3M Littmann
Established 1960In the early 1960s David Littmann, a Harvard Medical School professor, created a new stethoscope with improved acoustic performances for auscultation. Together with Gus Machlup, he founded Cardiosonics, Inc. to manufacture and market his stethoscopes.
In 1967, 3M acquired the stethoscope company and hired Dr. Littmann as a consultant. The iconic Littmann Classic II stethoscope (as pictured above) is the benchmark of all future stethoscopes and, since it is out of patent, it became the basis of a 3D-printed stethoscope as part of the open source Glia project.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of any copyright material and to contact the owner. The author does not intend to infringe on anyone’s copyright for text, photos or otherwise. Anyone who feels that any item in these pages may have inadvertently breached their copyright should advise the author via the contact sheet, including a link to the page, so that appropriate remedial action can be taken.
de cardio (2) is de meest iconische