FROM THE HISTORY OF SURGICAL-INSTRUMENTS .2. THE FIRST VESSEL CLAMP OF HOPFNER,E. (1903)

The author describes one of the first atraumatic vascular clamps speci fically developed for vascular surgery in 1903, and used for temporary arterial occlusion. This forceps was about 15 cm long, and its spring steel jaws were separated in the middle, but approximated toward the ends. This clamp was developed by Edmund Hopfner (b. 1873) in 1903, at the Berlin University Hospital, department of Surgery, when he perfor med end-to-end anastomoses of divided arteries in dogs as part of his doctoral thesis. The Hopfner clamp was in common use in Germany until the 1960s.