• Lukasz Strulak, Ferda Gronki, Kaveh Shariat, Daniel Schöni, and Alex Alfieri.
• Neurosurgery, Cantonal Hospital Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland. Electronic address: lukasz.strulak@ksw.ch.
• World Neurosurg. 2021 Sep 1; 153: 26-35.

AbstractThe basic set of a cranial instrument tray is filled with eponyms of surgical instruments named after surgeons and physicians from all corners of the medical world. These include pioneers like Castroviejo, Doyen, Frazier, Gigli, Mayfield, Raney, Weitlaner, and Yaşargil. These innovators have always strived to enhance and simplify procedures, ultimately shaping the way we perform surgery today. It was a process, which took several generations of surgeons and trials of instruments before its current form could be established. In this paper, the authors provide background information through a historical perspective on the pioneering surgeons and physicians, after whom the instruments were named. Data were collected by searching PubMed, Google Scholar/Books, Google, and the HathiTrust Digital Library. Additional information was obtained via personal contact with American and European medical institutions, libraries, museums, as well as with the surgeons' family members and their perspective foundations. Remembering the life stories of the inventors behind commonly used eponyms in the operating theater reminds us of the long history of even the most rudimentary neurosurgical tool. This unrelenting strive for perfection reminds us, as surgeons, of our duty to continuously assess and improve our surgical tools and processes for the benefit of our patients.Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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