A sphygmomanometer measures blood pressure. It can be electronicor manual; the main difference being how much human interaction isrequired to measure blood pressure. With a manual sphygmomanometer,you observe the amount of pressure in the cuff in real-time(usually on a dial gauge) while listening for a bruit in an arterydistal to the cuff. An electronic sphygmomanometer does the samething, but it electronically listens for the bruit and generallydisplays the blood pressure reading after the measurement iscompleted. So with a manual sphygmo someone must watch a pressuregauge and listen for a bruit to be heard and when it stops to get areading. An electronic sphygmo does all this automatically andgives a reading. An electronic sphygmo is more convenient anddoesn't require as much training to use.