Abstract
Summary: We present a recently discovered paper that witnesses to arthroscopic activity before
World War I. The Proceedings of the 4lst Congress of the German Society of Surgeons
at Berlin in 1912, contain a presentation entitled “Endoscopy of Closed Cavities by
the Means of My Trokart-Endoscope.” The author was a Danish surgeon from Aarhus named
Severin Nordentoft. Dr. Nordentoft had constructed an endoscope similar to the Jacobaeus
thoracoscope, consisting of a trocar 5 mm in diameter, a fluid valve, and an optic
tube. In addition to suprapubic cystoscopy and laparoscopy, he advised the use of
such an endoscopic device in the knee joint, especially for early detection of meniscal
lesions. He baptized the procedure “arthroscopy” and gave a vivid and credible description
of the handling of the instrument, and the view of the anterior region of the knee,
including the articular cartilage, synovial lining, villi, and plicae. He used sterile
saline as the optical medium. Unfortunately, he did not express clearly if he performed
arthroscopy on patients or on cadaver knees. This is the only known paper or presentation
by Severin Nordentoft on the topic of arthroscopy. In the following years, his interests
changed to radiotherapy, and today Danish radiologists remember him as a pioneer in
x-ray treatment of mammary carcinoma and brain tumors. Although his pioneering work
in arthroscopy was overlooked, the primacy of this procedure must now be attributed
to him.
Arthroscopy: The Journal of Arthroscopic and Related Surgery, Vol 17, No 5 (May-June),
2001: pp 532–535
Keywords
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References
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Article info
Footnotes
*Address correspondence and reprints requested to Christopher W. Kieser, M.D., Oberdorfstrasse 3lA, CH-8702 Zollikon, Switzerland.
Identification
Copyright
© 2001 Arthroscopy Association of North America. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
