Laënnec, René Théophile Hyacinthe

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French physician, inventor of the stethoscope in 1816. He advanced the diagnostic technique of auscultation (listening to the internal organs) with his book Traité de l'auscultation médiaté in 1819, which quickly became a medical classic.

Laënnec's special interest was in chest disease. Listening to the internal organs (auscultation) had been used diagnostically since the time of Hippocrates, but Laënnec introduced a wooden tube to transmit sound. He called it a stethoscope from the Greek stethos ‘chest’.

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