I thought of this Mundane Mystery the other day as my 2-year-old daughter was running around the house “checking” us all with her toy stethoscope. It’s such an odd tool. Who invented it and why does it look so odd?
The person who invented the tool was a guy named Rene Laennec. He was a French doctor in the late 1700s. The reason he came up with the idea was because he didn’t feel comfortable putting his ear directly on women’s chests when he was doing their checkup. The stethoscope made it so he could be a safe distance away while not feeling weird.
This is all you’re going to think of the next time you have a doctor’s appointment. Ha ha
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