History of Gastric Surgery

The history of gastric surgery is one of the most complex in the annals of medicine. The practice of this surgery depended upon the growing knowledge of the pathology of gastric diseases. This knowledge, together with animal experiments and the introduction of anaesthesia during the last century, led to the first successful planned operation for a disease of the stomach. The last 20 years of the nineteenth century saw the introduction of many gastric operations, some of which were to become established and modified during the ensuing years. In the writings of Celsus14 in the first century and Galen29 in the second century, vague references were made to ulcers of the stomach, but it was not until the revival of medicine in the sixteenth century, with its attendant increase in post-mortem examinations, that further examples were recorded.