Medical device engineering is a storied science with deep history—deep enough that “modern” devices have been around longer than some suspect. For example, the hypodermic syringe was invented more than 160 years ago, and the stethoscope has already had its 200^th birthday.¹

But in the grand scheme of medicine, a 160 year old device is barely out of the package. I recently spoke with a representative of a Japanese surgical instrument company that still had a copy of their first bladed-instrument catalog from the 1700’s… because… the company’s founding family kept records of the samurai swords they forged for centuries before that.

Two thousand years ago, bronze age physicians had access to surprisingly precise instruments. The Romans made everything from forceps to osteotomes with great care.² The point (figuratively and literally) is that we have always known to take care when building items that will then give care to the sick and injured.

“Medicine is not only a science; it is also an art. It does not consist of compounding pills and plasters, it deals with the very processes of life, which must be understood before they may be guided.” That sounds like a strikingly modern perspective, but those words were spoken by Paracelsus, who was born in 1493, during one of the most medically-fallow times in history. To put it another way, transit time ultrasound may be lightyears ahead of bronze osteotomes, but the product driver is the same: to bring healing to those in need.

Our founding family hails from Holland, not Japan, and therefore didn’t forge swords (that I know of), but transit time ultrasound was just as much of a family affair, being medically pioneered by our founder, Cor Drost. We still build the same technology now, 40 years later, because it’s still the best—often the only way—to do certain things, like precisely check flow inside a vessel without incising.

If you stop and think about it, the orthopedist’s surgical hammer is the exact same tool as the Neanderthal’s stone version. Sure, the modern one looks slicker, but both have the same essential design and are wielded for the same mechanical advantage and to the same “impactful” ends.

In a way, it’s comforting to know that despite how hard we push technological boundaries every day at Transonic, we haven’t changed what it means to be human. No one in medicine has, not since the dawn of time. Maybe that’s because it’s good to be what we are, despite the difficulties of health and life.

Or maybe it’s because we know that being human is all about our coworkers, family, and friends.

More specifically, it’s about doing everything we can to keep them happy and healthy around us.

Afterall, that’s why medical devices exist in the first place.

Thanks for reading,

               Transonic Systems, Inc

                              The Measure of Better Results

References:

1. The Earliest Medical Device Innovators
2. Surgical Instruments from Ancient Rome | Ancient Roman Surgical InstrumentsAncient Roman Surgical Instruments | Claude Moore Health Sciences Library: Historical Collections Online Exhibit