The History and Evolution of Surgical Instruments in Thoracic Surgery.

Surgery is as old as man, and its evolution has been moulded in every age by current technical and scientific advances, not forgetting the demands made upon it by social circumstances and religion. It is both an art and a science, while its practice largely depends on the human relations between doctor and patient. It is extremely difficult to define where surgery begins or ends, and its separation from medicine is largely based on the very different paths which the two disciplines took in ancient times.