He was known for the kindness of his disposition, and his readiness to help his friends whenever it was possible. He was never known to injure anyone, and a certain quiet elevation of spirit preserved him from all conceit. One of his most intimate Breton friends, Kergaradec, said, "I have never heard Laennec express by a single word, or even by the slightest insinuation, anything that might seem to indicate pride in what he had accomplished or that might provoke a listener to say something in praise of him." The friends he made were bound to him with hoops of steel. They were not many, for he had not the time to waste on many friends. He was too devoted to his work, and too [{157}] deeply interested in the great problem whose solution he foresaw meant so much for the good of humanity, to have much time for anything but his studies and his patients.
With regard to Laennec's personal character, his most recent biographer Dr. Henri Saintignon, has said: [Footnote 5]
[Footnote 5: Laennec, Sa vie et son oeuvre. Par Dr. Henri Saintignon. Paris, J. B. Baillière et Fils, 1904.]
"I have shown in the course of this life just what was the character of Laennec and his intellectual and moral qualities, so that it will not be necessary for me to dwell at length on this subject, in concluding. His great piety, which had never been abandoned from his earliest infancy, was his main guide during all his life. Without ostentation, yet without any weakness, absolutely ignoring human respect, he obeyed with utter simplicity the prescriptions of his faith. While he did not conceal his convictions when during the first empire they might have proved a source of lessened esteem, or positive prejudice, he made no noise about them when under the Restoration they might have proved the means of advancement and of fortune. He had not in the slightest degree what is so often objected to, in devoted persons, namely, the love of making proselytes. The words of Prof. Desgenettes might very well have been applied to him: as he did not believe himself to have any mission to lead others to his opinions, he limited himself to preaching by example. The reproach of being rabidly clerical or propagandist, which was urged against him, when he first became a member of the faculty of medicine, was absolutely unjustified. Laennec never occupied himself with politics nor with religion in public. As a physician he devoted himself exclusively to his profession, receiving at his clinic all those who desired to follow his teaching, whatever might be their opinions or their beliefs."
It was not long, however, before Laennec's many labors in Paris began to tell on his health once more. His practice after his return to health and his attachment to the court became large and lucrative. It is characteristic of the man and his ways that he frequently refused, owing to lack of time, to go to see wealthy patients, from whom he would have received large fees, but it is said that he never refused to go to see a poor patient. His hospital patients always received the most solicitous attention, and his time was almost entirely at their disposal. It was not long before Laennec himself, who had taught modern physicians so much about the diagnosis of pulmonary diseases, began evidently to suffer from pulmonary disease himself. There seems no doubt now that almost constant association with tuberculous patients in an overworked subject inclined naturally to be of underweight, and therefore especially susceptible, led to the contraction of the disease.
After about four years in Paris, a dry, hard cough developed insidiously, gradually increased in annoyance, and finally grew so serious as to demand a return once more to his native Bretagne. He lost flesh, became subject to intermittent attacks of fever and suffered from some pleuritic and pulmonic pains. For some time after his return to his native air he improved. He was treated by the usual method employed at the time whenever fever accompanied any ailment. Venesection was the main part of what was then called the antiphlogistic treatment. It is needless to say he did not improve. He was suffering from exhausting disease and the treatment became really an accessory to further exhaustion.
At last there could be no longer any doubt that the end was approaching. The old curé of the village came often to visit him, and brought him all the consolations of religion. [{159}] With his sincere Christian faith and firm conviction, it was not hard for Laennec to find the moral force and the calm necessary to secure an easy death. Finally one day, on August 13th, his wife saw him take off his fingers one after another the rings he wore, and place them softly upon the table. When she asked him why he did so, he replied, "It will not be long now before someone else would have to do this service for me, and I do not wish that they should have the trouble." Even in death he was thinking of others rather than of himself, and he was calmly facing the inevitable, thoroughly prepared for it. Two hours afterward, at five o'clock in the afternoon, without there having been at any time the slightest loss of consciousness, Laennec passed away.
How faithfully his family had watched over him, and how simple was the feeling of Christian confidence in all of them, may very well be gathered from the letter of his cousin Ambrose to Laennec's brother Meriadec in Paris.
"My dear Meriadec:--Poor Renè is no more. His life was passed in the midst of labor and of benevolence. While he had all the virtues of the true Christian, and a wisdom far beyond what was usually granted to men, they have not sufficed to obtain for him the grace of a longer life. Somehow it was ordained that this glory and ornament of our family was not to remain with us. What a sad reflection it is on our restless eagerness in this life, and on the vanity of our hopes, that a genius like this must perish just when it was about to receive the fruit of its labors! He leaves to us a name, a name difficult to sustain and the example of virtues that it will not be easy to imitate. Let us hope that he will watch over us in the future as he has done in the past, and that he will still continue to aid us after his death. Although I have been prepared for this sad event, I could not suspect how much grief I was to experience in losing my [{160}] second master, my friend from earliest infancy, and him whom I had become accustomed to consider as my eldest brother. I must confess that for some years now we have all had to pay dear for the short intervals of happiness that it has pleased heaven to accord to us."