stethoscope

stethoscope, medical instrument used in listening to sounds produced within the body, chiefly in the heart or lungs. It was invented by the French physician R.T.H. Laënnec, who in 1819 described the use of a perforated wooden cylinder to transmit sounds from the patient’s chest (Greek: stēthos) to the physician’s ear. This monaural stethoscope was modified to more convenient forms, but it has been largely supplanted by the binaural type with two flexible rubber tubes attaching the chest piece to spring-connected metal tubes with earpieces. In listening to heart sounds, in particular, it is necessary to use both a bell-shaped, open-ended chest piece, which transmits low-pitched sounds well, and the flat chest piece covered with a semirigid disk (diaphragm type) that detects sounds of higher frequency. Instruments having both types of chest piece, arranged so that they can be rapidly interchanged by turning a valve, are widely used.