Laennec

René Théophile Laennec was born on 17 February 1781 in Quimper. He belonged to an old dynasty of lawyers with various responsibilities in Parliament in Brittany. He owed his vocation and his initial medical training to his uncle Guillaume Laennec, who was the first dean of the medical school created in Rennes in 1808 by Napoléon.

Vendémiaire an IV. René Théophile Laennec started as a medical student after the encouragement of his uncle. He was only fourteen and a half years old then! His uncle managed to have him admitted as a 3rd class surgeon at the military hospitals in Nantes. This provided him with a wide scope of observation.

At the same time he developed a great passion for botany and particular ly for natural history under the supervision of François le Meignen, a friend of his uncle's.

January 1800. The insurrection in the West was at its worst, and a health service had to be organised, and René Théophile Laennec volunteered for this campaign that was going to last a few months in the area of Vannes.

Starting end of April 1801, René Théophile arrived in Paris. From May onwards, he attended Corvisart, Pinel and Bichat's lectures. He made friends with Bayle who had been the first to present a theory of the anatomoclinical method in 1802. René Théophile Laennec was a good diagnostician with a wide scientific knowledge; he was also scrupulous and neglected no pathology.

Besides his studies, he started his own investigations, and started publishing articles in various medical reviews. In 1803 he came first at the Concours Général de Médecine et de Chirurgie.(General medicine and surgery competitive exam).He was 22 years old then, and he started lecturing his own course on pathological anatomy with great success. In June 1804, he brilliantly defended his thesis « La doctrine hippocratique appliquée à la médecine pratique ». and graduated as a doctor. As an active Member of the Society of the École Nationale, he published a large number of articles, first concentrating on pathological anatomy, and in 1810 Cuvier quoted him as one among the greatest specialists in this field ever since 1789, along with Portal, Bichat, Dupuytren, Corvisart and Bayle.

Due to financial problems, Doctor Laennec had to resume his medical practice, with great resounding success. He gradually became one of the most sought-after doctors, and among other patients he saw all sorts of well-known people, such as Chateaubriand, Madame de Duras, Cardinal Fesch.… Yet he never neglected the poor.

He had an exceptional career both as a scientist and a famous practitioner and as a famous medical journalist as well. In 1816 he was appointed doctor at Hôpital Necker where he was already teaching medical pathology. Meanwhile he continued his research with the patients coming to his practice, and he discovered the many possibilities of the cylinder that was soon to be named stethoscope. Laennec invented mediate auscultation, thus starting a new era of medical investigation. In 1819 Laennec published his reference work : " Traité de l'auscultation médiate ou traité des maladies du poumon et du coeur fondé principalement sur ce nouveau mode d'exploration ".