HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF SURGICAL-INSTRUMENTS EXEMPLIFIED BY HEMOSTATIC FORCEPS

We describe the historical development of surgical instruments exempli fied by hemostatic forceps, starting with antique and medieval forceps used for the arrest of bleeding to modern atraumatic hemostatic force ps used for vascular reconstruction. Their development proceeded mainl y in three steps: (1) development of ligature forceps directly for hem ostasis (Celsus, first century AD; Pare, 1582; L. Heister, 1743; (2) d evelopment of atraumatic forceps, which facilitate vascular reconstruc tion or anastomosis creation by temporarily clamping vessels (Hopfner, 1903; Stich, 1907; Jeger, 1913; (3) construction of tangential forcep s, which, by partially clamping vessels with partial maintenance of bl ood how allow the reconstruction or anastomosis of large vessels in a side-to-side technique, The first tangential occlusion clamp,vas devel oped by Friedrich Trendelenburg (1844-1924) in 1908, when he establish ed the operative treatment for embolism of the pulmonary artery. This clamp was later modified by A.W. Meyer (1927) and V.P. Satinsky (ca. 1 950).