I first saw a pulse oximeter in 1987 when Muffin's Sister was born. All the babies in the NICU had them taped to their big toes, so she spent her first months wearing one. The article says that the patent was granted in 1979, so I guess they had only been commercially available for a few years.

It was probably the mid-nineties before I saw them in a non-intensive care setting. The kids' pediatrician was using them in her office by the time Muffin was a toddler. I remember thinking it was weird to see them clipped to kids' fingers, because they were meant to be on toes!

RIP

From the article:

"The pulse oximeter has become “an indispensable addition to medicine,” said V. Courtney Broaddus, a professor emeritus of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Historically, patients were measured by four vital signs: temperature, blood pressure, pulse and respiratory rate. “It has become the fifth vital sign,” she said of oxygen level.

While many coronavirus patients do feel chest pain, fever and other symptoms, Dr. Broaddus said, the pulse oximeter “has become especially important because humans do not sense a low oxygen saturation alone.”