About Tele Auscultation

Acoustic stethoscopes are limited in their ability to transmit and amplify sound. This problem was addressed in 1910 by S.G. Brown in London. Mr. Brown was trying to overcome a serious impediment to long distance telephony: telephone signals became weak over long distances and voice transmission was limited to about 20 miles. He invented a repeater, amplifier, and receivers that would allow transmission to reach a distance of 50 miles and more.

To demonstrate the capabilities of his invention, he developed the first "Electrical Stethoscope and Telephone Relay", which he found could be "...tuned so that...the passage of air through the lungs was heard as the roar of the wind through a forest." He noted further that "...for the sake of experiment, the sound of the heart has been transmitted over several miles of telephone line to doctors in various parts of London and.all of them reported that the sounds received in the telephone were as clear as when heard locally."

He concluded, "This trial proved that it is now possible for a specialist, say, in London, to examine a patient, say, in the country, stethoscopically, and to arrive at a correct diagnosis." And this is how the first telestethoscope came into being.

The concept languished for over fifty years. There were scattered reports in the 1970.s of its use (see References), including an efficacy report by pioneers Murphy and Bird at Harvard.s original telemedicine project. More definitive academic assessment of tele-medecine came when Mattioli and his team began publishing their series of studies in 1992.

These documented that the technology of the time enabled overall screening accuracy of 89.5% compared to the on-site acoustic standard.