The invention of the stethoscope!
Rene Laënnec 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.
- Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laënnec (1781-1826): the man behind the stethoscope. Clin Med Res (2006) PMID: 17048358