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June 6, 2025 14 mins
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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
My next guest, Doctor Eric Rakow, is former professor of
Medicine and president of NYU Medical Center.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
And he also happens to be my uncle.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
And I saw Eric at the bot Mitzvah that I
told you I went to over this past weekend and
I and I know that Eric collects medical devices, you know,
antique gorgeous old medical devices. And I asked him about
it and he showed me a new or new ish
maybe website, Antique hyphen Stethoscopes dot com. And I said,

(00:36):
this is so cool. I got to get you on
the show. So Uncle Eric, welcome to KOA.

Speaker 4 (00:43):
Hi, nephew Ross.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
I don't even know where to start. Why don't Why
don't we start with Lenek? Who is Lenek?

Speaker 3 (00:54):
Okay, Well, that's that's the start of the history of
the stethoscope. And as you said, I collect antique seth scopes,
and I'm very interested in oscultation from my medical practice.
Oscultation listening to the body for sounds is a very
old practice, dating back to oh Egypt on the seventeenth

(01:18):
century BC, when they listened to audible sounds that the
body made. And Hippocrates is the father of medicine, recommended
using instruments to improve listening to sounds in the body.

Speaker 4 (01:32):
And then you fall forward and you get to a neck.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
And at the turn of the century of the nineteenth
century eighteen hundreds, Lynecke found it very inefficient to listen
to the body by putting your ear against the chest,
which is what had been done all those centuries up
until the neck. And he came up with a clever idea,
according to the story, because he was embarrassed to put

(01:59):
his ear to a robust young woman's chest, of rolling
up pieces of paper and then using one end to
listen placed on the chest and the other on his ear,
and he could hear the heart sounds really well. And
it turns out linek was a fluteist. In other words,
he played the flute, and he had a lathe in

(02:21):
his basement and he made flutes. And then he realized
the flute as a musical instrument transmission transmitting sounds. Maybe
he could make something to transmit sounds. He made the
first stethoscope in his basement, a piece of wood twelve
inches long with a hole through the middle to listen

(02:41):
to the chest and therefore not put your ear up
against the chest.

Speaker 4 (02:46):
To hear heart sounds or lung sounds. And that's where
it all started.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Did he call it a stethoscope?

Speaker 4 (02:53):
He called it a cylinder.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
He prefers to just call it a cylinder, but eventually
became known as the steath's scope to listen to the
sounds of the body, and and that name stuck. But
it was really quite a quite a remarkable idea, which
over time led to the modern.

Speaker 4 (03:13):
Steath scope, which is every doctor uses today.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
How how rare are LINEX stethoscopes or cylinders?

Speaker 2 (03:21):
And do you have any? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (03:24):
When that the next deeth scopes are quite rare, especially
ones that were made by him as opposed to made
by an instrument maker. Instrument maker which there are many,
especially in Europe, England and France. So the original ones
he made, and you can tell that they're not really
perfectly laithe, They're not perfectly turned. So I have one
of his original and I have a few others about

(03:46):
four or five the nexteth scopes, but in particular, and
you'll see it on the website, the one one that
he made personally.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Folks, you can you can check this out at antique
dash Stethoscopes dot com and if you forget that, if
you go to my blog today at Roskiminski dot com,
you'll you'll find the link when you go to my
guest section of today's blog, and you've got the link
for Eric's website. It's kind of cool that you made
or had made an entire website just for your collection

(04:16):
of antique stethoscopes.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
How many do you have in your collection?

Speaker 3 (04:22):
I must have hundreds, and probably some of the rarest,
and maybe fifty or sixty or those. Because the steths
copes come in all varieties, in all shapes, so for example,
and therefore you just can keep collecting until you go crazy.
The stethscope evolved from a piece of wood twelve inches

(04:47):
long one and a half inches why, with a hole
through it. It got more practical, it got shorter, thinner,
easier to carry, but really didn't change until about eighteen
fifty two.

