SILENT SPECIALISTS

Anaesthetists are a rare breed, barely seen or heard. They work tirelessly, ensuring painless surgeries for patients. But little is known about their work and the pressure involved

- MINI P. THOMAS

Every time I visit a dental clinic, I say a little prayer of gratitude for Dr Karl Koller, the man who discovered local anaesthesia.

Koller, an Austrian ophthalmologist and a colleague of Sigmund Freud, experimented with cocaine as a local anaesthetic for eye surgeries. He had earlier tried using morphine, bromide and chloral hydrate for local anaesthesia in laboratory animals, but failed.

His experiment with cocaine was conducted on a frog. One of its eyes was treated with cocaine solution. The cocaine solution started to work a minute after it was administered. The frog did not show any signs of discomfort when Koller touched the cornea of its eye treated with the cocaine solution. But when he tried to touch the other eye, it got agitated.

Koller repeated the tests on a rabbit and a dog, too, and the results seemed promising. He found that cocaine had pain-killing as well as tissue-numbing properties. Thereafter, cocaine was used as a local anaesthetic in different types of surgery. Cocaine, however, is no longer used as an anaesthetic, as it can damage the cornea and can be addictive. Today, there are a variety of anaesthetics that are being used in surgeries and procedures, which can be administered through inhaled gas, injected via shots or intravenously, applied topically in liquid form or as a patch or through a spray. And, in the right hands, they put patients at ease, numbing their pain, and let surgeons and specialists work in peace.