MIT Libraries homeMIT Libraries logoDSpace@MIT

MIT
View Item 
  • DSpace@MIT Home
  • MIT Open Access Articles
  • MIT Open Access Articles
  • View Item
  • DSpace@MIT Home
  • MIT Open Access Articles
  • MIT Open Access Articles
  • View Item
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

Tenuous Tether

Author(s)
Weber, Brittany N.; Edelman, Elazer R
Thumbnail
DownloadEdelman_Tenuous tether.pdf (464.9Kb)
PUBLISHER_POLICY

Publisher Policy

Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.

Terms of use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Metadata
Show full item record
Abstract
In 1816, René Laennec was confronted with a young woman “laboring under general symptoms of diseased heart, and in whose case percussion and the application of the hand were of little avail on account of the great degree of fatness.”1 Physical examination required “immediate auscultation” — placement of the ear to the chest. Laennec engaged in immediate contact with patients often, but in this case, he could not do so: “In the case of females it is not only indelicate but often impracticable; and in that class of person found in the hospital it is disgusting.” In a move that has become legendary, he “rolled a quire of paper into a kind of cylinder and applied one end of it to the region of the heart and the other to my ear . . . and could thereby perceive the action of the heart in a manner much more clear and distinct than I had ever been able to do by the immediate application of my ear.” Calling on his training as a flutist, he coined the terms we still associate with auscultation today, publishing his findings in 1819.1 Laennec thus invented “mediate auscultation,” which eliminated, for almost two centuries, yet another direct interaction between physicians and their patients — but also improved diagnosis and understanding of diseases.
Date issued
2015-12
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/102788
Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Medical Engineering & Science; Harvard University--MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology
Journal
New England Journal of Medicine
Publisher
New England Journal of Medicine Group
Citation
Edelman, Elazer R., and Brittany N. Weber. “Tenuous Tether.” N Engl J Med 373, no. 23 (December 3, 2015): 2199–2201.
Version: Final published version
ISSN
0028-4793
1533-4406

Collections
  • MIT Open Access Articles

Browse

All of DSpaceCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

My Account

Login

Statistics

OA StatisticsStatistics by CountryStatistics by Department
MIT Libraries homeMIT Libraries logo

Find us on

Twitter Facebook Instagram YouTube RSS

MIT Libraries navigation

SearchHours & locationsBorrow & requestResearch supportAbout us
PrivacyPermissionsAccessibility
MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Content created by the MIT Libraries, CC BY-NC unless otherwise noted. Notify us about copyright concerns.