
Hirsch, who founded the United States Surgical Corporation in 1964 to manufacture surgical staplers under its Auto Suture brand. Ravitch brought a sample of stapling device after attending a surgical conference in USSR, and introduced it to entrepreneur Leon C. The technology was refined in the 1950s in the Soviet Union, allowing for the first commercially produced re-usable stapling devices for creation of bowel and vascular anastomoses.

Hultl's prototype stapler of 1908 weighed 8 pounds (3.6 kg), and required two hours to assemble and load. The technique was pioneered by "father of surgical stapling", Hungarian surgeon Hümér Hültl.
