Many equipments and devices are used in the medical field but the stethoscope is the most common device used by the doctors, this device used to listen the internal sound of the human body or an animal. Normally when patient comes into the hospital the doctor checks his heartbeat by the stethoscope to analyse the heartbeat is running normal or not. The process auscultation done by using the stethoscope, the resonator which is round shaped placed on the chest or any other part of the body to listen the sound which is generated by the heartbeat. Two earpiece are connected with the tubes to pass this sound from the resonator to the ear.



The stethoscope is introduced by the René Laennec in year 1816 in France, at that time he was working in the hospital named Necker-Enfants Malades hospital. This first stethoscope was made from the wooden tube, the reason to invent this device was that the doctor was not comfortable to listen the heartbeat of the women by the ear placed directly on the women's chest. The stethoscope is became the symbols of the health professionals, nowadays this is seen wear around the neck of all the doctors. According to the studies the most of the heath diagnosis are depends upon the heart rate measured by the stethoscope. The blood pressure measurement device having the pressure monitors to measure the blood pressure, but in early years the stethoscope were used to measure the beat rate of the heart.


The different types of the stethoscope are mentioned below:
1. Acoustic stethoscope.
2. Electronic stethoscope.
3. Doppler stethoscope.
4. Fetal stethoscope.

Acoustic stethoscope:
In this type of stethoscope the hollow tube is used which is filled with the air which transmit the sound which is received from the chest of the patient to the ear of the user or doctor. The chest piece is contains the diaphragm which vibrates according to the heartbeat of the patient to generate the sound waves in the stethoscope. This type of stethoscope was the problem of the low sound level which is fixed in 2002 with the kinetic acoustic mechanism.

Electronic stethoscope:
As we facing the problem of the low sound level in the acoustic stethoscope this type of stethoscope overcomes that problem, the electronic stethoscope amplifies the sound level of the heartbeat. The electronic stethoscope works on the transducers used in it, to pass the heartbeat there is a microphone placed in the chest piece which records the heartbeat and passes towards the user.

There are some parts of the stethoscope are mentioned below:
1. Eartips or earplugs.
2. Flexible rubber tube.
3. Diaphragm.
4. Bell and drum.
5. Binaural spring, etc.