TY - CHAP M1 - Book, Section TI - Chapter 123. Local Anesthesia A1 - Reichman, Eric F. PY - 2013 T2 - Emergency Medicine Procedures, 2e AB - Modern medicine can trace the use of local anesthetics back to the year 1884, when the Austrian Physician Karl Koller first used topical cocaine to assist with an ophthalmological operation.1 The following year, the premier Surgeon William Halstead first used injected cocaine to generate the intentional blockade of nerve transmission.2 Unfortunately for Halsted, his experiments with cocaine soon led to a concurrent dependency.3 The emerging illicit market for this compound soon prompted the search for a less toxic agent.3 Procaine, more commonly known by its trade name Novocain, was the first synthetic local anesthetic. It is a benzoic acid ester derivative developed by the German chemist Alfred Einhorn in 1904. Although it had less drawbacks than its cocaine predecessor, it was far from the ideal agent. Lidocaine was the first amide local anesthetic agent and was first produced in 1945. The market for more effective agents continued to blossom. Over the following decades, no less than 20 additional agents were developed for use as a local anesthetic agent, each possessing unique pharmacokinetic properties to tailor its utility to specific clinical applications. They are all synthetic derivatives of cocaine. SN - PB - The McGraw-Hill Companies CY - New York, NY Y2 - 2024/03/28 UR - accessemergencymedicine.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=57712890 ER -