Saturday, September 20, 2008
stethoscope
I just finished my first paper of the semester and can I just say that I am already feeling the semester pinching me. I am already starting to lose sleep over things and I haven't even gotten to those weeks where I will be doing more papers in three days that I have all year. I hope that something fun happens soon because I just need to blow off some steam for once so far.
My first paper deserves some discussion now that I have myself out of the way. This was for my modern medicine class and basically it was supposed to be a research paper about the development of any medical technology that we chose. I chose to look at the stethoscope since I have also been doing my EMS training these past few weeks and I have one lying across the room as we speak.
I looked in to the beginnings and the modern developments of the classic stethoscope. I found that Mr. Littman designed the original Littmann stethoscopes when he was at Harvard as a professor and researcher. He was designing these items for use in his work in cardiology. Cardiology stethoscopes soon came to be a big business for his after he the patent. Eventually the company was bought by the company 3M which still sells them to this day. They bought the company in 1967 and they are still the largest producer of stethoscopes to this day. Now that we have been completely immersed in the technological age, the design has moved to the electronic arena. Though the designs are still being worked out in terms of sound quality, I wouldn't be surprised if they became the norm quite soon.
I hope that you all found some kind of interest in this. I really had a lot of fun researching this because I also took a look way back at the very earliest histories of the design which were basically just conical tubes that had a bell at one end and was pressed to the chest. Now the design from Littmann has found its place as a modern staple of the medical community in this country and beyond.
Mike @ 7:26 PM