Today, medical equipment technology is advancing at ever faster speeds, largely due to the advent of computer technology just a few decades ago. But despite this, some of the most common and essential pieces of medical machinery still in use today originated in the pre-computer age. Here are 5 of the best medical machines used in hospitals.

Defibrillators

Defibrillators remain the best tools to revive patients during cardiac arrest. Today, defibrillators can be found in almost every hospital room along with the first aid kit. Experiments with defibrillation began in the late 1800s, but it wasn’t until 1947 that a defibrillator was first used to resuscitate a human being – a 14-year-old patient of Dr. Claude Beck. Beck used his yet-to-be-tested defibrillator when the 14-year-old’s heart stopped in the middle of open heart surgery.

Patient monitors

One of the most essential tools in the operating room, the patient monitor is a large device that records and interprets a patient’s vital signs during medical care or treatment. Thanks to patient monitors, doctors and nurses are sometimes alerted to incoming changes or dangers to the patient’s condition before the symptoms of the changes become physically apparent.

X ray machine

It was the German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen who accidentally discovered X-rays in 1895 while working on electron beam experiments. It took many years for X-ray machines to go from the big, cumbersome, and fatally dangerous things they were in the beginning to the extremely useful and very safe instruments that they are today. X-ray machines help doctors diagnose disease, detect broken bones, cavities, and foreign objects inside the body.

Electrocardiogram machine

The first EKG (electrocardiogram) machine was built in 1903 by Willem Einthoven. An electrocardiograph detects any abnormalities in the functions of the heart by detecting the electrical signals created by the movement of the heart muscles. Einthoven assigned the letters P, Q, R, S, and T to the various types of electrical signals in the heart. His system is still used in modern EKG machines.

Ultrasound machines

Similar to sonar, ultrasound machines map internal body tissue and organs by emitting high-pitched sound waves that bounce off structures inside the body to produce a visual image of them. Karl Dussik and Ian Donald are the two best known pioneers of ultrasound technology. In 192, Dussik used ultrasound to examine the human brain and Donald, in the 1950s, used ultrasound for diagnostic purposes.