Dark brown/black synthetic (bakelit).

Allows user to hear sounds from within the body. Especially used to listen to heart, pulse and lungs.

Part of a larger collection of medical artifacts, archival material and trade literature transferred to CSTM in 2002 from the former History of Medicine Museum in Toronto, Ontario.

First monaural stethoscope invented by physician Rene Laennec in France in 1816: compact and rugged, the instrument greatly improved the physician’s ability to listen to internal body sounds. Monaural used exclusively c. 1820-1850 when binaural stethoscope introduced.