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February 16, 2001

Strange But True!

  • A weekly column of incidental information, off-the-wall observations and other random facts about the world.
    • By BILL SONES AND RICH SONES, PH.D.
    Special to the Journal

    Q. In 1816, when Dr. R. T. H. Laennec was examining a young, obese woman with symptoms of heart disease, he balked at feeling her chest with his hand or placing an ear there (the standard methods of the day), believing these to be “indelicate and impracticable” under the circumstances. What device did he invent on the spot?

    A. He rolled up sheets of paper into a tube, put one end to the woman’s chest above her heart and listened at the other, the precursor to the stethoscope, say John Cameron et al. in “Physics of the Body.” The device today is used also for checking the lungs, bone joints and arterial blood flow.


     
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