There are provided a transmission unit (102) and a reception unit (103) for transmitting and receiving an ultrasonic wave with respect to a subject, a tissue tracing unit (115) for analyzing a received signal to trace the movement of a tissue of the subject, and a property detection unit (120) for detecting a property concerning the movement of the tissue of the subject. The property detection unit (120) subjects either one of the received signal, a Doppler shift, and the movement of the tissue of the subject to signal processing, detects a property concerning the movement of the tissue of the subject that is in synchronization with a heartbeat, and generates an initializing pulse based on the detected property. The tissue tracing unit (115) is initialized by the initializing pulse. It is possible to obtain a distribution image of an elastic modulus of the tissue of the subject as well as a tomographic image of the subject with a simple operation of only applying a probe to the subject without the necessity for a special connection between the subject and the device.
