In 1896, the world's first real sphygmomanometer was born, invented by Italian scientist Scipione Riva-Rocci (1863-1937). This sphygmomanometer is composed of a rubber ball, a rubber bladder cuff, and a glass tube containing mercury. When measuring blood pressure, you only need to wrap the rubber bladder cuff around your upper arm, squeeze the rubber ball, and then observe the height of the mercury beating in the glass tube to estimate the blood pressure value. This kind of sphygmomanometer does not damage the blood vessels and is relatively safe, but the accuracy of the measurement values is poor, and it can only measure the systolic blood pressure of the arteries.
In 1905, Russian military doctor Kolotkov (1874~1920, pioneer of vascular surgery in the 20th century) added a stethoscope when measuring blood pressure. This improvement makes blood pressure measurement leap to a whole new level, and it is still the basic method of blood pressure measurement, making clinical blood pressure measurement both accurate and safe.
