Georg Kelling (1866–1945): the root of modern day minimal invasive surgery. A forgotten legend?

On 23 September 1901, at the 73rd meeting of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Physicians in Hamburg, following his lecture “On the inspection of the gullet and the stomach with flexible instruments”, the surgeon and gastroenterologist Georg Kelling from Dresden performed a laparoscopy on a dog. He called this procedure coelioscopy. Kelling’s ingenious idea to connect his oral insufflation device with the Fiedler trocar and the Nitze cystocope, led to the coelioscopy in 1901 and marked the hour of birth of laparoscopy. Until today, Georg Kelling has not experienced the appreciation he is entitled to. He is the forgotten pioneer of a method that today plays an important role in diagnostics and therapeutics. The present standard of endoscopy has confirmed the anticipations of Georg Kelling that he had hundred years ago. His name therefore deserves a fixed place in the history of medicine and especially in the history of endoscopy. Georg Kelling and his wife were killed during the heavy air raids on Dresden on 13 and 14 February 1945, but his vague footprints are still in the sands of medical history.