Thomas Hillier and percutaneous nephrostomy.

Percutaneous nephrostomy has revolutionized urologic practice. Goodwin, Casey, and Woolf’s landmark report in 1955l described percutaneous trocar nephrostomy for temporary drainage of hydronephrosis in 16 patients. Following a twenty-five year period of relative dormancy, percutaneous access to the upper urinary tract became a fundamental diagnostic and therapeutic tool. The literature contains isolated reports of diagnostic percutaneous renal punctures prior to Goodwin.2~5 Neglected in the older literature, however, is Thomas Hillier’s” description of therapeutic percutaneous renal decompression in 1865.