Introduction

History of gastrointestinal surgery

Gastrointestinal surgery in one form or another has been described since the writings of Hippocrates in the fourth century BC. By the twelfth century AD, the seminal work Regimen Sanitatis Salerni was published by the School of Salerno and became one of the most influential medical texts ever produced. In it, Roger Frugardi (also known as Roger of Salerno) described suturing wounds of the intestine and laid out rules of hygiene. In the early 1890s, Maunsell described the preoperative preparation of patients by washing out the stomach and rectum, and this principle of mechanical bowel cleansing has been widely followed to this day. However, the art and science of surgery are constantly evolving and many doctrines that were rigorously adhered to in the past have not stood the tests of time and scientific evaluation. Even Hippocrates' teachings have not been immune to subsequent correction; in his ‘Apology and Treatise’, the sixteenth-century French surgeon Ambroise Paré argues against Hippocratic treatment of volvulus.