[100 years of local anesthesia]

Although the anaesthetizing effect of cocaine had been known for a long time, it was only in 1884 that Karl Koller first carried out animal experiments, followed by clinical testing in humans of the anaesthetic effect of cocaine on the eye. Freud had shortly before directed the attention of Viennese doctors to the alkaloid cocaine in a paper. Upon Freud's suggestion Königstein tested the effect of cocaine therapeutically, whilst Koller independently conceived the use of cocaine as a local anaesthetic for eye operations. Jelinek introduced cocaine into laryngology and Wölfler into surgery, as further applications for the use of this local anaesthetic.