Rene Laennec: his brilliant life and tragic early death

1. Laennec's lung disease lasted for at least 20 years. Its stigmata included chronic cough, sputum production and intermittent wheeze. 2. Laennec had long term stigmata commonly associated with chronic bronchiectasis, sinusitis, physical frailty, and short stature (5ft 2in). 3. Chronic diarrhoea of at least 20 years duration is not strongly associated with tuberculosis. 4. During Laennec's last illness his physicians equivocated as to whether he had respiratory disease at all. Bronchial breathing at the apex, if indeed present, could have been caused by compensatory emphysema secondary to middle lobe bronchiectasis rather than to active tuberculosis. 5. Laennec did not have haemoptysis in his final illness. 6. Laennec's last illness, a wasting illness characterised by intermittent fevers, cardiac murmur, and persistent tachycardia followed a dental manipulation. The painful "abdominal abscess" noted by Laennec's colleagues may actually have been splenomegaly. These features suggest endocarditis. The cardiac murmurs associated with pulmonary hypertension secondary to bronchiectasis are not usually audible at a remote distance from the patient. Endocarditis was a disease largely unknown to physicians of the early 19th century before Osler clarified its pathology in the 1880s.