Doctors or medical students listening to their heartbeats using a multiple stethoscope. Photograph.

Nine men, each applying to his chest a stethoscope attached to a central piece of machinery

Prof. Joel Howell, University of Michigan, wrote to the Wellcome Library about this picture on 26 July 2000 as follows: 'I have someone here who says he knows what it is, and where it is. This from a senior but still active cardiologist whose has done a lot of work (teaching, publications) on teaching how to listen to heart sounds. "The machine in your photo was the first electric heart sound distribution system manufactured by Western Electric. I've been trying to get Wilson's article on the Electric Stethoscope but it is not in the Taubman [library]. I will keep trying; the pic might be in the article. Dick Judge" We evidently still have one of these machines here at Michigan. My informant thinks the picture was taken here at the University of Michigan, and that he's seen the photo before.'

[London?], [between 1920 and 1929]

1 photograph : photoprint ; sheet 20.2 x 25.5 cm

Typed carbon-copy label stuck to verso: "Listening-in to heart beats. Listening to their own heat beats by means of the multiple stethescope at the Middlesex Hospital Scientific Exhibition and Demonstration."

Wellcome Collection 44215i