The first successful resection of a cancer in the thoracic esophagus was performed by Franz Torek around one hundred years ago. Awareness of developments in surgery and the early history can stimulate and foster innovation among surgeons, as well as promote a deeper appreciation of the pioneers of the methods still used today. Here we report the conditions leading to Torek's operation performed in 1913. In the operation, anesthesia was achieved by tracheal insufflation. Ernst Sauerbruch, a surgeon in Germany, first developed a negative-pressure chamber for anesthesia in 1903 and subsequently used this in many open-chest operations. Then in 1909 Samuel Meltzer, a physiologist in New York, proposed ventilation through an intratracheal tube while under anesthesia. Soon afterwards, Sauerbruch gave his chamber to Willey Meyer, a surgeon in the New York German Hospital, who reported Sauerbruch's success in operations in the American journal. The negative-pressure chamber was sent to the Meltzer's laboratory where Meltzer demonstrated that tracheal insufflation was superior to the negative-pressure chamber for open thoracic operations. These findings were conveyed to Meyer and to Franz Torek, a surgeon in the New York German Hospital and a colleague of Meyer, who succeeded in the historical first resection of a cancer in the thoracic esophagus according to Meltzer.
Keywords: Esophagectomy; Franz J. Torek; Samuel J. Meltzer; Tracheal insufflation; Willey Meyer.