Air cystoscopy: the history of an endoscopic technique from the late 19th century

area, a mirror could be introduced and directed within Introduction the shaft of the endoscope. Furthermore, air or carbon dioxide was introduced with bellows to distend the In the early days of cystoscopy the bladder was either examined when distended by urine or after instillation bladder. Another tube-like instrument made of glass (Fig. 2) of a clear fluid. As the first endoscopes had no incorporated irrigation tube, cystoscopy had to be interrupted was used by Alexander J. Skene from New York, for cystoscopy in females [6]. Although the construction to introduce a catheter to fill or empty the bladder. Therefore some endoscopists used air as an examination was less sophisticated, a similar mirror (Fig. 2b) was introduced to view the whole bladder. medium and constructed their endoscopes as simple tubes with no optical system of magnifying lenses, for Maximilian Nitze had practised his method of cystoscopy since 1879, but that type of cystoscope did not direct-vision cystoscopy. To obtain a suBciently wide view with this type of instrument, the diameter had to find wide acceptance before 1886–87, because there were problems arising from the lamp heating the tip of be relatively large. Thus, the method of air cystoscopy (or aerocystoscopy) was performed mainly in female the instrument. This problem was solved with the introduction of the incandescent Mignon lamp [2,7]. At that patients [1,2]. The principle of filling a cavity with air has also been time, air cystoscopy became well known, mainly among gynaecologists, whereas the Nitze cystoscope was the used in several urethroscopes for examining the male urethra, e.g. by Géza von Antal from Budapest [3] and instrument preferred by the developing profession of urology. Josef Leiter in Vienna in 1887, as well as by Hurry Fenwick from London a few years later [4]. These techniques are not discussed in this article. Karl Pawlik