ABSTRACT
Parenteral nutrition can be considered one of the 20th century’s medical breakthroughs. Its discovery and first implementation in the 1960s greatly enhanced clinical medicine by providing a means for complete and safe feeding of patients with nonfunctional gastrointestinal (GI) tracts. Experimentation with intravenous feeding can be traced as far back as the 1600s, when sharpened quills were used to administer a mixture of milk and wine into the veins of dogs.
