Author(s): Małgorzata Rygielska / Language(s): Polish
Issue: 02/2016
The author presents a history and the contemporary functioning of the nineteenth‑centuryinvention: the stethoscope. It is both an object,or a tool (used in medicine and forensicscience) and a medium, which in the course oftransformations aiming at improving its use, haschanged its form but kept its main function, i.e. the transmitting of sounds and increasing their volume. The inventor of the stethoscope was René Théophile Hyacinthe Laennec (1781 – 1826), who not only constructed the tool for the auscultation of the human heart and lungs, but alsoleft its detailed description and drawings in his work De l’auscultationmédiate (1819). Laennec, by introducing the stethoscope, which canbe regarded as an example of a material extension, into medical practice, initiated a series of changes in relationships between a doctor anda patient (such as an increasing distance betweenthe two, dependence of medical diagnoses ondata obtained by means of machines and tools). Neil Postman exploited stories on the stethoscopein his reflections on the complex relationship between culture and technology, whereas Michel Foucault used them when characterizing the transformation of European discursive formations. These are undoubtedly vital diagnosesfor our present times.The author presents a history and the contemporary functioning of the nineteenth century invention: the stethoscope. It is both an object, or a tool (used in medicine and forensic science) and a medium, which in the course of transformations aiming at improving its use, has changed its form but kept its main function, i.e. the transmitting of sounds and increasing their volume. The inventor of the stethoscope was René Théophile Hyacinthe Laennec (1781 – 1826), who not only constructed the tool for the auscultation of the human heart and lungs, but also left its detailed description and drawings in his work De l’auscultationmédiate (1819). Laennec, by introducing the stethoscope, which can be regarded as an example of a material extension, into medical practice, initiated a series of changes in relationships between a doctor and a patient (such as an increasing distance between the two, dependence of medical diagnoses on data obtained by means of machines and tools). Neil Postman exploited stories on the stethoscope in his reflections on the complex relationship between culture and technology, whereas Michel Foucault used them when characterizing the transformation of European discursive formations. These are undoubtedly vital diagnoses for our present times.
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