LANGENBUCH,CARL AND THE LAZARUS HOSPITAL - EVENTS AND CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING THE 1ST CHOLECYSTECTOMY

Carl Langenbuch performed the first cholecystectomy at the Lazarus Hos pital in Berlin in July 1882. This operation followed scientific exper iment, careful thought, cadaver dissections and careful patient select ion. Langenbuch's career was linked with the Lazarus Hospital in Berli n, to which he was appointed as Director at the age of 27. The hospita l was then 4 years old and in a poor area of Berlin, and they grew in reputation together. Going through repeated troubled times, this hospi tal has withstood financial disaster, three wars, an occupation and th e ambitions of administrators and developers.Treatment for cholecystit is before Langenbuch was stone extraction from spontaneous cutaneous b iliary fistula or skin incision of near-pointing empyema. Cholecystost omy was carried out by Bobbs (1867), by Sims (1878), and championed by Kocher (1878) and Tait (1879). Langenbuch carried out a cholecystecto my in 1882 and subsequently recommended choledochotomy, duodenotomy an d sphincterotomy in the management of stones in the bile ducts. He car ried out one of the earlier major right liver resections in 1888. Also , he was famous for his sciatic nerve stretching for tabes dorsalis, m anagement of gunshot wounds and his dissertations at the German Surgic al Society before becoming renowned for cholecystectomy. The surgical world owes Langenbuch proper acknowledgement for his contribution to h epatobiliary surgery.