This publication of the papers presented at the Workshop on Laparoscopic Colorectal Surgery that took place on 27-29 November 1995 in the European Surgical Institute in Norderstedt, Germany, is effectively a snapshot of the current state of knowledge in both the theory and the practice of minimally invasive colon surgery. This snapshot is a mosaic made up of the varied ex periences of individual surgeons. After a long period in which nothing much seemed to be happening, the recent growth in the use of minimally invasive surgery or video-controlled operative procedures in surgery of the...