[History of surgical instruments: 2. The first atraumatic vascular clamp by E. Höpfner (1903)]

The author describes one of the first atraumatic vascular clamps specifically developed for vascular surgery in 1903, and used for temporary arterial occlusion. This forceps was about 15 cm long, and its spring steel jaws were separated in the middle, but approximated toward the ends. This clamp was developed by Edmund Höpfner (b. 1873) in 1903, at the Berlin University Hospital, department of Surgery, when he performed end-to-end anastomoses of divided arteries in dogs as part of his doctoral thesis. The Höpfner clamp was in common use in Germany until the 1960s.