The History of Medical Equipment

Medical equipment or devices are designed to aid in diagnosing, monitoring as well as treating various types of medical ailments. Medical equipments may be extremely simple instruments like needles, syringes, stethoscopes, thermometers etc or may be complex devices like the ultrasound machine, ventilators, incubators, MRI scan machine etc.

The use and invention of medical equipments can be traced back to the early 1800s. Let us look at a few medical equipments and when they were invented or manufactured.

· X-ray machine- This is used for taking pictures of the internal organs of a person’s body, which helps in figuring out if there is something wrong inside. This is mostly used to detect broken bones, congestion in the chest etc. This was first discovered in 1895.

· Blood Pressure Monitors – This measures the pressure of blood in a human body. This device was first invented in 1881. A more easy to use version came out in 1896. It was finally popularised in 1901.

· MRI machines – These machines use magnetic resonance imaging technology to visualize detailed internal structures in a human body. This first came into being in 1950. A more refined version was made around 1973-74.

· CT scans – CT scans are special x-ray tests that produce cross-sectional images of the body using x-rays and a computer. CT scanners first were installed around the year 1974.

· Ultrasound – An ultrasound uses sound waves that way more than the frequency that can be heard by the human ear. It can be used to look for traces of tumours, gauge the health of an unborn baby etc. The first ultrasound machine used in the medical field for diagnosis came somewhere around the 1940s.

· Endoscope – The endoscope is an instrument that is used for examining the interior of an hollow cavity or an organ in the body. This device is inserted directly into the organ for examining. The endoscope was first introduced into a human sometime in 1822.

· Pace Maker – A pace maker is a device that uses electrical impulses to regulate the beating of the heart. The invention of the pace maker started somewhere around 1989. Over the years, it was refined to make it more convenient to use and the first clinical implantation into a human being happened in 1958.

Today with science and technology making miles of progress daily, there have been scores of new medical equipments that have been invented and the existing ones have been refined and fine-tuned so that together they can help extend as well as improve the quality of human life.