1904

Sauerbruch presents “On the physiological and physical principles involved in intrathoracic operations in a pneumatic operation chamber” at Congress of German Surgical Society in Berlin, and he and Mikulicz perform first intrathoracic operations in negative pressure chamber; Ludolph Brauer advances opposing view favoring positive-pressure technique. He performed tracheostomy through which he passed a tube connected to oxygen cylinder, in such a way that oxygen flowed over flask of ether before entering the lungs: the pressure of oxygen flow kept lungs inflated (Cherian et al., 1013; Richardson, 88-91; Woolmer, 98-101). This was the basis of endotracheal insufflation anesthesia, adopted for human anesthesia by Charles Elsberg in 1910, which gave way to the superior endotracheal inhalational technique with bellows after WWI (Richardson, 93-95).