Who Is R. T. Laennec: Inventing The Stethoscope

R.T. H. Laennec was a French physician who is widely known for inventing the stethoscope. He famously studied tuberculous and applied his diagnostic techniques to the disease. Laennec, in the chapter on tuberculous from his book A Treatise on the Diseases of the Chest and on Mediate Auscultation, helps historians understand the extent to which his diagnostic method is reflective of the Paris School.
The Paris School saw diseases as a group of external symptoms and internal lesions occurring simultaneously. Laennec reflects the methodology of the school when he defines tuberculous in the same manner. Referring to the disease as “tuberculous phthisis” reflects how Laennec views the disease as a combination of external and internal symptoms, as
Practitioners of this diagnostic technique employed a four-part system of examination-consisting of inspection, palpation, percussion, and auscultation- to draw such conclusions. Laennec is no exception, as demonstrated in the diagnostic techniques employed concerning tuberculous, and he even worked to improve auscultation through the invention of the stethoscope. Outlining that initial symptoms “usually shew themselves below the clavicle” demonstrates Laennec’s employment of the first aspect of the Paris School’s method of examination, inspection, as he is purely looking at the patient. Explaining that a patient later diagnosed with tuberculous presented with a pulse that “was quick”2 and having “skin”2 that was “slightly hot”2 implies the use of palpation as both symptoms could be discovered through the examination of a body with the physician’s hands. “Percussion”3 is utilized by Laennec to determine if there is “a guggling”3 that implies “the presence of a cavity”3 in the chest. Laennec most notably employs the final aspect of examination, auscultation, when determining if a patient presents with “pectorilquism with ulcerous excavations in the lungs” that he associates with tuberculous by using his own invention of the “stethoscope”3 to “explore the space between the
Dr. Patrice Pinnell, MD used his expertise as a historian and Director of Research at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, with a focus on the transformation of the French medical field and the construction of the medico-psycho-pedagogical sector in France to argue -- in the 52nd volume of the English translation of the French academic journal Revue Française de Sociologie -- that what occurred in France, especially Paris, during the 19th century was a “genesis to the field of modern medicine.” Pinnell argues that the Paris School applied “new scientific knowledge and discoveries”10 in the field of “diagnosis,”10 for example: using “various senses”10 in conjunction with “clinical reasoning”10 to deduce the “correct diagnosis”10 and all while “at the patient’s ‘bedside.’”10 What made the Paris School different, according to Pinnell, was that diagnosis now came from fully examining the patient and from performing the examination at the patient’s bedside. Laennec’s diagnostic method is further understood, not just in terms of the steps he took but also the extent to which he presents the document as a series of steps that physicians can follow to diagnose a patient with tuberculous. Laennec is facilitating the ability