Rene Laennec studies on ausculatation and stethoscpopy began in 1817 at the Hopital Necker. The first published observation documenting auscultation using the stethoscope (Mediate Auscultation) was on March 8, 1817, when Laennec noted examining a 40 year old chambermaid, Marie-Melanie Basset. Laennec's research activities about mediate auscultation were first brought to public attention with his consultation in June of 1817 for Mme de Stael, who was the daughter of the Necker’s and an author who criticized the rise of Napoleon's empire. Her personal physician described Laennec's consultation: "Another well-known doctor [Laennec], using a horn of paper, which he placed with one end on a part of the thorax and the other in his ear, believed he diagnosed a hydrothorax, an could even hear a sort of undulation. One can well understand that I considered this method of investigating the interior of the chest to be very strange, and I did not share his opinion, in spite of the regard I might have for him."