Patent ID: 8740780

Claim:
An illumination apparatus for an endoscope, the illumination apparatus guiding externally-entering light through a light-guiding member to a transparent light-guiding body including an annular portion having an annular shape, the annular portion including an inner circumferential face and an outer circumferential face, and making the light exit from the annular portion as illuminating light, wherein the light-guiding body comprises: a notch portion provided by cutting out an outer circumference of the annular portion, the notch portion configured to include two incident portions as two surfaces facing two exit surfaces which are distal end faces of the light-guiding member having a distal end side branched in a V-shape, the two surfaces having shapes on which light from the two exit surfaces falls perpendicularly, wherein the two incident portions are surfaces by cutting so as to form two lines extending perpendicularly to first and second lines respectively extending from two points on a circumference of a circle in a cross-section of the annular portion, from the outer circumferential face toward the inner circumference side of the annular portion, and the notch portion of the light-guiding body has a cross section of a shape formed by cutting the annular portion so as to cut out a part of an outer shape which is formed by a circle in a cross section of the annular portion and the first and second lines extending to be tangent to the circle at the two points on the circumference of the circle, in directions of crossing the two lines extending perpendicularly to the first and second lines and in such a manner that the annular shape is not disconnected.