endoscopy

Term: endoscopy

Origin: Anc Greek ενδο/endo(=within) + σκοπός/scopos(=aim, look at)

Coined: In 1585, Julius Caesar Aranzi (Giulio Cesare Aranzio, Arantius) (1529/1530 –1589) was the first to use a light source for an endoscopic procedure, focusing sunlight through a flask of water and projecting the light into the nasal cavity. In 1806, Philip Bozzini, built an instrument known as a Lichtleiter, that could be introduced in the human body to visualize the urinary tract, rectum and pharynx. In 1853, Antoine Jean Desormeaux, a French surgeon first introduced the 'Lichtleiter" of Bozzini to a patient and he named it for first time "endoscope". The first experimental laparoscopy was performed in Berlin in 1901 by German surgeon Georg Kelling, who used a cystoscope to peer into the abdomen of a dog after first insufflating it with air. In 1911  H.C. Jacobaeus, from Stockolm, coined the term  "laparothorakoskopie" using a kind of laparoscopy on the thorax and abdomen. At the same time in 1911 Bertram M. Bernheim, from Johns Hopkins Hospital introduced laparoscopic surgery to the United States using the term for that "organoscopy" and ordinary light for illumination. Laparoscopy was first used with cancer patients in 1973. First solid state camera was introduced in 1982 inroducing  the  "video-laparoscopy" era.

Definition:  Examination in which an instrument called an endoscope is passed into one or other of the body tubes or organ cavities.