Prunes, bones and prawns

I mentioned the invention of the stethoscope in an earlier post. Our guide, who had a voice like Eleanor Roosevelt and a heavy accent, told us it was made of prunes. This pretty much mystified us, so we questioned her again. "Prunes?"

"Yes," she insisted. We shrugged.

Later, I asked her if she really meant prunes. "Yes, yes," she replied, with a great deal of animation.

Still puzzled, Clive later asked again about the prunes.

"Prunes? he said.

"Yes!"

"Bones?"

"Yes, yes."

"Prawns?"

"Yes, yes, yes!"

We all cracked up and concocted silly stories about how putting prunes in our ears would benefit our hearing, where would we put the pits, we weren't sure if bones could bend, etc etc.

Back at the ranch, we asked Ussama what the first stethoscope was made of.

The answer was pretty obvious, but none of us hit on it...

BRONZE!