Rene T.H. Laennec, Famed French Physician Born

Rene-Theophile-Hyacinthe Laennec was born on the 17 February 1781 in Brittany. Laennec was a Famed French physician, author and inventor of the stethoscope, and called father of chest medicine. He invented the stethoscope in 1816, while working at the Hopital Necker and pioneered its use in diagnosing various chest conditions. He wrote extensively about respiratory and heart ailments.

Laennec was born in Quimper (Brittany). His mother died of tuberculosis when he was five or six, and he went to live with his grand-uncle the Abbe Laennec (a priest). At the age of twelve he proceeded to Nantes where his uncle, Guillaime-Francois Laennec, worked in the faculty of medicine at the university. Laennec was a gifted student, he learned English and German, and began his medical studies under his uncles direction.

His father (a lawyer) later discouraged him from continuing as a doctor and Rene 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 in Paris under several famous physicians, including Dupuytren and Nicolas Corvisart des Marest. There he was trained to use sound as a diagnostic aid. Corvisart advocated the re-introduction of percussion during the French Revolution. Laennec was a devout Catholic. He was noted as a very kind man and his charity to the poor became proverbial.

Laennec had discovered that the new stethoscope was superior to the normally used method of placing the ear over the chest, particularly if the patient was overweight. A stethoscope also avoided the embarrassment of placing the ear against the chest of a woman.

He became a lecturer at the College de France in 1822 and professor of medicine in 1823. His final appointments were that of Head of the Medical Clinic at the Hospital de la Charite and Professor at the College de France. He died of tuberculosis in Quimper, France, on 13th of August, 1826.