te patience. Laennec spent twelve years at the task, and
then published his books on the subject. Practically nothing of
importance has been added to his methods and results in the more than
three-quarters of a century of active attention that has been given to
medicine since that time. Laennec did not expect that his discovery
would be taken up by his contemporaries. He even refers to the cool
reception which had been given to {404} Auenbrugger's work, and
deprecates the fact that a man who had done so much for mankind should
have met with such neglect and lack of appreciation, and even the
contempt of his colleagues in medicine, who could not bring themselves
to think that his method of "drumming on the chest," as they called
it, could ever mean much for the recognition of disease. [Footnote 47]

[Footnote 47: Makers of Modern Medicine, by James J. Walsh, M.D.,
Ph.D., LL.D. Fordham University Press, New York, 1907.]

In the preface of his book Laennec, like Auenbrugger, prophesies that
his work will not receive the attention that it deserves, and attempts
to lessen the effect of the derision that will be meted out to it by
calmly stating his expectation of it. It is curious that both of these
men, one of them a German and the other a Frenchman, one of them a
rather stolid Styrian, the other of the lively Celtic nature of the
Bretons, should in turn have realized, at a distance of a thousand
miles and more than half a century from one another, just what the
attitude of the men of science was to be toward their discoveries,
even though those are of a kind that were eventually to be hailed as
among the most important steps in medical progress ever made. Certain
words of Laennec's preface are an echo of Auenbrugger's expressions.
He said:

"For our generation is not inquisitive as to what is being
accomplished by its sons. Claims of new discoveries made by
contemporaries are likely, for the most part, to be met by smiles
and mocking remarks. It is always easier to condemn than to test by
actual experience."

Many people are accustomed to think that, after the spirit that came
into the world with the French Revolution, men were less prone to
listen to authority or cling to old-fashioned notions, and that
liberalism of mind is to be found written large on many pages of
nineteenth century scientific history. One of the great scientists of
the first part of the last century was Dr. Thomas Young, to whom we
owe