Hippocrates (ca 460-375 bc), Introducing Thoracotomy Combined With a Tracheal Intubation for the Parapneumonic Pleural Effusions and Empyema Thoracis

Abstract

Hippocrates was the first physician to describe in accuracy pleural effusion and pneumonia. To treat empyema thoracis he had introduced a combined method of tracheal intubation with a simultaneously thoracotomy. The surgical incision was used for the pus to be progressively drainaged. If the patient was too weak to eat, he had suggested for nutritional mixtures to be administered through an oral-gastric tube. Thus Hippocrates composed in his operating theatre, an icon similar to modern surgical operations.