Littmann Stethoscope

In 1963, Harvard School Of Medicine Professor David Littmann invented a stethoscope that would revolutionize the world of medical auscultation. Knowing that a 'one size fits all' approach to stethoscope technology and the proven fact that the basic stethoscope design had changed little in over a hundred years, he set out to find a solution. He engineered features that caused it to be more comfortable for someone to use the stethoscope. The quality of sound produced by the new design made such a profound step up from what had gone before that in 1967 the 3M corporation acquired Dr Littmann's company, Cardiosonics Inc.

As a world leader in health care products 3M went on to further improve and cultivate the Littmann stethoscope and and in 1978 worked very closely with leading figures in the medical profession to produce the 3M Littmann Cardiology Stethoscope. This became known as the "cardiologists dream stethoscope" and had both a dual tube design and the increased low frequency sound capability.

In the 1980's the engineers at 3M developed whats now known as the tunable diaphragm. The one pitfall with Dr. Littmann's brand-new design had been that you still had to lift the chest piece off the patient in order to switch between diaphragm and bell modes, this was eliminated with the tunable diaphragm. Accordingly the chest piece need not be moved to become optimized for different sound frequencies. This represented a significant breakthrough in the area of auscultation and in addition the fact that low frequency sounds were getting increased by a diaphragm as opposed to a bell meant that amplification was much greater and much clearer.

Technology is now enough where electronic stethoscopes are able to detect bodily sounds and letting them be heard up to 24 times higher. With all the digital versions you can download assessments onto a computer for additional evaluation. The Littmann distinctive line of stethoscopes enjoy a huge lead in relation to their competitors due to quality and first rate innovations.