 The earliest known depiction of a tracheotomy is found on two Egyptian tablets dating back to around 3600 BC . The 110 @-@ page Ebers Papyrus , an Egyptian medical papyrus which dates to roughly 1550 BC , also makes reference to the tracheotomy . Tracheotomy was described in the Rigveda , a Sanskrit text of ayurvedic medicine written around 2000 BC in ancient India . The Sushruta Samhita from around 400 BC is another text from the Indian subcontinent on ayurvedic medicine and surgery that mentions tracheotomy . <unk> of Bithynia ( c . 124 – 40 BC ) is often credited as being the first physician to perform a non @-@ emergency tracheotomy . Galen of Pergamon ( AD 129 – 199 ) clarified the anatomy of the trachea and was the first to demonstrate that the larynx generates the voice . In one of his experiments , Galen used bellows to inflate the lungs of a dead animal . Ibn <unk> ( 980 – 1037 ) described the use of tracheal intubation to facilitate breathing in 1025 in his 14 @-@ volume medical encyclopedia , The Canon of Medicine . In the 12th century medical textbook Al @-@ <unk> , Ibn <unk> ( 1092 – 1162 ) — also known as <unk> — of Al @-@ Andalus provided a correct description of the tracheotomy operation . 
