Surgery for Penile Cancer Prophylaxis

Circumcision for penile cancer prophylaxis with straight Kocher forceps. Emil Theodor Kocher studied in Bern, Paris, Berlin and London, obtaining his doctorate in Bern in 1865. In 1872 he succeeded Georg Albert Lucke as professor of surgery at the University of Bern and director of the Bern University Surgical Clinic, positions which He occupied until 1911. His successes in the field of surgery were largely due to the improvement of instruments and the systematic use of asepsis. He is credited with the invention of the staple hemostatic forceps that bear his name. Considered the best surgeon of his time, he was elected president of the First International Congress of Surgery (1905). In 1909 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on the physiology, pathology and surgery of the thyroid gland. With the amount of the prize he helped found the Kocher Institute in Bern, a surgery school where great surgeons were trained.