The History of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy

Abstract The development of endoscopy is a testimony to human ingenuity. Instruments have evolved from dangerous straight tubes, illuminated by light reflected from candles, to more flexible and safer instruments with an image transmitted through a series of prism lenses and illumination by an electric light bulb, to images transmitted through fiberoptic bundles with illumination transmitted by fiber bundles from an external source, to our present remarkably safe electronic instruments with digital images transmitted to a video screen through wires and processed by computers. Most recently, we can visualize the lumen of the gut without touching the patient. Now we not only can visualize, biopsy tissue, and perform procedures within the hidden cavities of the body, but also directly and indirectly see beneath the mucosa and into immediately adjacent organs. The evolution of gastrointestinal endoscopy is a truly remarkable story, and advances in the diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities of these instruments continue to be made at a rapid pace. To know and understand what has occurred previously lends strength to efforts toward achieving what is to come.