoscope

Laennec's monaural stethoscope with his hat, circa 1819, Warren Anatomical Museum collection, Center for the History of Medicine in the Francis A. Countway Library, Harvard University

Stethoscopes

Before 1819 the only method of auscultation was “ear to the chest.” In 1816, Dr. René Laennec, a chest disease specialist, rolled sheets of paper into a cylinder in order to examine a young female patient without intimate contact. He found the method worked surprisingly well. This led to his invention of the monaural stethoscope in 1819. He created the word stethoscope from the Greek words for “chest” and “examine.” Made of two parts fitted together, the original stethoscope was assembled with the chest plug protruding from the funnel shaped chest end.

Plate 1 from De l'auscultation médiate, 1819 by Laennec, R. T. H. (René Théophile Hyacinthe), 1781-1826. Harvard Medical Library collection, Center for the History of Medicine in the Francis A. Countway Library, Harvard University

The design for the monaural stethoscope was first published in 1819, appearing in Plate 1 of De l'auscultation médiate, 1819 by Laennec, R. T. H. (René Théophile Hyacinthe), 1781-1826. This book, call number "Rare Books RC76.3 .L12 c.3 v.1," is in the Harvard Medical Library collection, Center for the History of Medicine in the Francis A. Countway
Library, Harvard University..

Warren Anatomical Museum collection, Center for the History of Medicine in the Francis A. Countway Library, Harvard University

Flexible monaural stethoscope, circa 1830s

In the late 1820s a flexible version of the stethoscope was introduced.

This example, donated to the Warren Anatomical Museum by J.B.S. Jackson in 1871, has a brass chest and earpiece with a silk sleeve covering a coiled spring.

Warren Anatomical Museum collection, Center for the History of Medicine in the Francis A. Countway Library, Harvard University

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Wooden Denison’s type binaural stethoscope, circa 1885

The screw mechanism adjusting the tension between the earpieces was an improvement to earlier designs. This style stethoscope incorporated interchangeable bells of different sizes. Used, as seen here, without the bell, for the auscultation of children.

The first commercial binaural stethoscopes became available in the 1850s and the style swiftly became doctors’ archetypical medical tool.

Brigham and Women's Hospital collection, Center for the History of Medicine in the Francis A. Countway Library, Harvard University

Dual earpiece, teaching stethoscope, circa 1960s

This teaching stethoscope has one chest piece and two sets of binaural joined together to allow two people to listen simultaneously. From a collection of instruments used for training nurses donated to the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Archives by the family of Shirley Egan, Director of the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital School of Nursing, 1979–1985.