Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 December 2015
The development of light technologies, allowing anatomical visualisation of otherwise hidden structures, led to significant advances in ENT in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Natural light from the sun, and from candles, was initially harnessed using mirrors. Later, the invention of limelight and electricity preceded the emergence of the modern-day endoscope, which, in tandem with the discovery of coherent fibre-optics in the 1950s, significantly expanded the surgical repertoire available to otolaryngologists. This study aimed to trace the rich history of ENT through the specialty's use of light.
Presented at the British Society for the History of ENT meeting, 4 December 2014, London, UK.