Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laennec

  • The Quaker and the Jew, an enduring and impactful friendship: Thomas Hodgkin and Moses Montefiore

    Marshall A. Lichtman Rochester, New York, United States   Obelisk over Hodgkin grave site in Jaffa, Israel. Moses Montefiore, on his return to England, purchased a column of Aberdeen granite nine feet tall and had it inscribed with a lengthy tribute to Hodgkin “as a mark of my respect and esteem.” It was transported to…

  • The history of the stethoscope

    MAS Ahmed Romford, United Kingdom Victoria Turnock London, United Kingdom Laennec’s stethoscope circa 1819. No other symbol is as entwined with the concept of being a doctor as the stethoscope. It is currently one of the most widely used tools that doctors and nurses use for diagnostic purposes. Before its invention auscultation was done by…

  • The stethoscope

    Fiona Robertson Scotland, United Kingdom   Laennec, at the Hospital Necker examining a consumptive patient by auscultation Painting by Théobald Chartran (1849–1907)     One of the most iconic tools of the medical profession is the stethoscope. Here we see René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laennec, a French physician, using his prototype monoaural stethoscope. It was a wooden cylinder…