Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laennec (1781-1826). Two hundred years of the stethoscope. A brief overview

Two hundred years have passed since the publication that revealed the clinical use of the stethoscope. Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laennec published it in 1819. Laennec spent his childhood in the social effervescence of the French Revolution and studied medicine in Paris, where he graduated in 1804. His clinical experience at Necker Hospital peaked with the invention of the stethoscope in 1816. Three years later, he published his masterpiece De L'Auscultation Mediate, which underlined a more rational clinical-pathological approach, especially in the understanding of cardiopulmonary diseases. Undoubtedly, Laennec revolutionized medicine by perfecting the art of thoracic semiology, which allowed him to translate the sounds he heard into an image that could be visualized. In the bicentennial of the invention of such fundamental milestone in modern medicine, the purpose of this article is to go over its history.