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Rene Laennec

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Doctor

The Resume

    (February 17, 1781-August 13, 1826)
    Born in Quimper, France
    Invented the stethoscope (1816)
    Coined the terms cirrhosis and melanoma

Why he might be annoying:

    His father, a lawyer, tried to discourage him from studying medicine.
    He invented the stethoscope partly because he was embarrassed at having to place his ear against the breasts of female patients.
    His first stethoscope was merely a rolled up piece of paper.
    The binaural stethoscope with two earpieces (that is, the first stethoscope that would make a modern-day person go, 'Look, a stethoscope' instead of 'Look, a wooden tube') was invented by Arthur Learned (1851).

Why he might not be annoying:

    He was fluent in Latin, Greek, English and German as well as his native French.
    He became an editor of the 'Journal de Medecine' while still in med school.
    He discovered that by listening through a tube he could hear lung and heart sounds more clearly than he could by placing his ear directly against the patient.
    He then spent three years experimenting with different materials and tube lengths to get the best results.
    He was named a chevalier of the Legion of Honor (1824).

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 6 Votes: 83.33% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 17 Votes: 47.06% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 4 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 11 Votes: 54.55% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 25 Votes: 56.00% Annoying