Carl Langenbuch was a German surgeon who served as a military surgeon during the Franco-Prussian war. He performed the rst cholecystectomy at the Lazarus Hospital in Berlin in July 1882 on a 43 year old male patient. This operation followed scientic experiment, careful thought, cadaver dissections and careful patient selection.
Treatment for cholecystitis before Langenbuch was stone extraction from spontaneous cutaneous biliary stula or skin incision of near-pointing empyema.
Cholecystostomy was carried out by Bobbs (1867), and championed by Kocher (1878). Langenbuch carried out a cholecystectomy in 1882 subsequently recommended choledochotomy, duodenotomy and sphincterotomy in the management of stones in the bile ducts.
He also carried out one of the earlier major right liver resections in 1888. The surgical world owes Langenbuch proper acknowledgement for his contribution to hepatobiliary surgery. He died in 1901 from peritonitis caused by a raptured appendix .