Listening to the Body Electric - continued...

In 1819, Laënnec published the results of his studies in De l'auscultation médiate ou traité du diagnostic des maladies des poumons et du cœur. Shortly thereafter, bodily sounds were widely discussed. Laënnec’s treatise was widely read and translated into several languages. His auscultation technique was regarded as an objective method of medical diagnosis and as a means to apply pathological anatomy to the diagnosis of the living. In fact, mediate auscultation proved to be an extremely successful medical practice during the entire 19th century (see also Duffin 1998; Lachmund 1997).

Laënnec examines a consumptive patient with a stethoscope in front of his students at the Necker Hospital. Painting by Théobald Chartran, 1816