Exstirpation einer Struma retroesophagea.

Kocher, a pupil of Billroth, was a pioneer of thyroidectomy for goitre. Before his time the operation was seldom performed. Garrison says that Kocher performed this difficult operation 2,000 times, with a mortality rate of only 4.5 per cent.

In 1909 Kocher was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for his work in the physiology, pathology and surgery of the thyroid."