Frans Donders was a Dutch physician who is credited with the invention of phonocardiography (the recording of heart sounds) using instrumentation designed for auscultation (listening for sounds produced by the body).

Manual auscultation, also termed immediate auscultation or direct auscultation, is performed by listening directly to sounds with the unaided ear. Indirect or immediate auscultation (most often performed with a stethoscope) utilizes some mechanism or device to amplify sounds produced with the body.

Donders was born in 1818 near Tilburg, in the Netherlands. He attended medical school at the University of Utrecht and completed his thesis at Leiden. Ultimately, Donders returned to Utrecht to become a professor of physiology.

Although well known for his work in ophthalmology, Donders' research interests also included studies in metabolism--especially respiration related processes. During his studies of respiration, Donders extended his studies of auscultation to include heart sounds. Donders attempted to correlate the sounds...