Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 June 1886 — Cocaine in Optical Operations. [ARTICLE]

Cocaine in Optical Operations.

Although cocaine has been known for a good many years, and has from time to time formed the subject of inquiry among distinguished British and continental savants, it was reserved for Dr. Carl Koller, of Vienna, to demonstrate the practical use to which its marvelous property could be put. It occurred to this gentleman that the drug might be of use in the department of diseases of the eye. With this object in view, he experimented upon the eyes of animals, applying the drug in solutions of certain strength, and carefully noting the results. He found that in the course of a few moments, after the drug had been instilled several times into the conjunctival sac of an animal, the organ became insensible; that he was able to touch the cornea—the front part of the eye, which is endowed with extreme sensibility—with a pin without the least flinching on the part of the animal. Experimenting further, he ascertained that the insensibility was not confined to the superficial parts of the eye, but that it extended throughout the corneal substance, even to the structures within the ocular globe, and thus the fact so far of the utility of the drug for operative purposes came to be established. Then he turned his attention to cases in which the eye was the seat of disease, and the cornea acutely inflamed and painful, and he found that much relief from the symptoms was obtained by the use of the drug. Soon after this he commenced to employ cocaine in operations performed upon the eyes of patients. The results were highly satisfactory; and since then cataracts have been operated on, squinting eyes put straight, foreign bodies upon the corners removed painlessly and with ease, under the influence of the drug. In cataract, especially, eocaine is Us great value; this operation can be performed by its means without the slightest sensation of pain, and yet the patient is fully conscious, and is, of course, able to follow, during its performance, the precise instructions of the surgeon.— Chambers’ Journal.