[The history of local anesthesia (author's transl)].

Methods of local anesthesia by compression in classical antiquity found supporters in the New Era in A. Paré, in I. M. Velpeau and finally J. v. Esmarch gave it a very practicable form in 1873. Cold was tried by Severinus in the 17th century. In 1866 B. Richardson introduced the ether atomizer. Ethyl chloride has been used since about 1882. Cocaine won its place in ophthalmology through the efforts of K. Koller in 1884 and opened the way to surface anesthesia. The Scotsman A. Wood introduced the principle of conduction anesthesia in 1855 with his hypodermic injection. K. Schleich (1892) is looked upon as the pioneer of infiltration anesthesia. H. Braun takes the credit for the addition of adrenaline when using procaine (1900).