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Category: Stethoscope
Estimated Date: 1870
Name: Golding Bird"s Flexible
Manufacturer: unknown

Description: 21” woven cloth tube with wooden earpiece at one end 2.25“and bell of wood at the other end, 3.5“x 1 7/8” with black finish. The wood was lacquered but it is nearly worn off. The woven tube is 1/2” in diameter. . A drawing of Golding Bird’s from the Mumie collection shows the old style earpiece before he modified it to the circular form in the example shown here. See drawing from the Mumie collection of a Combes on this site. There is also a drawing of Arnold’s flexible and a few others. The design using the narrow tip earpiece was popular and persisted, as evidenced by the listing in a catologue from Down Bros in 1900 of Andrew Clark’s that was of the older style, and the several drawings shown. A full discussion of the debate over the flexible monaural can be found in my book: Blaufox, M. Donald; An Ear to the Chest, Parthenon Publishers, 2002..

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