René Laennec

About René Laennec

Who is it?: Inventor of Stethoscope
Birth Day: February 17, 1781
Birth Place: Quimper, France, French
Died On: 13 August 1826 (aged 45)\nPloaré, France
Birth Sign: Pisces
Citizenship: France
Alma mater: University of Paris
Known for: Inventing the stethoscope

René Laennec Net Worth

René Laennec was born on February 17, 1781 in Quimper, France, French, is Inventor of Stethoscope. René Laennec was a French physician who invented the stethoscope. Known as the father of clinical auscultation, René Laennec is considered to be one of the greatest doctors of all times. Born as the son of a lawyer, he was actually discouraged from practicing medicine as a young man. But as fate would have it, he proceeded to study under several famous physicians, including Dupuytren and Jean-Nicolas Corvisart-Desmarets before becoming a prominent physician in his own right. The introduction of auscultation—a new method to diagnose diseases was his biggest contribution to medical science. This method involves listening to and identifying various sounds made by different body organs. Before the invention of this method, Laennec’s diagnostic method involved placing his ear on the chest of his patients. This method made him quite uncomfortable especially while he was diagnosing young women and hence this led to the innovation of a new device called stethoscope which he initially termed as “chest examiner”. With his new chest examiner, he was able to study the different sounds of the heart thus categorizing them as either healthy or unhealthy. Though criticized initially, his works were way ahead of his times and had a great impact on medical science.
René Laennec is a member of Physicians

💰 Net worth: Under Review

Some René Laennec images

Famous Quotes:

In 1816, He was consulted by a young woman laboring under general symptoms of diseased heart, and in whose case percussion and the application of the hand were of little avail on account of the great degree of fatness. The other method just mentioned [direct auscultation] being rendered inadmissible by the age and sex of the patient, I happened to recollect a simple and well-known fact in acoustics, ... the great distinctness with which we hear the scratch of a pin at one end of a piece of wood on applying our ear to the other. Immediately, on this suggestion, I rolled a quire of paper into a kind of cylinder and applied one end of it to the region of the heart and the other to my ear, and was not a little surprised and pleased to find that I could thereby perceive the action of the heart in a manner much more clear and distinct than I had ever been able to do by the immediate application of my ear.

Biography/Timeline

1799

His father (a lawyer) later discouraged him from continuing as a Doctor and René then had a period of time where he took long walks in the country, danced, studied Greek and wrote poetry. However, in 1799 he returned to study. Laennec studied Medicine at the University of Paris under several famous Physicians, including Dupuytren and Jean-Nicolas Corvisart-Desmarets. There he was trained to use sound as a diagnostic aid. Corvisart advocated the re-introduction of percussion during the French Revolution.

1804

He coined the term melanoma and described metastases of melanoma to the lungs. In 1804, while still a medical student, he was the first person to lecture on melanoma. This lecture was subsequently published in 1805. Laennec actually used the term 'melanose,' which he derived from the Greek (mela, melan) for "black." Over the years, there were bitter exchanges between Laennec and Dupuytren, the latter objecting that there was no mention of his work in this area and his role in its discovery.

1819

René Laennec wrote the classic treatise De l'Auscultation Médiate, published in August 1819 The preface reads:

1820

The stethoscope quickly gained popularity as De l'Auscultation Médiate was translated and distributed across France, England, Italy and Germany in the early 1820s. However, not all doctors readily embraced the new stethoscope. Although the New England Journal of Medicine reported the invention of the stethoscope two years later in 1821, as late as 1885, a professor of Medicine stated, "He that hath ears to hear, let him use his ears and not a stethoscope." Even the founder of the American Heart Association, L. A. Connor (1866–1950) carried a silk handkerchief with him to place on the wall of the chest for ear auscultation.

1822

He became a lecturer at the Collège de France in 1822 and professor of Medicine in 1823. His final appointments were that of head of the medical clinic at the Hôpital de la Charité and professor at the Collège de France. He died of tuberculosis in 1826 at the age of 45.

1851

The modern binaural stethoscope with two ear pieces was invented in 1851 by Arthur Leared. George Cammann perfected the design of the instrument for commercial production in 1852, which has become the standard ever since.

1884

Laennec "was intensely religious and was a devout Catholic all his life". He was noted as a very kind man and his charity to the poor became proverbial. Austin Flint, the 1884 President of the American Medical Association, said that "Laennec's life affords a striking instance among others disproving the vulgar error that the pursuit of science is unfavourable to religious faith."

1949

He was the subject of a 1949 French film Doctor Laennec in which he was played by Pierre Blanchar.

2013

On the exterior wall of the "Hôpital Necker – Enfants Malades", where Laennec wrote Mediate auscultation, near the entrance of the hospital in 149, Rue de Sèvres, there is a marble memorial tablet with an engraved portrait of Laennec and this inscription: "Dans cet hôpital Laennec découvrit l'auscultation. 1781–1826". Some of the oldest buildings of the hospital can be seen on the same front of this large and modern medical area.

2019

He also studied tuberculosis. Coincidentally, his nephew, Mériadec Laennec, is said to have diagnosed tuberculosis in Laennec using Laennec’s stethoscope. Laennec wrote A Treatise on the Disease of the Chest, in which he focused on diseases of the chest such as Phthisis pulmonalis and diagnostics such as Pectoriloquy. He discussed the symptoms of Phthisis pulmonalis and what parts of the body it affects. It was written in an academic manner for learning purposes.