In 1816 French doctor Rene Laennec invented the stethoscope The stethoscope is a tool that allows doctors to hear a patient’s heart lungs or other sounds inside the body One day Laennec noticed two children sending signals to each other One child scratched the end of a long piece of wood with a pin The other child put her ear to the other end of the wood to hear the scratching Stethoscope 6
Laennec thought the same idea might help him bring the sound of a patient’s heart closer to his ear He made a hollow tube of wood He put one end on his patient’s chest Then he put the other end to his ear Thump Thump Now doctors could gather information about the heart and lungs 7
Before the thermometer doctors touched a patient with their hand to decide if they had a fever This method was not very accurate So doctors tried to use a thermometer which measured the air temperature to measure a patient’s body temperature Early medical thermometers were very large and difficult to use Recording a patient’s temperature took 20 minutes Modern Thermometers Early Thermometer 8 98 6
Mercury Thermometer In 1866 English doctor Thomas Clifford Allbutt improved the medical thermometer He made it six inches long 15 2 cm and easy to carry He also made it faster His thermometer could record a patient’s temperature in only five minutes Soon thermometers became part of every doctor’s routine exam Fun Fact Do you ever wonder who invented the Band-Aid Earle Dickson was a cotton buyer for a company called Johnson Johnson His wife kept cutting her fingers when she cooked Each time she had to cut adhesive tape and gauze to cover the cut The tape quickly lost its stick and the gauze fell off Dickson wanted to create something for his wife that she could wear while her busy fingers kept moving He designed a smaller gauze pad that was already attached to a piece of tape He covered the tape with cloth to keep the gauze clean Dickson’s boss liked the idea so much the company decided to mass-produce it The Band-Aid was born 9
