Otoscopes

Quality of otoscopes has improved a lot with time. This improvement owes to development in design, material, and technology. Basic design of otoscope has remained more or less same, it has improved in the context that it has made otoscope a multi-purpose tool.  Improvement in the quality of material, especially of specula, is quite more significant as the soft material has almost eliminated the chance of any scratch or injury to the delicate walls of the cavity.
Technology has made the biggest contribution in improvement of otoscopy as visibility of the inside of the organ examined has improved to a great extent. Fiber Optics is the most advanced technology in communication via physical media. The medium used in this mode of communication is optical fibers. Optical cable consists of a bundle of optical fibers which are made of extremely fine quality glass. Quality of the glass used is so fine that if all the water of an ocean were drained out and filled with it, the ocean bed would still be visible.
An optical fiber is as thin as a strand of hair and therefore it acts as a waveguide. It works because of a typical characteristic of life, called total internal reflection. When a ray of light is incident on a surface at a particular angle, all the light gets reflected. When the medium through which light is travelling is as narrow as a optical fiber, light travels in a straight path. This causes negligible loss in intensity and helps it reach the destination unaffected. Fiber optics provides extremely enhanced quality of signal received and thus highly improved visibility and clarity of the auditory canal and Tympanic membrane (ear drum) is obtained. However subtle or minor is the infection it can be easily noticed.
Though there are many types of illumination lamps (light source) are available today, most of the good quality otoscopes which employ fiber optics, use halogen lamps  for illumination purpose, because halogen lamps emit light that is highly white in nature. This helps reflect true color of the surface illuminated.
In video otoscope in which fiber optics has been employed, high definition crystal clear image is displayed on the video monitor as optical fibers carry digital signals in form of light pulses, consequently signals arrive at the destination without any interference, loss in intensity, or distortion.
Fiber optics has indeed revolutionized the methods through which internal organs are observed and studied.