Of Starfleet’s instruments of discovery, few are as important as the Tricorder. It
is standard issue for every away team and a common sight all through starships. Every
race and species in the Star Trek universe has developed some form of this device which
is essentially just a handheld scanner. Hi, Ric here again, (I know, big shocker) and
this video is looking on a specific variation on the Tricorder following the theme of the
last two device videos, the Medical one. The medical tricorder TR-560 of the 2360s
as seen in TNG is quite simply a normal Tricorder of the time but with the additional MP or
Medical Peripheral attached to the main unit. By the turn of the decade, 2369, a similar
but slightly more updated Tricorder had been introduced, the TR-580 and therefore a new
medical variation to accompany it. The main upgrades over the older model was an increased
ability to work in tandem with various biobeds and other medical equipment for streamlining
transference between interfaces. The Medical Peripheral is more than a cosmetic
change to bulk out the device although it does increase its total weight 430g and it
adds an extra 3 cm in height. This addition is removable from the Tricorder and its purpose
is to augment a device into one suitable for a doctor’s use. With an MP attached, a tricorder
has around 18 hours of continual use for battery life based off its Sarium Krellide crystal
core, the same sort of power source that resides within the Combadge.
Also, like the Combadge, the medical Tricorder uplinks directly to the main computer of its
assigned Starship as well as the dedicated computers of the Medical and Sickbays, even
when the ship’s in orbit and the instrument planet side. This grants the device access
to the vast libraries of both the vessel and through it an indirect connection to the collective
Federation archives. The device itself of course has its own internal memory based across
three isolinear chips, 14 Nickel-Corbonitrium crystal wafers and a single removable slot
for another library isolinear. This basically is enough internal storage to hold the entire
humanoid anatomy of almost every known species and around 217 extra DNA profiles.
The MP also has an internal 86 extra electromagnetic and other sensors aligned around inside its
shell drastically increasing the Tricorder’s resolution when scanning biological targets.
It also housed a removable scanning device that was paired with a Tricorder and was capable
of taking both its own readings and transferring them to the main unit. The most common use
of the removable scanner was to triangulate a scan and provide a clearer image of the
area. The device did have some practical applications
beyond just active and passive scans however. The emissions it made could also be used to
alter a patient’s nervous system in very minor ways. This could be used to stabilise
a patient for transport but not much more than that.
As with a standard Tricorder, the MP was constructed from micro-milled Duranium foam to make it
durable enough to survive scrapes and drops for away missions. Alongside the usual touch
sensitive buttons, the device could be set to be operated by voice command or remotely
through its uplink and it possessed tiny hologram emitters. The whole device, attachments and
all was part of the standard medkit and in some models had its own fitting in the case
for easy access. By the early 2370s, a new medical Tricorder,
the Starfleet issued TR-590 Mark Ten was essentially the same as it predecessors only far smaller.
The only change seems to be that the addition of a separate MP has been removed and instead
the 590 has a groove in the back where an equally scaled down scanner sits. As with
the evolution of the hypospray and Dermal Regenerator, we see again an evolution in
technology within the universe creating a consistent linearity in design. Noice. Aside
from this later model, the other 24th century Tricorders were simply regular devices with
the peripheral added on top and as such could perform all the actions of a standard issue
Tricorder, so why weren’t all Tricorders like this one? Well this is speculation, but
it does add bulk to the device, a device which was primarily supposed to be an ergonomic
and portable extension of a ship’s computer so removing the unneeded 86 extra detailed
biological scanners was probably deemed not too much of a sacrifice. On top of this, the
manuals I read made specific mention of the battery life of the medical Tricorder, but
not so much of the regulars; so it could be the additional components of the MP severely
reduced a Tricorder’s operational time. So unless it was specifically needed, the
MP unit remained separated from your basic Tricorder.
There we have everything on the Medical Tricorders of the 23rd century. There are other dedicated
scanning devices and the like that crop up in sickbays throughput the series and I’d
suspect they simply are for different tasks as there were some things that a Tricorder
could not pick up as part of its routine scans and even with modifications it had its limits.
However, it is a go to device for medics in the field and in the lab and aside from several
other functions it operates basically the same. With a medical tricorder and further
access to the ship’s library, even someone with only the basic Starfleet medical training
can learn further techniques and procedures, being instructed by the device. Of course,
it’s best utilised by the professionals who actually understand it and in real life,
leave it to those professionals. But I talk science fiction on this channel
so, thank you for watching this video on the medical Tricorder and I’m going to bundle
this with the other similar videos into a medkit playlist for easier access and because
I think it’s funny. Thanks again for watching, I’ve been Ric, goodbye!