ABSTRACT
The desire to look inside the hollow viscera of the human body has been driven by curiosity and the potential advantages to be gained from diagnosing and treating disease at an early stage. Progress has been fueled by ingenuity and technological advances borrowed from many diverse fields. Rigid endoscopes came first. The development of a flexible endoscope had to await a solution to the problem of a flexible optical wave-guide. The answer came in the form of the fiberoptic cable. Subsequently, advances in electronics, computing and material science contributed to the array of modern reliable endoscopes available today.
