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.)

    21/786
    adopted by him was read at the Socim de I'Ecole de Medecine, in Jan. 1805 (6 Nivose.an xiii.) and was afterwards published in the Journ. de Med. t. ix. p. 360. Enlarged and somewhat altered, it subsequently formed the excellent but brief article, Anatomic Pathologique, contri- buted by him to the Diet, des Sc. Med. (t. ii. p. 46.) Among other discoveries of the first years of his labours in the dissecting-room, the morbid alterations named by him, Encephaloid Cancer and Mel- anosis, deserve particular notice for their importance. Both these are mentioned by him in the memoir read before the School of Med- icine, in 1805 ; and although it is true that the former was previous- ly well known in England, having been described by Burns in 1800, by Hey in 1803, and by Abernethy in 1804, the subject of our me- moir appears to have been totally ignorant of this fact, and is, therefore, equally entitled with these gentlemen to the honour of having discovered it. Besides the articles mentioned, and numerous reviews which he published in the Journ. de Med., he read several papers before the Society of Medicine, and likewise communicated some valuable articles to the Diet, des Sc. Med., to which he had become one of the joint contributors. The articles written by bim in this work are the following : Anatomic Pathologique, t. ii. p. 46 ; Ascarides, ibid. p. 339; Cartilages Accidentels, t. iv. p. 123; Degen- eration, t. viii. p. 201 ; Desorganization, ibid. p. 336 ; Detrachyce- ros, t. x. p. 43; Encephaloide, t. xii. p. 165 ; Filaire, t. xv. p. 493. This last article was published in 1816, and closed his connexion with that great, but unequal work, from which he was called off by more urgent duties, and by one of the most brilliant and important discov- eries that had ever illustrated practical medicine. Previously to this period; however, namely in the year 1814, it is deserving honour- able mention, that he was one of the physicians who volunteered their services in one of the Parisian hospitals {La Salpetriere) at that time filled with sick and wounded soldiers. On this occasion, owing to his knowledge of the Armorican or Breton language, he had an opportunity of being particularly serviceable to some of his unfor- tunate countrymen. Among the young soldiers who at that unhap- py period crowded the hospitals, overwhelmed at once with bodily fa- tigue and distress of mind, there happened to be a great number of conscripts from Bretagne, who did not know one word of French, and whose sufferings, in consequence, were greatly and fatally aggra- vated by nostalgia of the worst description. These poor fellows were speedily congregated in the wards under the charge of Laei nee ; where they derived as much benefit from the care and kindness of