Speaker 4 (04:59):
So well that convented the seth scope in eighteen sixteen.

Speaker 3 (05:02):
So in eighteen fifty two, when a rather bright cardialgis
in New York whose name is George Cammon, he's on
the site, and I have an old painting of him,
an original oil that was originally at the New York
Academy of Medicine, and he said, well, you know, listening
with one ear, is that really going to be as

(05:25):
good as maybe using two ears?

Speaker 4 (05:27):
And so he made the.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
First practical binaural two ears versus monaural steth scope that
Lenek developed, the one ear wood piece. He made a
two ear earpiece steth scope that really became the basis
of the modern steth scope in eighteen fifty two at
the Northern Dispensary in New York City, which has a
whole story attached to it. If we have time, we

(05:51):
can talk about that. And it's about a few blocks
away from Saint Vincent's Hospital where I was at in
the nineties, and I actually toured the Northern Dispensary close
at that time. It's now open, but that was quite
a remarkable invention. A stethscope that had ear pieces for
both ears looked kind of like what you see a
doctor use today.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
So what would you say, is which of your stethoscopes
in your collection do you think is most fascinating.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
It's one question, and then the other question was.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
Is where was the most surprising place that you found
a collectible stethoscope? Where you might not have expected to
find one.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
Well, the.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
Most impressive that's right word stethscope from the point of
view of invention is Lenek the wooden cylinder, and then
the Cammon by Noural, and then I'll add one other
to it.

Speaker 4 (06:51):
David Littman, who was a cardiologist.

Speaker 3 (06:53):
In Harvard, who also had a metal lathe in his
basement and said, you know, the ones that are available
now not so good.

Speaker 4 (07:00):
So he made his.

Speaker 3 (07:02):
Own Litman stath scope and sold them out of his
basement for twenty five bucks. Lenex sold histet scope for
two francs along with his textbook, So twenty five bucks
you could buy a litmansteth scope nineteen sixty and then
his and then his little company was bought out by
three m That still makes the LINEX steth scope today,

(07:25):
which is you've probably seen it in the office when
you go that almost every doctor uses the next death scope.
I'm sorry. The Litman' steth scope the most surprising place.
Well it wasn't the most surprising place. What happened is
I had a pre court personal website. The one that
I'm developing now is new and easier to build. David

(07:49):
Littman's grandson had his grandfather's original metal steth scope prototypes
in his grandfather's basement, and he saw my website and
I had lit on it, but a regular Litman steth
scope you could buy in a store. And he contented

(08:10):
me and he gave me his grandfather's David Liptman's entire
collection of the original prototypes also on the website of
Litman' steth scope. So that was that was nice, that
was surprising.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
That's amazing. That's a great story.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
We're talking with doctor Eric Rakou, who happens to be
my uncle, and his website is Antique dash Stethoscopes dot com.
I saw I saw a thing on your website here,
and I'm just trying to look for it for a second.
Austin Flint in the American linec. So what's who is

(08:49):
Austin Flint? How does he fit into this story?

Speaker 4 (08:52):
That's an interesting story.

Speaker 3 (08:53):
Actually, Austin Flint was the pre eminent cardiologist of his
day in eighteen fifty, which is why he got to
be known as the American Linette, referring back to the
inventor of the stethscope. And Austin Flint was an expert
at oscultation pitch of sounds diagnosing cardiac problems.

Speaker 4 (09:15):
And he fits in, and he's on.

Speaker 3 (09:17):
The website also an original or oil painting. He fits
in because he had an argument with doctor Camen who
invented the binural stethoscope, the Camon stethscope, and he said
that stethscope's not as good as the Monrol Monroe is
easy to use him, works much better. And it wasn't
until ten years later, after doctor Cammon's death that he

(09:38):
admitted that Cameron had invented a better instrument, the buyin
oral steth scope, using two ears, and said so in
one of his subsequent texts when he wrote about the
Seth scope.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
So he was.

