Karl Koller (born December 3, 1857 in Schüttenhofen, Bohemia (now Susice, Czech Republic) died March 21, 1944 in New York, New York.) was an Austrian ophthalmologist who began his medical career as a surgeon at the Vienna General Hospital, and was a colleague of Sigmund Freud.
Koller introduced cocaine as a local anaesthetic for eye surgery. Prior to this discovery, he had tested solutions such as chloral hydrate and morphine as anaesthetics in t...
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Karl Koller (born December 3, 1857 in Schüttenhofen, Bohemia (now Susice, Czech Republic) died March 21, 1944 in New York, New York.) was an Austrian ophthalmologist who began his medical career as a surgeon at the Vienna General Hospital, and was a colleague of Sigmund Freud.
Koller introduced cocaine as a local anaesthetic for eye surgery. Prior to this discovery, he had tested solutions such as chloral hydrate and morphine as anaesthetics in the eyes of laboratory animals without success. Freud was fully aware of the pain-killing properties of cocaine, but Koller recognized its tissue-numbing capabilities, and in 1884 demonstrated its potential as a local anaesthetic to the medical community. Koller's findings were a medical breakthrough. Prior to his discovery, performing eye surgery was difficult because the involuntary reflex motions of the eye to respond to the slightest stimuli. Later, cocaine was also used as a local anaesthetic in other medical fields such as dentistry. In...
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