Laennec

Laennec, RENÉ THÉODORE HYACINTHE, a distinguished physician, was born at Quimper, in Lower Brittany, 17th February 1781. He studied medicine under his uncle at Nantes, and at Paris under Corvisart, to whom the medical profession is mainly indebted for the introduction of percussion in the investigation of diseases of the chest (although the original discovery is due to Auenbrugger). In 1799 Laennec was an army-doctor in the field; in 1814 he became the chief editor of the Journal de Médecine; in 1816 he was appointed chief physician to the Hôpital Necker, and it was there that he soon after made the discovery of 'mediate' auscultation, or, in other words, of the use of the Stethoscope (q.v.). In 1819 he published his Traité de l'Auscultation Médiante, which has undoubtedly produced a greater effect, in so far as the advance of diagnosis is concerned, than any other single book. His treatise had not long appeared when indications of consumption were discovered in his own chest by means of the art of his own invention, and after a few years of delicate health, during which he continued to practise in Paris, he retired to die in his native province, 13th August 1826. See his Life by Lallour (Quimper, 1868).