A treatise on the diseases of the chest and on mediate auscultation / by R.T.H. Laennec ... ; translated from the latest French edition, with copious notes and a sketch of the author's life, by John Forbes ... ; from the fourth London edition, considerably enlarged and improved, with many additional notes and an extensive bibliography of the different diseases ; with plates.

  • Laennec, R. T. H. (René Théophile Hyacinthe), 1781-1826.
Date:
1835
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 copious notes and a sketch of the author's life, by John Forbes ... ; from the fourth London edition, considerably enlarged and improved, with many additional notes and an extensive bibliography of the different diseases ; with plates. 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.)

    27/728
    M. Kergaradec) in his new office, displaying the same zeal and the same exactness which distinguished the performance of all his duties. He showed the utmost courtesy and complaisance to all who were attracted to his clinic hy his great name and the wish to perfect themselves in the use of the stethoscope. His auditors consisted of the natives of every country in civilized Europe, many of whom had come purposely to Paris, with the view of judging personally of the new method of exploration, and of seeing the illustrious individual who was entitled to the two-fold honour of having discovered and brought it to perfection. M. Laennec's assiduity in teaching, did not make him neglect the work on which the great reputation he now enjoyed was chiefly founded. The first edition of the Treatise on Auscultation had been for some time out of print; he, therefore, set about preparing a new one, with the utmost care. This was a work of great labour; as the alterations made in the second edition constitute it rather a new treatise, than an improved copy of the old. He not only altered the entire plan of the work, but he submitted all his facts to a new examination. He corrected some mis-statements, cleared up many doubtful passages, and perfected many points of investigation which had been only commenced at the time of his first publication; he likewise added the important subject of treatment to his previous account of the anatomy and diagnosis of the diseases. The new work having thus received the most careful, and, as it proved, the final revision of the author, appeared in the beginning of 1826. In like manner as at the time of the publication of the former edition, the physical powers of the author seem to have been completely exhausted by the exertions he made to finish his work, combined with the pressure of his other engagements of a public and private nature. Scarcely was his book published, when the disease under which he had been labouring for some time, increased with so much rapidity as soon forced him to relinquish all his employments. He had been long subject to a dry cough, to transient pains in his right side, and to a diarrhoea, which, when it kept within moderate bounds, he considered rather beneficial than otherwise. In the beginning of April, these symptoms became aggra- vated, with the addition of fever and dyspnoea and considerable emaciation. Bloodletting and other appropriate measures were had recourse to, only with very temporary benefit; and he resolved to make trial, once more, of the means from a\ hich he had, on a former occasion, derived such signal benefit. He reached his country residence, after a fatiguing jour- ney, (which was rendered still more distressing by an accident from which he suffered a severe local injury,) and in circumstances very dif- ferent from those attending his former return. The pleasure of once more finding himself in the place of his birth and of his affection, the fresh- ness of the sea-air, in which he had the most remarkable confidence, the freedom from all professional cares and duties, and gentle airings in a carriage, seemed for a short space to reanimate both his exhausted spi- rits and his wasted frame. But the relief was brief and illusive ; the bad symptoms all returned Avith redoubled force; and he died on the 13th of August, 1826, in the forty-fifth year of his age. There can be no doubt that the disease of which Laennec died was phthisis pulmonalis; and it is somewhat curious that he shared the fate of some of his most illustrious predecessors, in falling a victim to a dis- ease, the nature of which he had taken particular pains to illustrate,