Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laënnec (1781-1826): the man behind the stethoscope

Abstract

Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laënnec (1781-1826) was a French physician who, in 1816, invented the stethoscope. Using this new instrument, he investigated the sounds made by the heart and lungs and determined that his diagnoses were supported by the observations made during autopsies. Laënnec later published the first seminal work on the use of listening to body sounds, De L'auscultation Mediate (On Mediate Auscultation). Laënnec is considered the father of clinical auscultation and wrote the first descriptions of bronchiectasis and cirrhosis and also classified pulmonary conditions such as pneumonia, bronchiectasis, pleurisy, emphysema, pneumothorax, phthisis and other lung diseases from the sounds he heard with his invention. Laënnec perfected the art of physical examination of the chest and introduced many clinical terms still used today.

Figure 1.

Laënnec’s stethoscope: 1) instrument assembled; 2) and 3) two portions of the instrument in longitudinal section; 4) detachable chest piece; 5) ear piece unscrewed; 6) transverse section. Photo courtesy of the US National Library of Medicine.

Figure 2.

Cover of De l’Auscultation Médiate ou Traité du Diagnostic des Maladies des Poumons et du Cœur (On Mediate Auscultation or Treatise on the Diagnosis of the Diseases of the Lungs and Heart) published in Paris in 1819. Photo courtesy of Historical Collections & Services, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia.

Figure 3.

Portrait of Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laënnec (1781–1826). Photo courtesy of the US National Library of Medicine.

Figure 4.

A L’Hopital Necker, Ausculte Un Phtisique (Laënnec, at the Hopital Necker, Examining a Consumptive Patient by Auscultation). Painting by Théobald Chartran (1849–1907). Photo courtesy of the US National Library of Medicine.

Figure 5.

Laënnec and the Stethoscope. Painting by Robert A. Thom (1915–1979), c. 1960.