A treatise on the diseases of the chest and on mediate auscultation / by R.T.H Laennec ... ; translated from the latest French edition, with notes and a sketch of the author's life, by John Forbes ... ; with plates ; from the third revised London edition, with additional notes.

  • Laennec, R. T. H. (René Théophile Hyacinthe), 1781-1826.
Date:
1830
Catalogue details

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 latest French edition, with notes and a sketch of the author's life, by John Forbes ... ; with plates ; from the third revised London edition, with additional notes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    mitted only from analogy ;* and described a synovial capsule, before unobserved, situated between the acromion process and top of the humerus.t He likewise contributed several reviews to the same journal, of which he afterwards (in 1804) became chief editor, and continued to be so till 1809. In 1803, while still a student ami a youth, he began a course of lectures on pathological anatomy, which he continued for three years, with considerable success; animated in his exertions not merely by his native zeal in the pursuit, but by a noble spirit of rivalry between himself and Dupuytrcn, who com- menced a course of the same kind, ;il the very same time. In Feb- ruary 1804, he read a memoir on that variety of hydatids termed by him Acephalocysts before the Faculty of Medicine. \ sketch of this memoir was published at the time in the first vol. of the Bulle- tins de la Faculty, p. 131, and was printed at length in their Me- moires, which have hitherto remained unpublished. On the 11th June in the same year, he obtained his degree of Doctor in Medi- cine. His thesis, entitled Propositions sur la doctrine d'Hippo- crate applique' a la medecinc-pratique,,, proved him, according to the expression of M. Baylc, to be no less skilled in the knowledge of the Greek language, than deeply read in the writings of the father of physic. M. Lacnnec was, indeed, always a great admirer of Hippo- crates; and there are few of his writings in which this admiration is not strongly expressed. After his graduation, he entered formally upon the practice of medicine, and continued to devote himself to this and to his medical studies, until obliged by ill health to relin- quish both. His constitution, naturally feeble and predisposed to disease, was unequal to the labours he imposed upon himself; and as his private practice increased, he felt himself under the necessity of relinquishing some of his employments Accordingly he discon- tinued his course of pathological anatomy in 1808. This course attracted considerable attention during its continuance, and was in some degree founded on the lecturer's own discoveries and researches. The arrangement of it was quite original, and indicated at once a clear and a comprehensive mind. It was long the intention of Laennec to publish a complete work on morbid anatomy, and he did not relinquish the idea of doing so for several years after the close of his course of lectures. The only portions of the work, however, which were ever completed, have been subsequently published as separate articles in the Dictioanairc drs Sciences Medicates, or in his' Traits dc VAuscidtalion. A brief exposition of the classification * Journ. dc Med. t. v. p. 254. | Ibid. p. 442.