RT Book, Section
A1 Supino, Mark
A1 Yousef, Daniel
A2 Reichman, Eric F.
SR Print(0)
ID 1159805156
T1 Local Anesthesia
T2 Reichman's Emergency Medicine Procedures, 3e
YR 2018
FD 2018
PB McGraw-Hill Education
PP New York, NY
SN 9781259861925
LK accessemergencymedicine.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1159805156
RD 2024/04/24
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  ophthalmologic  operation.1  The  premier  Surgeon  William  Halstead  first  used  injected  cocaine  to  generate  the  intentional  blockade  of  nerve  transmission  the  following  year.2  Halsted’s  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.  Procaine  had  fewer  drawbacks  than  its  cocaine  predecessor  but  was  far  from  the  ideal  agent.  Lidocaine  was  the  first  amide  local  anesthetic  agent  and  was  initially  produced  in  1945.  The  market  for  more  effective  agents  continued  to  blossom.  No  less  than  20  additional  agents  were  developed  for  use  as  local  anesthetics,  each  possessing  unique  pharmacokinetic  properties  to  tailor  its  utility  to  specific  clinical  applications.  They  are  all  synthetic  derivatives  of  cocaine.