Endoscope

An endoscope is an inspection instrument built from an image sensor, an optical lens, a light source and a mechanical body, used to examine internal body structures through natural openings or small incisions with minimal invasiveness. The physician Philipp Bozzini built the first endoscope, a device he called the Lichtleiter or light conductor, in 1806, though the Vienna College of Physicians rejected his invention; the physician Antonin Jean Desormeaux later built the first genuinely effective open-tube endoscope and performed the first successful operation with one. Endoscopy advanced through electric internal lighting by 1908, and in 1957 Basil Hirschowitz, Larry Curtiss and Wilbur Peters built the first fiber-optic endoscope, building on Harold Hopkins's earlier fibroscope work and his rigid rod-lens design, which Karl Storz then manufactured, together transforming endoscopy from an experimental curiosity into a standard medical tool.