Riva Rocci

The cuff sphygmomanometer was invented by Italian physician Scipione Riva-Rocci in 1896. (Scipione Riva-Rocci (7 August 1863 — 15 March 1937) was an Italian internist and pediatrician who was a native of Almese. He earned his medical degree in 1888 from the University of Turin, and from 1900 until 1928 was director of the hospital in Varese.)This simple device caught the eye of US surgeon Harvey Cushing, who believed he could use it in the measurement of BP, which would be useful in his ongoing studies of cerebral perfusion. Cushing introduced this instrument at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Early supporters of this new method of BP measurements were Theodore Janeway in New York City and George Crile in Cleveland, OH. After only 2 years of experience on the wards of Johns Hopkins Hospital, Cushing and his surgical house officers set out to promote wider use of the cuff. This was the foundation for the use of BP measurements in epidemiologic studies and for controlled clinical trails of antihypertensive agents, which have so dramatically reduced the socioeconomic impact of heart attack and stroke in the last 25 years. Contrast the history of spirometry with that of the development and widespread application of the sphygmomanometer, invented 50 years after the spirometer.