Sphygmomanometer

A sphygmomanometer, also called a blood pressure monitor or gauge, is a medical device that measures blood pressure using an inflatable cuff to compress and then gradually release an artery while a mercury or aneroid manometer reads the pressure. The physiologist Karl von Vierordt built an early mechanical precursor, the sphygmograph, in the mid-19th century, and the physician Samuel Siegfried Karl Ritter von Basch devised the sphygmomanometer itself in 1881; the physician Scipione Riva-Rocci introduced a more practical cuff-based version in 1896, which the surgeon Harvey Cushing brought to the United States in 1901 and helped popularize in clinical practice. The physician Nikolai Korotkov added the ability to measure diastolic pressure in 1905 after his discovery of the arterial sounds, now called Korotkoff sounds, that the device is still used to listen for today.