Urology

Description

Urology focuses on the diagnosis and conservative as well as surgical therapy of diseases of the urinary system (kidneys, ureters, urinary bladder, urethra) and the male genital tract (testicles, epididymis, seminal vesicles, penis, prostate). Since circumcision and catheterization of the bladder have been verified to date back to very early in medical history, the existence of Urology dates back to ancient Egypt, particularly to time between 2318 and 2300 BC. Urology was part of surgery, and it was not before the end of the nineteenth century that Urology was developing into a specialty of its own.

This development was driven by three major medical inventions:

• 1. The introduction of antiseptic principles into surgery (Abbou et al.)

• 2. The introduction of a special instrument to evacuate bladder stone fragments (Bigelow 1875) (Best and Neuhauser 2004)

• 3. The introduction of endoscopy of the bladder (Maximilian Nitze 1879) (Chaussey et al. 1980)

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