1868 | Medicine
Medicine
German physician Adolf Kussmaul, 46, at Freiburg pioneers what later will be called laparoscopic surgery, performing the first esophagogastroscopy procedure on a professional sword swallower (see Desormeaux, 1853; Nitze, 1879). Kussmaul advances the use of endoscopy but will gain a more lasting reputation with his descriptions of voluntary mutism (Kussmaul's aphasia), diabetic coma, limited expansion of the right ventricle (Kussmaul's pulse), and other conditions, including the acquired neuropathy that will be called Guillain-Barré-Strohl syndrome (see Kelling, 1901).
Guy's Hospital, London, physician Samuel Wilks, 44, gives the first clinical description of osteoporosis, a kind of osteitis deformans known also as spongy hypertrophy of the bones (see 1846).
Anesthesiology pioneer William T. G. Morton dies in poverty at New York July 15 at age 48, having exhausted his resources fighting in court against the patent claims of Crawford W. Long, who will survive until 1878.