ABSTRACT
Reportedly, Hippocrates was first to describe tube drainage of an infected pleural space (1). Continuous chest tube drainage of the pleural space incorporating an underwater seal device appears to have first occurred in the 1870s in a patient suffering empyema unresponsive to repeated aspiration (2). Extensive interest in effective methods of pleural drainage and experimentation investigating the appropriate role of these pleural drainage measures, including chest tube drainage, occurred after the 1917 postinfluenza epidemic of empyema (3). Postoperative use of chest tube drainage in thoracic surgery, including after lobectomy for suppurative lung disease, was reported in 1922 (4). However, not until the Korean War was postoperative chest tube placement standard after major thoracic surgical procedures (5). Chest tubes made of a myriad of materials in different designs and sizes have evolved since this time and have been accompanied by a host of different pleural drainage units.
