René Laennec

Biography

• Born February 17, 1781 in Quimper, France
• 1801 – Studied medicine at École pratique
• 1802 – Published the first of 12 papers as a medical student. Subjects included peritonitis, amenorrhea, the prostate gland, liver diseases, and tubercular lesions
• 1804 – Thesis on the relationship of the ancient Greek Hippocratic doctrine to practical medicine
• 1804 – Elected to the Societe de I’Ecole de Medicine
• 1822 – Chair and professor of medicine at the College de France; Head of the Medical Clinic at Hôpital de la Charité.
• 1823 – Elected to the Academy of Medicine
• 1824 – Légion d’Honneur
• Died August 13, 1826 Ploaré, France

Medical Eponyms

• Laennec’s cirrhosis (1819) – cirrhosis without jaundice due to malnutrition and alcoholism
• Laennec-Hamman symptom. (1831)
• Laennec’s pearls – archaic – sputum produced by asthmatics

Key Medical Attributions

Cirrhosis:

• Laennec gave cirrhosis its name from the Greek word kirrhos, meaning tawny yellow. British pathologists John Browne (1642-1700) and Matthew Baillie (1761-1823) had previously provided more detailed descriptions, but not provided a memorable name.
• This term first appeared in a footnote in 1819 in the first volume of his classic text ‘De l’auscultation médiate 1819;I;368-369 – the term has survived despite the term being dropped from the footnote in it’s English translation in 1827.

Melanoma:

• Laennec was the first to lecture on and coin the term mélanose (from the Greek for black) in 1804 and published findings in 1806 [1806;II;24-26]. He differentiated melanoma from black tuberculose lesions or carbon deposits in the lung and recognized that melanotic lesions in the lungs were the result of metastatic melanoma.
• Dupuytren took exception to Laennec’s work as it gave insufficient credit to himself leading to a bitter series of articles over the original ‘discovery‘ of melanoma Dupuytren [1804;II;13-24]

Major Publications

• Laennec RTH. Propositions sur la doctrine d’Hippocrate, relativement à la médecine pratique. 1804
• Laennec RTH. Sur les maelanoses. Bulletins de la Faculté de médicine de Paris. 1806; II; 24-26. [Dupuytren riposte in the same journal: Anatomie pathologique 1806; II; 13-24]
• Laennec RTH. Note sur l’anatomie pathologique. Journal de médecine, chirurgie, pharmacie. 1805;IX:360.  [Duputren riposte in the same journal: Observations 1805; IX: 441-446 and then Nouvelles Observations 1805; X: 96-102]
• Laennec RTH. De l’auscultation médiate, ou, Traité du diagnostic des maladies des poumons et du coeur, fondé principalement sur ce nouveau moyen d’exploration. 1819 [Tome II] [English Translation A treatise on the diseases of the chest and on mediate auscultation, John Forbes 1821]
• Laennec RTH. Traité de l’auscultation médiate : et des maladies des poumons et du coeur. [Tome II] [Tome III]. Paris: Chaudé. 1826

References

Biogrpahy

• Sakula A. RTH Laënnec 1781–1826 his life and work: a bicentenary appreciation. Thorax 1981;36:81–90.
• Davies MK, Hollman A. Rene Theophile-Hyacinthe Laënnec (1781–1826) Heart 1996;76:196
• Roguin A. Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laënnec (1781–1826): The Man Behind the Stethoscope. Clin Med Res. 2006 Sep; 4(3): 230–235.

Eponymous terms

• Lescroel Desprez TE. Thèse: Dissertation sur la mélanose. 1831 [Melanoma]
• Duffin JM. Why does cirrhosis belong to Laennec? CMAJ. 1987 Sep 1;137(5):393-6.
• Denkler K, Johnson J. A Lost Piece of Melanoma History. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. 1999;104:2149–2153
• Jay V. The legacy of Laënnec. Arch Pathol Lab Med. 2000 Oct;124(10):1420-1.
• Daniel TM. René Théophile Hyacinthe Laënnec and the founding of pulmonary medicine. Int J Tuberc Lung Dis. 2004 May;8(5):517-8.
• Karamanou M et al. René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laennec (1781-1826) and the description of metastatic pulmonary melanoma. J BUON. 2015 Jan-Feb;20(1):354-6