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. LichtmanRochester, New York, United States In 1832, a paper entitled On Some Morbid Appearances of the Absorbent Glands and Spleen was read to the Medico-Chirurgical Society of London by its secretary, as Thomas Hodgkin (1798–1866) was not yet a member. In it, Hodgkin described the clinical histories and gross postmortem findings of seven…

  • The history of the stethoscope

    MAS AhmedRomford, United Kingdom Victoria TurnockLondon, United Kingdom 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 placing the ear and head against…

  • The stethoscope

    Fiona RobertsonScotland, United Kingdom 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 one inch and a half in diameter, one foot long, and tapered at the end like a funnel. This embryonic…