RT Book, Section A1 Chin, Adrian A1 van Zundert, André A2 Hadzic, Admir SR Print(0) ID 1141732639 T1 Spinal Anesthesia T2 Hadzic's Textbook of Regional Anesthesia and Acute Pain Management, 2e YR 2017 FD 2017 PB McGraw-Hill Education PP New York, NY SN 9780071717595 LK accessanesthesiology.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1141732639 RD 2024/10/13 AB Carl Koller, an ophthalmologist from Vienna, in 1884 first described the use of topical cocaine for analgesia of the eye.1 William Halsted and Richard Hall, surgeons at Roosevelt Hospital in New York City, took the idea of local anesthesia a step further by injecting cocaine into human tissues and nerves to produce anesthesia for surgery.2 James Leonard Corning, a neurologist in New York City, in 1885 described the use of cocaine for spinal anesthesia.3 Because Corning was a frequent observer at Roosevelt Hospital, the idea of using cocaine in the subarachnoid space may have come from observing Halsted and Hall performing cocaine injections. Corning first injected cocaine intrathecally into a dog and within a few minutes the dog had marked weakness in the hindquarters.4 Next, Corning injected cocaine into a man at the T11–T12 interspace into what he thought was the subarachnoid space. Because Corning did not notice any effect after 8 minutes, he repeated the injection. Ten minutes after the second injection, the patient complained of sleepiness in his legs but was able to stand and walk. Because Corning made no mention of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) efflux, most likely he inadvertently gave an epidural rather than a spinal injection to the patient.