HF01-15: Four Continents, three Scientists, two Immigrants and the first Flexible Endoscope
Friday, May 3, 2024 4:08 PM to 4:15 PM · 7 min. (US/Central)
206
Abstract
History of Urology Forum
Information
Full Abstract and Figures
Author Block
Jasmin Katrin Badawi*, Mannheim, Germany, Jonathan C Goddard, Leicester, United Kingdom
Introduction
In modern endourology, the use of flexible instruments is a well-known daily occurrence. Less well known are the stories of the men who contributed to the construction of the first flexible endoscope in the 1950s.
Methods
Original publications were studied.
Results
Basil Hirschowitz (1925-2013) was born in Bethal, Mpumalanga, South Africa. At 18, he received his undergraduate degree from the University of Witswatersrand, Johannesburg, and four years later a graduate degree in medicine. In 1950, he went to England. In 1953 he took up a fellowship at the University of Michigan. When performing endoscopy, he observed the inadequate visualization and technical difficulties. In January 1954 the pioneering article by the British physicist Harold Horace Hopkins (Leicester, 1918-1994, Reading) who was famous for the “Wave Theory of Aberrations” and his PhD student Narinder Singh Kapany (India, 1926-2020, California) “A Flexible Fibrescope, using Static Scanning” was published in the journal “Nature” reporting on a very new technique comprising “a bundle of fibres of glass, or other transparent material, ... to replace the train of lenses employed in conventional endoscopes.” After reading about these ideas, Hirschowitz visited Hopkins and Kapany at the Imperial College London. Due to lack of backing and funds Hopkins himself could not implement the ground-breaking ideas which he and Kapany had developed. So, back in the USA Hirschowitz implemented these ideas by constructing a new gastroscope, the “fiberscope”, in which coated and bundled very thin glass fibres allowed viewing over long distances and around bends. After presenting the “fiberscope” at a scientific meeting, he published an article together with Curtiss, Peters and Pollard in 1958 describing the optical instrument as completely flexible with excellent light transmission. This was just the first fibreoptic endoscope. Hirschowitz later founded the Department of Gastroenterology at the University of Alabama School of Medicine, Birmingham. In 1961, he became a naturalised American. Kapany emigrated together with his wife to the USA in 1955, where he advanced the field of technology as an excellent researcher and founder of several optical companies. The outstanding teacher and scientist Hopkins moved to the Reading University in 1967 to take up a chair in optics.
Conclusions
The development of the flexible endoscope was based on the research work, collaboration and efforts of very different scientists interconnecting four different continents. It led the way to modern endourology.
Source Of Funding
None
Author Block
Jasmin Katrin Badawi*, Mannheim, Germany, Jonathan C Goddard, Leicester, United Kingdom
Introduction
In modern endourology, the use of flexible instruments is a well-known daily occurrence. Less well known are the stories of the men who contributed to the construction of the first flexible endoscope in the 1950s.
Methods
Original publications were studied.
Results
Basil Hirschowitz (1925-2013) was born in Bethal, Mpumalanga, South Africa. At 18, he received his undergraduate degree from the University of Witswatersrand, Johannesburg, and four years later a graduate degree in medicine. In 1950, he went to England. In 1953 he took up a fellowship at the University of Michigan. When performing endoscopy, he observed the inadequate visualization and technical difficulties. In January 1954 the pioneering article by the British physicist Harold Horace Hopkins (Leicester, 1918-1994, Reading) who was famous for the “Wave Theory of Aberrations” and his PhD student Narinder Singh Kapany (India, 1926-2020, California) “A Flexible Fibrescope, using Static Scanning” was published in the journal “Nature” reporting on a very new technique comprising “a bundle of fibres of glass, or other transparent material, ... to replace the train of lenses employed in conventional endoscopes.” After reading about these ideas, Hirschowitz visited Hopkins and Kapany at the Imperial College London. Due to lack of backing and funds Hopkins himself could not implement the ground-breaking ideas which he and Kapany had developed. So, back in the USA Hirschowitz implemented these ideas by constructing a new gastroscope, the “fiberscope”, in which coated and bundled very thin glass fibres allowed viewing over long distances and around bends. After presenting the “fiberscope” at a scientific meeting, he published an article together with Curtiss, Peters and Pollard in 1958 describing the optical instrument as completely flexible with excellent light transmission. This was just the first fibreoptic endoscope. Hirschowitz later founded the Department of Gastroenterology at the University of Alabama School of Medicine, Birmingham. In 1961, he became a naturalised American. Kapany emigrated together with his wife to the USA in 1955, where he advanced the field of technology as an excellent researcher and founder of several optical companies. The outstanding teacher and scientist Hopkins moved to the Reading University in 1967 to take up a chair in optics.
Conclusions
The development of the flexible endoscope was based on the research work, collaboration and efforts of very different scientists interconnecting four different continents. It led the way to modern endourology.
Source Of Funding
None
Sessions
History of Urology Forum
206