Surgical Instruments
Surgery in the last 20 years has been revolutionized by the introduction and spread of laparoscopy and the way to go still appears long, however, as almost always happens with innovations, the beginnings were not easy and an example to remember certainly concerns the incredible story of the author of the first laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Since the sixties, the German school was at the forefront in the use of endoscopic techniques for advanced times such as duodenoscopy, ercp and papillotomy. Curiously, it was not the surgeons who conceived and spread these techniques but the internists and for this reason the surgical companies of the time showed a certain intolerance, experiencing it as an invasion of their field. Kurt Semm, a gynecologist, had just performed the first laparoscopic appendectomy published in 1982 and at the University of Erlangen, a brilliant surgeon was working on something that would soon go around the world: Erich Muhe, far from envio...