Google doodles are a gentle reminder of all the significant and essential things people have offered to the world and today’s doodle celebrates the birth anniversary of Rene Laennec, a French physician who invented the stethoscope.
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Laennec discovered the stethoscope in 1816 when he observed children playing with a long stick. This led to the invention of the first prototype, which was a wooden tube with a diameter of 25cm.
While treating a young woman with heart problems he felt it would be improper to place his ear to her chest, especially as she was overweight with an ample chest.
Well, they did it by directly placing their ears on a patient’s heart.
Rene Laennec, a French physician, was born on February 17, 1781, in Quimper, France. This particular patient of Dr René was over weight and the doctor wasn’t quite comfortable to lay himself on her body.
The doodle shows Laennec in black and white holding his invention to his ear and a doctor next to him holding the modern version of the stethoscope. The pulsating of her heart was very audible of being heard and clear, and voila the stethoscope was invented.
Laennec built up his model utilizing wood and appending a microphone to one end and an ear piece to the next and to celebrate his 235th birthday, specialists Helene Leroux and Olivia Huynh delineated Laennec’s first stethoscope, in today’s doodle, adjacent to the one we know today.
Before the invention of the familiar medical instrument, doctors would have listened to patient’s hearts by simply putting their ears to their chests. The word stethoscope was also derived from Greek words “stethos” for chest, and “scopos” for examination.
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Laennec died in 1826, age 45, from cavitating tuberculosis.
