Hippocrates, known as the father of medicine, described a kind of "proctoscope" in ancient Greece. Since Bozny, a German, made a cystorectascope with candles as the light source in 1806, endoscopes have been developing continuously with the progress of human science and technology: from rigid tube endoscopes and optical fiber endoscopes to ultrasonic and electronic endoscopes, doctors have been able to peep at human internal organs more and more conveniently and clearly by using these devices.
In recent twenty years, with the continuous progress of related technologies, the development of digestive endoscopy technology is changing with each passing day, especially endoscopic interventional therapy technology, which has become an indispensable technology in the diagnosis and treatment of digestive system diseases, and has replaced the traditional surgery to treat some digestive system diseases to some extent. 198 1 year, yidan, a mechanical engineer of Israel's Ministry of Defence, listened to a physician telling the process of endoscopy, and he remembered the remote camera device he was familiar with on the smart missile, which led to the initial idea of developing a wireless endoscope. Since then, under the leadership of Yidan, Israeli experts began to vigorously carry out the research work of wireless endoscope, and obtained the earliest patent in this technical field in the 1990s. In 200 1 year, Israel Given imaging company produced the world's first capsule endoscope named M2A by using the patented technology of Yidan, and put it into clinical use first. This product has caused great repercussions all over the world.
The birth of capsule endoscope has opened up a new field of medical application of endoscope technology, which is complementary to gastroscope and enteroscope, and is an important milestone in the development history of gastroenterology. Later, researchers in many countries in the world began to develop capsule miniature digestive tract diagnosis and treatment system, which promoted the development of diagnosis and treatment of digestive tract diseases in a painless and non-invasive direction. In recent years, various smart capsule products have appeared one after another, each with its own specialty in function. For example, there are "remote controlled release capsules" that can complete fixed-point administration in the digestive tract; There are also capsules that can be sampled in the digestive tract; The product "smart pill" developed by American diagnostic company is specially used to detect the pressure and PH value in the digestive tract, which is very important for the diagnosis of gastrointestinal motility diseases such as "gastroesophageal reflux disease". The capsule robot developed by the Ministry of Science and Technology of Korea can complete many functions such as drug release, image acquisition, tissue biopsy and treatment under remote control in vitro. However, such an all-purpose capsule is still in the prototype research stage.