Speaker 3 (09:50):
He was the leading cardiologist who was sort of pooh
pooed Camon working at the Old Northern Dispensary. Flint was
a founding a founding member of the While You School
the Medicine, but eventually agreed that Camon had done a good.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
Thing, all right, switching gears just a little bit.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
Have you personally ever diagnosed something or at least found
some big clue that led to a diagnosis by using
a stethoscope.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
In your own medical career? Like how does that work?

Speaker 1 (10:19):
And when I go in for a check up and
the doctor puts the stethoscope on me, what's he listening for?

Speaker 4 (10:27):
Yeah, so the answer is yes.

Speaker 3 (10:29):
So now I go back to my training now, And
this is how I got involved in all this.

Speaker 4 (10:35):
When I was in medical school.

Speaker 3 (10:38):
The doctor John Krockte was head of a course called
physical diagnosis. That's a first course you're take in medical
school where you see patients the first couple of years
all basic signs, and then you take physical diagnosed to
go over the clinical years. And he took a liking
to me, and my hair was a little longer than ross.
He asked me to cut my hair before I went

(10:58):
on the wards, which I did, and then he took
me under his wing to teach me how to oscyl
take the chest, the heart and the lungs. He was
actually a lung specialist, and Bernie Wexler, who was the
cardiology specialist, took me under his wings and taught me
how to hoscle take the heart. So I'm not pretty
good listening to the heart and the chest, and people

(11:18):
would come to me as, oh, Eric, could you take
a listen to this patient's heart or chest? So I
would discover things you could clearly diagnose a murmur or
diagnose a pneumonia of the lungs. And I got interested
in oscultation and started to read about it. Then I
started to collect texts, Then I started to collect the stethoscopes,

(11:41):
and then I couldn't stop. But yeah, I mean, any
number of times Bernie Wexler was interesting.

Speaker 4 (11:49):
I used to go around with him.

Speaker 3 (11:50):
In that day, cardia cath had just been developed, where
you would do a cardiocatherization by placing through the vessel
into the heart of catheter and make very specific diagnoses
of murmurs, mitra valve problems, the ortic valve problems. And
Bernie would always say, oh, what do you need that for.
Just listen to the patient, it'll tell you the diagnosis.

(12:13):
Listen to the heart, listen to the long you know
you need to do a cardia cat He was almost
always right.

Speaker 2 (12:17):
It was pretty interesting, all right. Last last question for you.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
Is there a particular historic antique stethoscope that you don't
have that is at the top of your list of.

Speaker 2 (12:29):
What you want to find and acquire.

Speaker 4 (12:38):
Let's see, I guess I guess the answer is no.

Speaker 3 (12:47):
Wow, that's I mean, there are other ones who acquire.
But there's nothing that would be so special that I
would have to have it, so to speak.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
Because you got all those already.

Speaker 4 (12:59):
Actually, it's the interesting question. I just one of the
ways I built my collection.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
I got attached to a antique dealer called Alex Peck.

Speaker 4 (13:07):
He'd be an interesting got interview. So he does.

Speaker 3 (13:10):
Medical critiques in general, but he he liked what I
was doing, and so he helped me build my collection,
and so a lot of the leads you know, and
purchases came through him. I asked me the other day
where all the steff Scops soaps gone. I don't see money, eBay,
I don't see somebody you know selling them.

Speaker 4 (13:27):
He said, Well, the collector saw all of them like you. You
guys were too good, So I guess that's it. There's
not much left. Wow.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
Well, I'm sure you've got one of the great collections
in the world.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
Doctor Eric Rackhou former professor of medicine and president of
NYU Medical Center where I was born. Actually, and his
website is Antique dash Stethoscopes dot com. Just fascinating stories,
such a cool collection.

Speaker 2 (13:58):
Thanks for thanks for sharing it with us. Eric, You're welcome.

Speaker 4 (14:02):
My pleasure. Nice to talk to you.

Speaker 2 (14:03):
Nice to talk to you too.

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