The medical historian Jacalyn Duffin has argued that the invention of the stethoscope marked a major step in the redefinition of disease from being a bundle of symptoms, to the current sense of a disease as a problem with an anatomical system even if there are no noticeable symptoms.
The scene cuts to a hosiptal, where the seriously injured prospector is under the care of the doctor, but his stethoscope instead turns out to be a telegraph, from which he gets news that they have now found gold in Virginia City (an apparent reference to the Comstock Lode).
Since the invention of the stethoscope by René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laennec France in 1816, physicians have been utilizing lung sounds to diagnose various chest conditions.
In Paris, Itard was a student of distinguished physician René Laennec, inventor of the stethoscope (in 1816).