René Théophile Hyacinthe Laennec (1781-1826) is best known for his
invention of the stethoscope, one of medicine's most powerful symbols.
Histories, novels, and films have cloaked his life in hagiography and
legend. Jacalyn Duffin's fascinating new biography relies on a vastly
expanded foundation of primary source material, including thousands of
pages of handwritten patient records, lecture notes, unpublished essays,
and letters. She situates Laennec, the scientist and teacher, within the
broader social and intellectual currents of post-Revolutionary France.
Her work uncovers a complex character who participated actively in the
dramatic changes of his time.
Laennec's famous Treatise on Mediate Auscultation was his only
published book, but two lesser known works were left in manuscript: an
early treatise on pathological anatomy and a later set of lectures on
disease. The three parts of Duffin's biography correspond to these
books. First, she examines Laennec's student research on the emerging
science of pathological anatomy, the background for his major
achievement. Second, she uses his clinical records to trace the
discovery and development of "mediate auscultation" (listening through
an instrument, or mediator, to sounds within the human body). The
stethoscope allowed clinicians to "see" the organic alterations inside
their living patients' bodies. Finally, she explores the impact of
auscultation on diagnostic practice and on concepts of disease. Analyzed
here for the first time in their entirety, Laennec's Collége de France
lectures reveal his criticism of over-enthusiastic extrapolations of his
own method at the expense of the patient's story.
Originally published in 1998.
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