“Before he assumed the position of chief of service at the teeming Necker Hospital in 1816, Laënnec became adept at a technique called percussion, which involves striking the chest with one’s fingertips in search of pathologic processes. Yet neither percussion nor the time-honored technique of listening to breath sounds by placing an ear against a patient’s chest satisfied Laënnec’s demand for diagnostic precision. He was especially critical of physicians’ inability to hear muffled sounds emerging from the chest of an obese person, and he balked at what he described as the ‘disgusting’ hygiene of his patients, many of whom were unwashed or lice-ridden.”
