1816
A quire of paper
Laennec rolled paper into a cylinder, put one end to a patient's chest and the other to his ear, and heard the heart more clearly and distinctly than with his ear alone.
Trace the tubeBefore 1816, a doctor listened to a chest with an ear pressed against it.
Then a French physician rolled up some paper. This independent guide traces the stethoscope from that improvised tube to the instrument round a doctor's neck today, using museum collections and medical historians.
Updated
Trace the tubeTHE SHORT ANSWER
A borrowed trick
from acoustics.
Laennec remembered how clearly a pin-scratch
travels along a piece of wood.
1819
A wooden tube and a book
He soon made a hollow wooden cylinder, named it from the Greek words for chest and examination, and described its uses in an influential 1819 book.
See the object
1851
Two ears
Irish physician Arthur Leared is credited with the binaural stethoscope in 1851, the flexible two-eared design most people know.
What changedTRACE THE TUBE
How did doctors
listen?
Pick a stage to see how listening to the chest changed. The bar shows how close each stage is to the two-eared stethoscope used today.
Based on the Linda Hall Library, the Medical History Society of Nova Scotia and the Science Museum Group collection. History only, not medical advice.
TWO NUMBERS WORTH KNOWING
Small object,
slow start.
One measurement from a museum object,
one figure on how long it took to catch on.
287 mm
Length of a Laennec stethoscope
The Science Museum Group holds a monaural stethoscope made by Laennec in France, 1815-1825, of wood with a metal tube, 287 mm long and 38 mm across.
SCIENCE MUSEUM · A79254
≈ 2 decades
Time before it entered medical training
Linking the sounds heard to disease of the heart and lungs was difficult, so it was almost two decades before the instrument was included in medical training.
MEDICAL TRAINING
Laennec became a professor at the Collège de France in 1823 and died of tuberculosis in 1826, aged 45.
FOUR WAYS TO EXPLORE IT
Look closer
at the history.
You can follow the story through objects and books without a medical background. These are starting points from the sources behind this page.
Browse the museum collection
The Science Museum Group's online collection has several Laennec-type wooden stethoscopes, with materials, dates and measurements.
Compare one ear with two
Set a monaural wooden tube beside a later binaural model and notice what the flexible tubing changed.
Read Laennec's own account
His 1819 book, De l'auscultation médiate, describes the paper-roll moment in his own words and was translated into English.
Notice the name
'Stethoscope' joins the Greek words for chest and examination, a name Laennec chose himself.
WHY IT MATTERED
Listening became
a method.
Laennec had studied under Jean-Nicolas Corvisart, who compared percussion and ear-to-chest findings with post-mortem results. Laennec continued that work with his new instrument.
His book of 1819 set out the many uses of 'mediate' (indirect) listening. Historians credit it with starting a process that made the stethoscope an indispensable tool for physicians.
Questions
Questions people ask
Who invented the stethoscope?
René Laennec, a French physician born in Brittany in 1781. In 1816 he rolled paper into a tube to listen to a patient's heart, then made a hollow wooden version.
Why did he use a tube?
Laennec wrote that percussion was of little help for that patient, and historians add that putting his ear to her chest seemed inappropriate. He recalled how clearly the scratch of a pin travels along a piece of wood.
What does 'stethoscope' mean?
Laennec named it from the Greek words for chest and examination.
When did stethoscopes get two earpieces?
The flexible binaural stethoscope arrived in the 1850s. The Medical History Society of Nova Scotia credits Irish physician Arthur Leared with inventing it in 1851.
Can I see an early stethoscope?
The Science Museum Group's collection includes a monaural stethoscope made by Laennec in France between 1815 and 1825, as well as later wooden copies.
Sources
Where the facts come from
- Linda Hall Library: Scientist of the Day, René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laennec
- Medical History Society of Nova Scotia: 200 Years of the Stethoscope
- Science Museum Group: Laennec monaural stethoscope, France, 1815-1825
- Science Museum Group: Wooden Laennec stethoscope, English, 1865-1895
- Science Museum Group: Laennec stethoscope with stand
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