If you ask a random person on the street to name a piece of medical equipment, one of the first that will come to the minds of many people is the stethoscope, to the point that it is sometimes used as a symbol for general practice.
This is something that has even been documented; studies suggest that a medical professional is more trusted by a patient when they wear a stethoscope, and it continues to be used even in the face of more modern, detailed monitors and scanners.
The reason for this is as simple as the stethoscope itself; it is a simple tool that is easy enough for a child to play with but powerful and versatile enough in the hands of an expert to detect the potential for issues in the heart, lungs, intestines and blood vessels.
The practice of auscultation is a skilled art, but it is sometimes underappreciated just how much it changed medicine.
The first stethoscope (which translates to chest scope) was invented by Rene Laennec, a Parisian doctor and avid flautist who initially developed the method when treating a young woman in 1816. He rolled up a piece of paper and held it to his ear.
Whilst initially done to avoid social embarrassment, it proved to be a much more effective method of diagnosing heart conditions, and he used his woodwind instrument carving cills to create an early, rigid stethoscope.
The modern design was perfected by George Cammann in 1852, which had two earpieces to allow for more accurate detection of unusual sounds in the body.
However, this changed medicine in a rather fundamental way that is perhaps underappreciated since the development of the X-ray and modern diagnostic equipment such as MRI scanners.
Before the stethoscope, medicine was typically categorised by external symptoms, which meant that some diseases would not be found until it was too late to save a patient.
The stethoscope changed that, and reconceptualised diseases as issues with the body and paved the way for a modern understanding of human health.