Patent ID: 7556414

Claim:
An endoscope light source safety system, comprising: visible light transmitted along an illumination path, said visible light having a first frequency; a housing having a first aperture for passing visible light and a plurality of second apertures circumscribing the first aperture; one or more sources for providing radiation via at least one second aperture along at least a portion of the illumination path, the radiation having a second frequency different from the first frequency; an illuminator attenuator connectable to the illumination path for receiving said visible light and the radiation; an optical element for combining the radiation from said one or more sources into the illumination path, receiving returned radiation from the illumination attenuator and transmitting at least a portion of the returned radiation to at least one of the detectors; a reflector connected to said illumination attenuator for transmitting said visible light and returning at least a portion of the radiation; and two or more detectors for receiving the returned radiation from the illumination path via said reflector and for generating a signal indicative of the receipt of visible light by said illumination attenuator.