Editing Gallbladder (section)

==History==
Depictions of the gallbladder and biliary tree are found in [[Babylon]]ian models found from 2000 BCE, and in ancient [[Etruscan civilization|Etruscan]] model from 200 BCE, with models associated with divine worship.<ref name="Eachempati2015" />

Diseases of the gallbladder are known to have existed in humans since antiquity, with gallstones found in the mummy of Princess Amenen of [[Thebes, Egypt|Thebes]] dating to 1500 BCE.<ref name="Eachempati2015" /><ref name="Blumgart2012">{{cite book|last1=Jarnagin|first1=William R.|title=Blumgart's Surgery of the Liver, Pancreas and Biliary Tract E-Book: Expert Consult - Online|date=2012|publisher=Elsevier Health Sciences|isbn=978-1-4557-4606-4 |page=511|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=neZGIB-xyVkC&pg=PA511 }}</ref> Some historians believe the death of [[Alexander the Great]] may have been associated with an acute episode of cholecystitis.<ref name="Eachempati2015" /> The existence of the gallbladder has been noted since the 5th century, but it is only relatively recently that the function and the diseases of the gallbladder has been documented,<ref name="Blumgart2012" /> particularly in the last two centuries.<ref name="Eachempati2015">{{cite book|last1=Eachempati|first1=Soumitra R.|last2=II|first2=R. Lawrence Reed|title=Acute Cholecystitis|date=2015|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-3-319-14824-3 |pages=1–16|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oKFnCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA1 }}</ref>

The first descriptions of gallstones appear to have been in the [[Renaissance]], perhaps because of the low incidence of gallstones in earlier times owing to a diet with more cereals and vegetables and less meat.<ref name="Bateson2012">{{cite book|last1=Bateson|first1=M. C.|title=Gallstone Disease and its Management|date=2012|publisher=Springer  |isbn=978-94-009-4173-1 |pages=1–2|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zNdeBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1 }}</ref> Anthonius Benevinius in 1506 was the first to draw a connection between symptoms and the presence of gallstones.<ref name="Bateson2012" /> [[Ludwig Georg Courvoisier]], after examining a number of cases in 1890 that gave rise to the [[eponymous]] [[Courvoisier's law]], stated that in an enlarged, nontender gallbladder, the cause of [[jaundice]] is unlikely to be gallstones.<ref name="Eachempati2015" />

The first surgical removal of a gallstone (cholecystolithotomy) was in 1676 by physician Joenisius, who removed the stones from a spontaneously occurring [[biliary fistula]].<ref name="Eachempati2015" /> Stough Hobbs in 1867 performed the first recorded [[cholecystotomy]],<ref name="Bateson2012" /> although such an operation was in fact described earlier by French surgeon [[Jean Louis Petit]] in the mid eighteenth century.<ref name="Eachempati2015" /> German surgeon [[Carl Langenbuch]] performed the first cholecystectomy in 1882 for a sufferer of cholelithiasis.<ref name="Blumgart2012" /> Before this, surgery had focused on creating a [[fistula]] for drainage of gallstones.<ref name="Eachempati2015" /> Langenbuch reasoned that given several other species of mammal have no gallbladder, humans could survive without one.<ref name="Eachempati2015" />

The debate whether surgical removal of the gallbladder or simply gallstones was preferred was settled in the 1920s, with the consensus that removal of the gallbladder was preferred.<ref name="Blumgart2012" /> It was only in the mid and late parts of the twentieth century that medical imaging techniques such as use of [[contrast medium]] and [[CT scan]]s were used to view the gallbladder.<ref name="Eachempati2015" /> The first [[laparoscopy|laparoscopic]] cholecystectomy performed by [[Erich Mühe]] of Germany in 1985, although French surgeons Phillipe Mouret and Francois Dubois are often credited for their operations in 1987 and 1988 respectively.<ref name="Reynolds2001">{{cite journal|last1=Reynolds|first1=Walker|title=The First Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy|journal=Journal of the Society of Laparoendoscopic Surgeons|date=January–March 2001 |volume=5|issue=1|pages=89–94|pmc=3015420|pmid=11304004}}</ref>