Carl Koller's Cocaine Experiment

Carl Koller can be accredited with the first medical use of Cocaine. Koller was in search of a drug that he could use during ophthalmic surgeries. He had tried many other agents before cocaine, which included chloral, bromide and morphine. These were unsuccessful because they lead to retching, vomiting, and restlessness. Sigma Freud who was a colleague of Koller, was trying to break a morphine habit of a young physiologist by using cocaine. Sigma Freud then asked Koller to assist him in experiments to find out the physiologic systemic effects of cocaine. The experiments were conducted and the results led to Koller discovering the value of cocaine as a local anesthetic. Koller instilled a solution of cocaine and dropped a few drops in the eyes of animals.

After discovering its anesthetic effects Koller wrote a paper and was ready to explain his discovery at a conference in Germany. He was eager to show the world his findings, but he was unable to attend the Ophthalmological Congress in Heidelberg because the travel expenses where far too great. He instead asked a colleague of his named Josef Brettauer to read his paper and demonstrate his findings. During his demonstration Josef dropped a few drops of a cocaine solution into a canines left eye and waited a few minutes for its effects to kick in. After he was sure the cocaine was working, Josef lunged his forceps towards the dog’s eyes. The dog’s right eye responded to this stimulation and blinked while the left eye was unaffected. Josef then went even further and touched the dog’s left eye with his forceps. The dog did not flinch and the demonstration was a success (Markel 85-86). After cocaine’s success as a local anesthetic for ophthalmology, it was further used in other surgeries such as laryngeal surgery (“Carl”