The Cuff

The Cuff  iHORN is made from a vintage Blood Pressure Monitor Tycos Sphygmomanometer Taylor Rochester.  I have not been able to identify the year of manufacture., but the Tycos brand was discontinued in 1930, so it was made no later than 1930. 

The sphygmomanometer was invented by Samuel Siegfried Karl Ritter von Basch in the year 1881.  In 1901, pioneering neurosurgeon Dr. Harvey Cushing brought an example of Riva-Rocci's device to the US, modernized it and popularized it within the medical community. Further improvement came in 1905 when Russian physician Nikolai Korotkov included diastolic blood pressure measurement following his discovery of "Korotkoff sounds." In 1981 the first fully automated oscillometric blood pressure cuff was invented by Donald Nunn.

George Taylor and David Kendall founded the Taylor Instrument Company in Rochester, New York in 1851. The general stock and trade of the company was in thermometers and other instruments for monitoring temperature. Kendall's father was the pioneer thermometer maker in the United States. In 1890 the company was incorporated as the Taylor Brothers Company, with a capital stock of $75,000.00. The company grew, acquired other businesses and by October of 1900 the capital stock of the Taylor Brothers Company had increased to $535,000.00. By 1930, the Tycos brand name was discontinued. 

Today, hypertension rages, and blood pressure monitoring is a daily event for many of us.  So The Cuff iHorn has relevance.  The Cuff can clearly be heard, unlike the silent killer it originally monitored.