ABSTRACT
People have suffered for centuries from inflammation of the worm-shaped appendage to the upper part of the large intestine. Our internal food-processing system has many components whose diseases are handled with gastrointestinal surgery. Observations of human gallstones go back to an Egyptian priestess at Thebes, around 1500 BC. Contemporary knowledge of ailments in the gall system was collected as early as 1708 by Michael Ettmuller. Diseases like inflammation of the gall bladder—cholecystitis—were very frequent in the early nineteenth century, calling for sound treatment. The mucous membrane of the stomach, and the upper duodenum at the top of the small intestine, are well known to suffer “peptic” ulcers. Surgery for chronic ulcers was initiated to cure constrictions in the lower stomach—due to scars from ulceration—by connecting the stomach with the small intestine. During the twentieth century, calculus disease in the urinary tract, including kidney stones, was apparently much more frequent, though varying between countries.
