Hudson-Ewald Dressing Forceps — Upper GI Endoscopy Heritage

Hudson-Ewald Dressing Forceps — Upper-GI Endoscopy Heritage

Carl Anton Ewald (1845-1915), Berlin gastroenterologist whose pioneering work on gastric physiology produced the Ewald gastric tube (still used for gastric lavage today), and Hudson (American gastroenterologist) co-developed the dressing forceps that bears their hyphenated name for the rigid-endoscopic upper-GI investigations of the early twentieth century. The Hudson-Ewald is built with a longer-than-standard shaft and a specifically-curved tip to follow the natural gastro-oesophageal anatomy through the rigid gastroscope of the era.

The rigid-gastroscopy era

Before flexible fibreoptic endoscopy (Hirschowitz, 1957), upper-GI examination was performed through rigid metal gastroscopes — uncomfortable for the patient, requiring sedation and physical restraint, but producing the first systematic look at gastric pathology. The Hudson-Ewald forceps was the biopsy-and-foreign-body instrument of that era. The Ewald tube was inserted alongside for lavage; the Hudson-Ewald forceps performed targeted tissue sampling under direct rigid-gastroscope vision.

Modern survival

Modern upper-GI endoscopy uses fibre-optic flexible scopes with channel-passed disposable biopsy forceps, and the Hudson-Ewald has largely been retired from gastroenterology. It persists in some surgical-instrument trays for the rare rigid-endoscopy procedure (foreign-body extraction in the conscious patient, certain forensic procedures) and as a historical instrument in gastroenterology teaching collections.