Sphygmomanometers history

Sphygmomanometers 

the Sphygmograph, a device that was attached to the forearm and recorded arteial pulsations on an external graph, was deverloped in 1855 by Karl Vierordt. A host of other sphygmometers, devices that externally measured arterial pressure by directly compressing the radial artery, followed though the end of the century and beyond. SR von Basch introduced the rubber, hollow ball filled with water or mercury to obstruct the artery, and combined this with an aneroid manometer in 1880. The mercury sphygmomanometer, a sphygmometer with a separate compression device for the arm, was introduced by Scipione Riva-Rocci in 1896. Independently, in 1897, Hill and Barnard introduced a similar device with and aneriod manometer.

In 1905, Nikoli Korotkoff was the first to suggest listening to artery sounds while using a stethoscope, which by then was nearly a century old. This ausclutatory method was more reliable than palpation in identifying the diastilic pressure.