Binaural Stethoscopes 20th century
Various 20th century binaural stethoscopes ion their original cardboard boxes.
In 1980, a newly licensed Psychiatric Technician often had to struggle with agitated patients while trying to get his stethoscope in place to take vital signs. He adapted the Littmann stethoscope and devised a binaural headset tension mechanism to affect a scissor type action such that the stethoscope could be grabbed with one hand and squeezed as shown on the cover of the stethoscope box, which enabled the two tubular parts of the earpiece to be opened and easily put on or taken off the ears. This then 22-year-old innovative young man, Janson M. Pope, Jr., sent me his stethoscope shown above (Stethoscope with One-Handed Headset Operation, USA Patent # 4406346, September 27, 1983).
A Fleischer Triple Head Stethoscope in original cardboard box and with cloth case, circa 1940 and a Fleischer Stethoscope with localizing rod screwed into the diaphragm, circa 1950.
Douglass Stethoscope made by Frederick Haslam & Co. Brooklyn, NY circa 1917.
Albumen photograph of the shop of the surgical instrument maker Frederick Haslam at 83 Pulaski Street, Brooklyn, NY circa 1880.
Dr. Tarek Loubani, an emergency physician working in the Gaza strip, developed a 3D-printed stethoscope as part of a project to bottom-out the cost of medical devices. Loubani together with a team of medical and technology specialists designed the stethoscope and tested it against global standard benchmarks, finding it performed as well as the gold-standard Littmann Cardiology stethoscope, which served as the basis for the 3D design. The Glia project was born in 2012, where Loubani and his medical colleagues were in short supply of the life-saving equipment and forced to listen to the heartbeats of scores of Gazans with ears placed on chests (Immediate auscultation). Dr. Loubani says the concept of the 3D-printed stethoscope was inspired after he tested his nephew's toy stethoscope and found it performed much better than expected. Since costs remained high despite the expiration of 1960s-era Littmann stethoscope design patents, Glia's team of boffins built the 3D-printed device, which has been released as an open-source model for anyone to use and can be printed at a cost of $5.