Professional Life Timeline
1795- Laënnec begins helping to care for the sick and the wounded at the Hôtel Dieu in Nantes
1799- Appointed surgeon at the Hôtel Dieu in Nantes
1800- Laënnec arrives in Paris
1800- Enters the École Pratique in Paris studying dissection in Guillaume Dupuytren’s laboratory where he was introduced to macroscopic pathology in surgery and the concept of disease and its comparison with anatomical conditions
1802- Laënnec publishes his first paper and attracts attention for articles he contributed to the Journal of Medicine
1804- Graduated medical school
1804- Became an associate of the Société de l’École de Médecine
1808- Founded the Athénée Médical
1808- Appointed personal physician to Cardinal Joseph Fesch
1812- appointed physician to Beaujon hospital
1816- transferred to Necker hospital
1817- Female patient at Necker hospital prompts Laënnec's invention of the stethoscope
1819- Laënnec published the first edition of Treatise on Mediate Auscultation and the Use of the Stethoscope
1822-Appointed to the chair and professor of medicine at the College of France
1823- He became a full member of the French Academy of Medicine and professor at the medical clinic of the Charité.
1799- Appointed surgeon at the Hôtel Dieu in Nantes
1800- Laënnec arrives in Paris
1800- Enters the École Pratique in Paris studying dissection in Guillaume Dupuytren’s laboratory where he was introduced to macroscopic pathology in surgery and the concept of disease and its comparison with anatomical conditions
1802- Laënnec publishes his first paper and attracts attention for articles he contributed to the Journal of Medicine
1804- Graduated medical school
1804- Became an associate of the Société de l’École de Médecine
1808- Founded the Athénée Médical
1808- Appointed personal physician to Cardinal Joseph Fesch
1812- appointed physician to Beaujon hospital
1816- transferred to Necker hospital
1817- Female patient at Necker hospital prompts Laënnec's invention of the stethoscope
1819- Laënnec published the first edition of Treatise on Mediate Auscultation and the Use of the Stethoscope
1822-Appointed to the chair and professor of medicine at the College of France
1823- He became a full member of the French Academy of Medicine and professor at the medical clinic of the Charité.
Major Publications
Treatise on Mediate Auscultation and the Use of the Stethoscope
Treatise on Mediate Auscultation and the Use of the Stethoscope 2nd edition
Treatise on Mediate Auscultation and the Use of the Stethoscope 2nd edition
- Second edition included details of correlations between stethoscopic sounds and diseases of the chest using post mortem findings as evidence.
Positions Held
Surgeon at the Hôtel Dieu in Nantes
Third-class surgeon in French army
Associate of the Société de l’École de Médecine
Editor-shareholder of the Journal de Médecine
Founder of the Athénée Médical
Personal Physician to Cardinal Joseph Fesch
Chair and Professor of Medicine at the College of France
Full member of the French Academy of Medicine
Professor at the medical clinic of the Charité.
Third-class surgeon in French army
Associate of the Société de l’École de Médecine
Editor-shareholder of the Journal de Médecine
Founder of the Athénée Médical
Personal Physician to Cardinal Joseph Fesch
Chair and Professor of Medicine at the College of France
Full member of the French Academy of Medicine
Professor at the medical clinic of the Charité.
Clinical Contributions
Percussion
Heart Sounds
- If tapped, sounds inside of the chest will resonate. If filled with secretions such as mucus the sound will be dull and low pitched. Originally adapted as a diagnostic tool to detect diseases of the chest by Leopold Auenbrugger. One of Laënnec’s teachers, Corvisart, translated Auenbrugger’s Inventum novum into French and published it in 1808, effectively reintroducing to medicine Auenbrugger’s seldom used but useful method of diagnosis by percussion of the chest. Laënnec continued his teacher's studies and went on to lay the groundwork for modern knowledge of diseases of the chest.
- Immediate auscultation involves listening to the chest sounds and heartbeat by pressing the ear to the chest wall. This proved to be ineffective in cases where patients were obese and thus their chest sounds were either unable to be heard or too muffled to effectively interpret. Not to mention that some patients were infested with vermin and did not bathe. Modesty also presented itself as an issue for female patients. Laënnec’s use of a stethoscope to aid in mediate auscultation overcame these obstacles and proved to be quite effective in helping to diagnose diseases of the chest,
- Gave cirrhosis its name from the Greek word “kirrhos,” which refers to the tawny yellow nodules associated with this disease,
- Laënnec was the first to give a lecture on melanoma while he was still in medical school in 1804. He was the first to notice the melanotic lesions (damaged organ or tissue) were metastatic melanoma and not the more commonly found tuberculous granulomas or carbon deposits that occurred all too often in lung autopsies. Described these tumors as melanose (Greek for black).
- Tuberculosis had a great impact on Laënnec's life, taking the lives of his mother, brother, uncle and mentors: Marie Francois Xavier Bichat and Gaspard Laurent Bayle as well as his own. Therefore when he was appointed physician at Necker Hospital it was only natural that his focus be on diseases of the chest. He became consumed by the mysteries of the chest, studying chests of patients and comparing those observations with post mortem findings. He observed from lung autopsies that chests of patients suffering from tuberculosis, a common disease at the time, were fulled with fluid or pus. He learned to recognize pneumonia, bronchiectasis, pleurisy, emphysema, and other lung diseases from the chest sounds he heard using his stethoscope.
Heart Sounds
- Not much was understood concerning the physiology of the heart but Laënnec was able to distinguish two heart sounds: the ventricular systole (first sound) and the atrial systole (second sound).