360Laennec invents the stethoscope
In 1816, the French doctor René Laennec rolled a sheet of paper into a tube to listen to a patient's heart, and heard it far more clearly. He built a wooden version and called it the stethoscope. His study of chest sounds helped doctors diagnose heart and lung diseases, and the stethoscope became the symbol of medicine.
Before the 19th century, doctors listened to patients' chests by pressing an ear directly against them, which was awkward and often did not work.
In 1816, at the Necker Hospital in Paris, René Laennec was examining a young woman with heart trouble. Remembering how sound travels along a wooden beam, he rolled up some paper into a tight tube, placed one end on her chest and listened at the other.
He heard the heartbeat more clearly than ever. He went on to make wooden tubes and called the device the stethoscope, from Greek words meaning 'chest' and 'to look at'.
In 1819, he published a book describing the sounds made by healthy and diseased hearts and lungs, such as those caused by tuberculosis. Two-earpiece stethoscopes came in the 1850s, and the stethoscope is still used every day.
- 1816
- Laennec's paper tube
- 1819
- His book on listening to the chest
- 1851
- The two-earpiece stethoscope is developed
Sources: Science Museum Group · Britannica · Royal College of Physicians.