In the early 1800s, a French physician named René Laennec had a dilemma. He needed to listen to the heart sounds of a young woman with signs of heart disease. But the only method of listening to heart sounds known to Western medicine at the time was simply to press an ear to the patient’s chest. Laennec just couldn’t bring himself to get that close and personal with this ample young woman.
在19世纪初，一位法国内科医生雷纳-莱纳克遇到了一个难题。 在为一位有心脏病迹象的年轻女性看病时，雷奈克需要听到她的心跳声才能确诊。 但当时西医界已知的听诊方法只是简单地将耳朵贴近患者的胸部来判断心跳声。 但莱纳克并不想与这位年轻女士太过接近。
How could he make a diagnosis?
那么他如何诊断呢？
The story goes that Laennec grabbed a piece of paper and rolled it into a cylinder. With the cylinder between his ear and the young woman’s chest, Laennec saved himself and his patient from embarrassment. But he was also surprised to find that the heart sounds conducted through the cylinder were louder and clearer than he’d ever heard before.
故事的结局是莱纳克随后拿了张纸卷成圆筒状。 他将这一纸质圆筒置于他的耳朵和患者的胸部之间，使得两人都免于了尴尬。 但与此同时，他惊奇地发现通过纸质圆筒传出的心跳声相较以往听到的更为响亮清晰。
Laennec named his invention the stethoscope, from the Greek words for “chest” and “to view,” because it opened a new window into what was happening in the heart and lungs.
莱纳克将这一发明命名为听诊器，这一名称取自希腊语中的“胸部”及“观察”两个词， 因为这一发明为心肺诊断技术开辟了一种新的方法。
After experimenting with different materials, Laennec decided that wood cylinders conducted sound best. He spent the rest of his life interpreting heart and lung sounds, conducting autopsies when possible to confirm the diagnoses he’d made by sound.
通过对不同材质进行实验后，莱纳克认为木质圆筒作为听诊器的效果最佳。 他将余生致力于研究心肺听诊，并通过尸检来验证他此前通过听诊所下的诊断。
Although the stethoscope revolutionized Western medicine, it met with great resistance at first. In the 1820s, many physicians felt that listening through the cylinder would be too time consuming, inconvenient, and well, even silly! But soon the value of Laennec’s modest invention became clear. And today, the stethoscope is a nearly universal symbol of medicine and health care.
尽管听诊器彻底改革了西医诊断方法，但它最初推广使用时也遭遇了极大的阻力。 19世纪20年代，许多医生认为通过圆筒听诊太费时又不方便，甚至很愚蠢！ 但不久之后，莱纳克这项颇为实用的发明的价值逐渐显现。 现今，听诊器已成为医学保健普遍的象征。
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