Georg Kelling (7 July 1866 – 14 February 1945) was a German

internist Internal medicine, also known as general medicine in Commonwealth nations, is a medical specialty for medical doctors focused on the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases in adults. Its namesake stems from "treatment of diseases of th ...

and

surgeon In medicine, a surgeon is a medical doctor who performs surgery. Even though there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon is a licensed physician and received the same medical training as physicians before spec ...

who was a laparoscopy pioneer and in 1901 performed the first

laparoscopic surgery Laparoscopy () is an operation performed in the abdomen or pelvis using small incisions (usually 0.5–1.5 cm) with the aid of a camera. The laparoscope aids diagnosis or therapeutic interventions with a few small cuts in the abdomen.Medli ...

on a dog. He studied medicine at the Universities of

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

and

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. He earned his medical doctorate in 1890, and later worked as a physician at the city hospital in Dresden. In the 1890s, Kelling devised an esophagoscope Kelling specialized in

gastrointestinal The gastrointestinal tract (GI tract, digestive tract, alimentary canal) is the tract or passageway of the digestive system that leads from the mouth to the anus. The tract is the largest of the body's systems, after the cardiovascular system. ...

physiology Physiology (; ) is the science, scientific study of function (biology), functions and mechanism (biology), mechanisms in a life, living system. As a branches of science, subdiscipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ syst ...

and

anatomy Anatomy () is the branch of morphology concerned with the study of the internal structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old scien ...

. He is credited with performing the first

laparoscopic Laparoscopy () is an operation performed in the abdomen or human pelvis, pelvis using small Surgical incision, incisions (usually 0.5–1.5 cm) with the aid of a camera. The laparoscope aids diagnosis or therapeutic interventions with a few ...

examination, a procedure he referred to as " celioscopy". In 1901 he performed the procedure on the abdomen of a dog using a Nitze-

cystoscope Cystoscopy is endoscopy of the urinary bladder via the urethra. It is carried out with a cystoscope. The urethra is the tube that carries urine from the bladder to the outside of the body. The cystoscope has lenses like a telescope or microscop ...

. Prior to cystoscopic viewing of the abdomen, Kelling insufflated it with filtered air via a device known as a

trocar A trocar (or trochar) is a medical device, medical or veterinary medicine, veterinary device used in minimally invasive surgery. Trocars are typically made up of an Wiktionary:awl, awl (which may be metal or plastic with a pointed or tapered tip ...

. Insufflation was used to create a pneumoperitoneum in order to prevent intra-abdominal bleeding. Kelling and his wife were killed during the Allied bombing of Dresden in 1945.

References

*
Google-translated biography of Georg Kelling
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kelling, Georg 1866 births 1945 deaths German surgeons Physicians from Dresden German civilians killed in World War II Deaths by American airstrikes during World War II Deaths by British airstrikes during World War II

See also

References