TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
NEWSLETTER • 17 FEBRUARY
On 17 Feb 1781, René Laënnec was born, a French physician who invented the use of a wooden cyclinder as an instrument for medical diagnosis, the nature of which is a question in the quiz below.
For a breezily written background to his life, read this article on René Laënnec. Therein you will be aware of the activities of his contemporaries, and how the French Revolution occurred during his youth.
On 17 Feb 1781, René Laënnec was born, a French physician who is generally considered the father of chest medicine. Using a foot-long wooden cylinder that he placed on the chests of his patients, he was able to hear the various sounds made by the lungs and heart. Today's book pick is: Doctors: The Illustrated History of Medical Pioneers, by Sherwin B. Nuland, a surgeon and National Book Award-winner. This book tells the extraordinary story of the development of modern medicine through compelling studies of the great innovators and pioneers. Artfully selected illustrations bring the history of medicine to life as never before.
This brilliant collection of life portraits of physician-scientists shows how their deeds and determination paved the way for future breakthroughs in medicine.
Ranging from the legendary father of medicine, Hippocrates, to Helen Taussig, the founder of pediatric cardiology, the book is filled with the spirit of ideas and the thrill of discovery. Other medical pioneers profiled include Galen, Andreas Vesalius, Ambroise Paré, William Harvey, Giovanni Morgagni, John Hunter, René Laennec, Ignac Semmelweis, Rudolf Virchow, Joseph Lister, and William Stewart Halsted.
It is available from Amazon, typically about New from $21.99. Used from $4.99. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)
 | Natural selection is a mechanism for generating an exceedingly high degree of improbability. — Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher, British statistician, geneticist and evolutionary biologist (born 17 Feb 1890).  |
 | Whether statistics be an art or a science... or a scientific art, we concern ourselves little. It is the basis of social and political dynamics, and affords the only secure ground on which the truth or falsehood of the theories and hypotheses of that complicated science can be brought to the test. — Adolphe Quetelet, Belgian astronomer, statistician, mathematician and sociologist (died 17 Feb 1874). |
 | The universe is then one, infinite, immobile. ... It is not capable of comprehension and therefore is endless and limitless, and to that extent infinite and indeterminable, and consequently immobile. — Giordano Bruno, Italian philosopher, astronomer, mathematician and occultist (died 17 Feb 1600). |
| Before you look at today's web page, see if you can answer some of these questions about the events that happened on this day. Some of the names are very familiar. Others will likely stump you. Tickle your curiosity with these questions, then check your answers on today's web page. | |
| Births | |
 | Frederic Eugene Ives, born 17 Feb 1856, was an American photographer and inventor of a process to reproduce photographs on a printing press. Prior to this process, illustrations were reproduced from hand-engraved plates. In this way printers could reproduce line drawings but not the shades of gray in a photograph. What process did Ives invent to print photographs? |
| | René Laënnec, born 17 Feb 1781, was a French physician who invented the use of a foot-long wooden cylinder for medical diagnosis. By what name is the modern version of this instrument known? |
| Deaths | |
 | Christopher Latham Sholes (1819-1890) was a U.S. inventor who developed the typewriter. A printer and newspaper editor by trade, he developed a page numbering machine in the mid-1800s. A friend suggested he modify the machine into a letter-printing device. Sholes patented the typewriter in 1868 and sold the rights to a manufacturer in 1873. Which well-known typewriter manufacturer bought the rights to Sholes’ typewriter? |
| Events | |
 | On 17 Feb of a certain year, the first public experimental demonstration of Baird colour television was transmitted from Crystal Palace to the Dominion Theatre, London. In which decade was this TV broadcast made? |
 | On 17 Feb 1869, a scientist cancelled a planned visit to a factory and stayed at home working on the problem of how to arrange the chemical elements in a systematic way. To begin, he wrote each element and its chief properties on a separate card and arranged these in various patterns. Eventually he achieved a layout that suited him and copied it down on paper. These historic documents still exist, and mark the beginning of the form of the Periodic Table as commonly used today. Can you name this scientist? |
Fast answers for the previous newsletter for February 16: ecology • fingerprints • so-called “weak” interactions • the imitation by a species of other life forms or inanimate objects, giving protection to a harmless organism by resembling another noxious or dangerous life form predators avoid • decade including the year 1937 • King Tutankhamen.
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