[Tuberculosis--the starting point of thoracic surgery].

The amazing development of thoracic surgery was due to the extraordinary number of operations necessary in the treatment of diseases of epidemic proportions: tuberculosis, rheumatic heart disease and coronary disease. From 1939 onwards, the young chest surgeons were confronted with war wounds of the heart and great vessels. Back in civilian practice, they became the pioneers of an initially primitive, blind cardiac surgery. In the course of 40 years this surgery developed to become the highly specialized interdisciplinary specialty of today's cardiovascular surgery, the crowning of which is the routine heart transplantation of 1990.