George Philip Cammann (1804-1863), a New York City physician who had studied in Paris, came up with the idea of a binaural stethoscope. The first example, unveiled in 1852, was made by George Tiemann (1795-1868), a German immigrant with a surgical instrument shop in New York.
This stethoscope, which is of that sort, belonged to Joseph Meredith Toner (1925-1896), a Washington physician, historian, and bibliophile. It was deposited at the Library of Congress in 1896, and transferrerd to the Smithsonian in 1961.
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