Arthroscopy joint by a portal on the outer border of the patella. It is not clear if these examinations were of deceased or of living patients. Pioneering work began as early as the 1920s with the work of Eugen Bircher. He published several papers in the 1920s about his use of arthroscopy of the knee for diagnostic purposes. After diagnosing torn tissue, he used open surgery to remove or repair the damaged tissue. Initially, he used an electric Jacobaeus thoracolaparoscope for his diagnostic procedures, which produced a dim view of the joint. Later, he developed a double-contrast approach to improve visibility.
Traditional Chinese medicines derived from the human body centuries after Li Shizhen considered the bioethical and biomedical dilemmas of using human drugs, 20th-century technological and medical advances have raised new related questions of organ transplants, transplantation medicine, organ trade, tissue banks, human cloning, and the commodification of human body parts (Awaya 1999, Nie 2002, Scheper-Hughes and Wacquant 2002). Traditional Chinese medicines derived from the human body Li Shizhen's (1597) "Bencao gangmu", the classic materia medica of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), included 35 human drugs, including organs, bodily fluids, and excreta. Crude drugs derived from the human body were commonplace in the early history of medicine. Some of these