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Published on: February 23, 2017
200th Anniversary of the Beginning of Clinical Application of the Laennec's Stethoscope in 1819
1Clinical Department for Diagnostic Radiology, Clinical-Hospital Centre Rijeka, Krešimirova 42, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia.
Abstract:
Although stethoscope was invented by French physician René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laennec (1781-1826) in 1816, its wider clinical application started only after the publication of his book entitled De l'Auscultation Médiate ou Traité, du Diagnostic des Maladies des Poumons et du Coeur in 1819. Its invention coincided with the development of the 'hospital medicine' in the post-revolutionary Paris during the first quarter of the 19th century. It has enabled then contemporary physicians to explain the correlation between the patient symptoms and the clinical findings and thus has helped the shift from the humoral pathology towards the solitary pathology.
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