Invention

I'd like a longer stethoscope please. The tube bit on mine is about 40 or 50 centimeters, which is fine for most purposes. But because I am slightly taller than average, I sometimes have to stoop a bit, especially when listening to (or "auscultating", if you're a medical person, because God knows we wouldn't like the rest of the world to understand anything that important) a particularly flat patient. But worse still, when doing a respiratory examination, the patient has to breathe in and out deeply while we listen to their lungs, which typically involves getting mouth-breathed-on quite vigorously. This doesn't really appeal to me that much.

It's not that I don't like people. I do. In fact, some of my best friends are people. It's just that mouth-breaths are so moist and warm and often carry strange food-like odors. I get enough of that kind of thing at home from my cat.

Apparently the stethoscope was originally invented by a guy who didn't like pressing his ear against the chests of his patients with tuberculosis. Bravo! I'd like to stake a claim to the invention of the bihomostethoscope, which requires two men to operate. It's basically a really long stethoscope. One person presses the listening end to the patient's chest and gets breathed on, and the other (more senior) person stands 5 or 6 feet away listening to the lung sounds.

You heard it here first!