[The history of local anesthesia]

Based on early references a survey on old local anaesthetic drugs and their present position is given: procaine, chloroprocaine, tetracaine, amylocaine, stovaine and dibucaine. Furthermore, the historical development of various local anaesthetic methods as well as their influence by modern technical advances and by modern local anaesthetic drugs is pointed out. Finally an outlook on the present position of regional anaesthetic procedures in newborns, infants and children is given.