A treatise on the diseases of the chest, and on mediate auscultation / by R.T.H. Laennec ... ; translated from the third French edition, with copious notes, a sketch of the author's life, and an extensive bibliography of the different diseases, by John Forbes ... ; to which are added the notes of Professor Andral, contained in the fourth and latest French edition, translated and accompanied with observations on cerebral auscultation, by John D. Fisher ... ; with plates.
- Laennec, R. T. H. (René Théophile Hyacinthe), 1781-1826. De l'auscultation médiate. English
- Date:
- 1838
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A treatise on the diseases of the chest, and on mediate auscultation / by R.T.H. Laennec ... ; translated from the third French edition, with copious notes, a sketch of the author's life, and an extensive bibliography of the different diseases, by John Forbes ... ; to which are added the notes of Professor Andral, contained in the fourth and latest French edition, translated and accompanied with observations on cerebral auscultation, by John D. Fisher ... ; with plates. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.
![reason of this limited application will be stated hereafter. But, independently of its deficiencies, there are other objections to its use : it is always inconvenient both to the physician and patient ; in the case of females it is not onlyindelicate but often imprac- ticable ; and in that class of persons found in hospitals it is dis- gusting. For these various reasons this measure can but rarely be had recourse to, and cannot therefore become practically use- second volume of his Semeiologie Générale, published two years before the first edition of the Treatise of Laennec. Speaking of the signs furnished by respi- ration, and of the sounds produced by it within the chest in disease, he says that, with the view of hearing them more distinctly, we must apply the ear closely to every point of all its aspects ; by which means we can distinguish, not merely the kind and degree of the sound, but even its precise site. He adds, I have frequently derived great benefit from this mode of investigation, which is pecu- liar to myself, and to which I was naturally led by the employment of the like method in exploring the pulsation of the heart. Semeiol. t. ii. p. 31. Paris, 1817.—Long before this period, indeed, one of our own countrymen, not of the medical profession, and who, in all probability, was unacquainted with the writ- ings of Hippocrates, was fully aware both of the existence and great importance of internal sounds as a means of diagnosis, and, as Dr. Elliotson well observes, seems almost to have prophesied the stethoscope. I quote the more striking parts of the passage as extremely curious in the literary history of auscultation. There may be a possibility, says Hook, of discovering the internal motions and actions of bodies by the sound they make. Who knows but that, as in a watch we may hear the beating of the balance, and the running of the wheels, and the striking of the hammers, and the grating of the teeth, and multitudes of other noises ;—who knows, I say, but that it may be possible to discover the motions of the internal parts of bodies, whether animal, vegetable, or mineral, by the sound they make ; that one may discover the works performed in the several offices and shops of a man's body, and thereby discover what instrument or engine is out of order, what works are going on at several times, and lie still at others, and the like.— I have this encouragement not to think all these things utterly impossible, though never so much derided by the generality of men, and never so seemingly mad, foolish, and fantastic ; that, as the thinking them impossible cannot much improve my knowledge, so the believing them possible may, perhaps, be an occasion for taking notice of such things as another would pass by without regard, as useless. And somewhat more of encourage- ment I have also from experience, that I have been able to hear very plainly the beating of a man's heart ; and it is common to hear the motion of the wind to and ■fro in the guts and other small vessels : the stopping in the lungs is easily dis- covered by the wheezing, the stopping of the head by the humming and whist- ling noises, the slipping to and fro of the joints, in many cases by crackling and the like. As to the working or motion of the parts one amongst another, methinks I could receive encouragement from hearing the hissing noise made by a corro- sive menstruum in its operation, the noise of fire in dissolving, of water in boil- ing, of the parts of-a bell after that its motion is grown quite invisible as to the eye ; for to me these motions and the other seem only to differ secundum magis et mimis, and so to their becoming sensible, they require either that their motions be increased, or that the organ be made more nice and powerful to sensate and distinguish them [to try the contrivance about an artificial tympanum] as they are; for the doing of both which I think it is not impossible but that in many cases there may be helps found, some of which I may, as opportunity is offered, make trial of, which, if successful and useful, I shall not conceal. (The Post- humous Works of Robert Hook, M. D. p. 39, 40. Lond. 1705, folio.) There is no reason to believe that Laennec was acquainted wifli these opin- ions of the English philosopher; nor if he had, would this knowledge, anymore than that which he derived from the writings of Hippocrates, have greatly de- tracted from his merits as the discoverer of mediate auscultation, and the inventor of the stethoscope.— Transi.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21016756_0055.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
