Harry John Espiner: medical innovator who invented the Espiner bag

Harry Espiner was a distinguished surgeon, researcher, lecturer, and medical innovator who also designed equipment used by surgeons worldwide. He performed some of the earliest laparoscopic surgery in the UK and developed a special retrieval sac, the Espiner bag, used in keyhole operations such as gallbladder removal. He was always “pushing at the frontiers of innovation,” say colleagues, having also initiated research into the harmful effects of starch powder used in surgical gloves.

Espiner, a New Zealander, arrived in the UK in the late 1950s as a well regarded surgical trainee and went on to have a distinguished career as a consultant surgeon at Bristol Royal Infirmary and lecturer at the University of Bristol. He became a pioneer in laparoscopic cholecystectomy and “one of the very first surgeons to take on the new technique in the south west region,” says Alan Roe, who worked with him as a senior registrar and co-researcher. He was also among the first in the world to remove a cancerous tumour of the colon solely by minimal …