Abstract
The history of pulmonary endoscopy has been traced from Gustav Killian of Germany who performed the first bronchoscopy with modified laryngoscopes and esophagoscopes in 1897 to Shigeto Ikeda who has developed the flexible fiberbronchoscope in Japan and has put it into clinical use since 1967. The possibilities that further improvements in this endoscopic device can bring in the study of both infectious and neoplastic diseases of the bronchi and lung are mentioned.
