Endoscopy of Larynx and Trachea with Rigid Laryngo-Tracheoscopes Under Superimposed High-Frequency Jet Ventilation (SHFJV)

1.1.1. Indirect laryngoscopy Knowing that almost all laryngeal and tracheal diseases are visible at the surface of the mucous membranes it is of particular interest to visualize these structures. Endoscopic examinations of the larynx and the trachea are essential in the otorhinolaryngo‐ logical field and had their beginning over 200 years ago. Before the 1800`s only autopsy specimen could clarify laryngotracheal diseases. In 1807 the physian Phillip Bozzini (Germany) reported about a speculum called “the light conductor, or a simple apparatus for the illumination of the internal cavities and spaces in the living animal body” [1]. In 1816 Ludwig Mende (Germany), a gynaecologist & obstetrician and forensic doctor examined first the inner part of the larynx at a living human being. He looked at a larynx of a suicidal person, who had cut through the soft tissue of the supraglottic area [2]. In 1827 L. Senn (Switzerland) successfully examined the larynx of a child with a small mirrow, cited in [3]. In 1829 Benjamin Guy Babington (Great Britain) developed a larynx-mirrow “glottoscope” and could illuminate the upper parts of the larynx. The instrument combined an epiglottic retractor with a laryngeal mirror. He presented it in the Hunterian Society of London [4].