Renee Laenneck is a medical doctor from a classic medical family. The history of medicine knows three famous doctors named Laenneck. Rene's uncle was Guillaume Laenneck, not only a famous physician but also the rector of the University of Nantes.
Naturally, René learned medicine from a young age: since he was 14 he has been studying with the best surgeons.
Already at the age of 18, Laenneck was a surgeon's assistant in Napoleon's army, and two years later, in 1801, his teacher was Jean-Nicolas Corvizard, Napoleon Bonaparte's personal physician. Since 1802, scientific works, as is customary in medicine at the time, "everything" began. The first article was written on peritonitis, then on cirrhosis of the liver, then on the anatomy of the cerebral membranes.
In 1804, the dissertation "The Teaching of Hippocrates and Practical Medicine" followed, which brought him a degree and a desired private practice, which allowed him to be independent in the means. However, Laennecke's science was not abandoned, and already in 1814 "grew up" to the editor-in-chief of the authoritative "Medical Journal".
Two years later, he made his main discovery, inventing not only the first method of non-invasive diagnosis but also a symbol of the doctor.
Despite the fact that the year 201 separates us from this step-by-step invention, the first description of the appearance of the idea of a stethoscope, made by Laennek himself, has reached us. This is how he describes the inspection of the girl Marie Melanie Basset, which resulted in the "Le Cylindre", later renamed the "breast examiner" - a stethoscope.
Of course, the scaling of the invention required materials other than a doctor's notebook folded into a tube. Having tried a lot of materials, I chose a nut.
In August 1819, De l'Auscultation Médiate published the first image and drawing of the stethoscope in history, as well as the method of auscultation, "auditory" diagnostics. Each copy of the treatise was accompanied by a stethoscope.
Sometimes fate loves symmetrical scenes. The scene she prepared for our hero is symmetrical and tragic at the same time. Back in 1805, he examined one TB patient and cut his finger. He burned the wound with lapis, but the disease got to him. Now, one of the first stethoscopes in the world to diagnose tuberculosis was carried out by our hero's nephew Miriadek Laennek with the help of Laennek's stethoscope. In 1826, Renee was gone, but every time we hear from a doctor "breathe, don't breathe", we remember this wonderful man.