Ernst Sauerbruch

Opening the chest normally destroys the pressure difference that keeps the lungs expanded. Sauerbruch's chamber placed most of the patient and surgical team under reduced pressure while the patient's head remained outside, allowing the lungs to stay inflated during surgery.

Sauerbruch developed the method in 1904 while working with surgeon Johann von Mikulicz-Radecki in Breslau. It became an important early step toward practical thoracic surgery.

No, positive-pressure ventilation and endotracheal anesthesia eventually proved more flexible than enclosing the surgical field in a pressure chamber. The chamber nevertheless demonstrated that controlled pressure could prevent lung collapse during an open-chest operation.

He was a celebrated surgeon in Germany but continued working prominently under the Nazi regime, making his political and professional conduct a subject of historical scrutiny. Accounts also describe him operating late in life as his health and judgment deteriorated.