This article is only available in the PDF format. Download the PDF to view the article, as well as its associated figures and tables. Laparoscopic cholecystectomy is another French revolution. To the best of my knowledge, the procedure was first accomplished in June 1987 by a French general surgeon named Mouret in private practice in Lyons. He already had a wide experience in gynecologic laparoscopic procedures but did not report this landmark operation. Word of the new procedure, however, reached other French surgeons, and in 1988 Prof Francois Dubois of Paris and Prof Jacques Perissat of Bordeaux each performed their first of many hundred procedures to date. Reports of early experiences with this procedure in France have spread over the continent and across the seas. The procedure is now being performed in several community and university hospitals in the United States and has aroused great interest among the medical and lay communities, along with alarm and concern among some surgeons. There are a number of precedents (such as arthroscopic knee surgery, laparoscopic tubal ligation,