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American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine Vol 169. pp. 1165, (2004)
© 2004 American Thoracic Society

Correspondence

Laennec, Tréma, and Tuberculosis

To the Editor:

We read with interest the essay by Murray (1) in which he discusses the location of primary and postprimary tuberculosis in an historical context. The great French clinician R.T.H. Laennec (1781–1826), who invented the stethoscope, is mentioned twice in this article. To our surprise, the name of Laennec was misspelled with two dots on the e (Laënnec). This misspelling had been tackled earlier by Chast (2), who pointed out that Laennec, a native of Brittany, did not write his name with a diaeresis in his publications.

In the literature, we found Laennec's name with and without the French tréma. The online library of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (http://gallica.bnf.fr/) offers free online access to Laennec's major publications. The title page of De l'auscultation médiate (3) bears witness to the fact that the correct spelling is Laennec, not Laënnec. Therefore, we would like to point readers to this open access source (available online at: http://gallica.bnf.fr/scripts/ConsultationTout.exe?E=0andO=N098758) to put an end to this confusion.

Mahender P. Chandie Shaw and Jan W. Schoones

Leiden University Medical Center Leiden, The Netherlands

FOOTNOTES

Conflict of Interest Statement: M.P.C.S. and J.W.S. have no declared conflict of interest.

REFERENCES

  1. Murray JF. Bill Dock and the location of pulmonary tuberculosis: how bed rest might have helped consumption. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2003;168:1029–1033.[Free Full Text]
  2. Chast F. Laennec but not Laënnec founded anatomoclinical medicine [letter]. Lancet 1998;351:1592.
  3. Laennec RTH. De l'auscultation médiate ou Traité du diagnostic des maladies des poumons et du coeur, fondé principalement sur ce nouveau moyen d'exploration [electronic document]. Reprod. de l'éd. de Paris: J.-A. Brosson et J.-S. Chaudé, 1819. 1995. Available from: http://gallica.bnf.fr/scripts/ConsultationTout.exe?E=0&O=N098758
 

From the Author:

Regretfully, I have been misspelling the name of Laennec, one of my heroes, for years (1). Now, thanks to Chandie Shaw and Schoones, it won't happen again.

John F. Murray

University of California San Francisco, California

FOOTNOTES

Conflict of Interest Statement: J.F.M. has no declared conflict of interest.

REFERENCES

  1. Murray JF. Bill Dock and the location of pulmonary tuberculosis: how bed rest might have helped consumption. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2003;168:1029–1033.




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Copyright © 2004 American Thoracic Society