 Many new optical instruments with medical applications were invented during the 19th century.In 1805, a German army surgeon named Philipp von Bozzini (1773–1809) invented a device he called the "lichtleiter" (or light-guiding instrument).This instrument, the ancestor of the modern endoscope, was used to examine the urethra, the human urinary bladder, rectum, oropharynx and nasopharynx.