Abstract
The history of esophageal surgery is not a long one. Although there are some anecdotal reports of interventions on the cervical esophagus by surgeons from ancient civilizations and pioneers of modern surgery, series of cases of real surgical procedures—not just perioral probing of the esophagus—did not start to be published until the twentieth century. The advance of operations for benign diseases had to wait for the understanding of esophageal physiology and the development of diagnostic tools. In addition, the progress of operations for esophageal cancer was limited for decades by technical restrictions, especially the barrier of the open chest and the fear of damage to the vagus nerve, which was considered essential for cardiac function.
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Herbella, F.A.M., Zamuner, M., Fisichella, P.M. (2015). History of Esophageal Surgery. In: Fisichella, P., Patti, M. (eds) Atlas of Esophageal Surgery. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13015-6_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13015-6_1
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