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.

  • Laennec, R. T. H. (René Théophile Hyacinthe), 1781-1826.
Date:
1832
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. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. With all its imperfections as a translation, I have no hesita- tion in pronouncing the follovving work to be one of the most valuable that has ever been presented to the medical profes- sion in this country.,^ The original Treatise will remain an imperishable monument of the genius and industry of the author; and the discovery of which it treats, will entitle him to a distinguished rank among the benefactors of mankind. As a standard woik on the pathology and diagnosis of the diseases of the chest, it is not only without an equal, but may be considered as almost perfect in its kind. Much, no doubt, will hereafter be discovered that will modify and improve the delineations of disease which he has left us, but their great outlines must remain, unalterable as nature itself. ' To be convinced of the vast importance of auscultation as a means of diagnosis, it is only necessary to peruse the present treatise; and I can offer no more powerful incentive to the readei-, than to add my humble testimony in support of every statement contained in it, which I have had an opportunity of verifying. Several forms of disease there recorded, have not, as yet, come under my obsei'vation, and in some of the more common affections, I have not hitherto had occasion to notice every one of the signs described; but in no case have I met with any circumstance, either of a positive or negative kind, which could give me the slightest reason to doubt any essen- tial parts of the author's statements. At the same time, it would be exacting too much from the weakness of humanity, to expect, that the author of Mediate Auscultation should, in no case, have yielded to the enthu- siasm natux'ally inspired by the consciousness of so great a discovery. And if, in a few passages of his book, he should be found somewhat to exaggerate the actual or relative im- portance of his method, or even sometimes to appear rather as the partisan than the historian of the stethoscope, I am sure that a fault so venial, on such an occasion, and in such