Medical Dictionary
Main Entry:
Laen·nec's cirrhosis Variant:
or Laën·nec's cirrhosis /'lA-neks-/ Function:
noun : hepatic cirrhosis inwhich increased connective tissue spreads out from the portal spaces compressing and distorting the lobules, causing impairment of liver function, and ultimately producing the typical hobnail livercalled also
portal cirrhosis Laenánec /lo-en-ek,/ Laennec, René–Théophile–Hyacinthe (1781–1826), French physician.Laennec is usually regarded as one of the great clinicians of all time and as the father of chest medicine. A foremost authority on tuberculosis, he established that all phthisis is tuberculous. Hedescribed pneumothorax and distinguished pneumonia from the various kinds of bronchitis and from pleuritis. He is also credited with inventing the stethoscope; his primitive device was a woodencylinder about a foot long. For three years he studied patients' chest sounds and correlated them with the diseases found on autopsy. In 1819 he published his findings in a work on auscultation withthe aid of a stethoscope. It was in that work he described Laennec's cirrhosis.
