282 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



be drawn out, it occurred to Dr. Bier, of Kiel, who was the true 

 genius of the discovery, that a few drops of a cocaine solution might 

 be put in, to produce local anaesthesia on a large scale. He worked out 

 the technique of the injection, operated on conscious patients, and 

 reported his success. Although the operations and experiments per- 

 formed by Bier were published and commented on with interest, they 

 aroused no special excitement beyond a small circle of investigators, and 

 might have remained merely scientific experiments, had it not been 

 for the International Medical Congress, which met at the Paris Expo- 

 sition. The benefit of the interchange of thought of the ablest scien- 

 tific men of all countries that is offered by these congresses, which have 

 come into fashion in the last twenty-five years, is incalculable. Every 

 medical journal in every language tells the physician and surgeon of 

 something new, but every day's experience teaches him that it is 

 better to pay attention to the workings of old laws, instead of 

 trying to apply every new remedy; therefore, it was not surprising 

 that even so great a discovery should meet tardy recognition, and 

 should need the dramatic setting of a world exposition to place it 

 prominently before the medical profession. This it obtained at the 

 Paris clinics held by M. Tuffier, where, with all nations for eye-wit- 

 nesses, he performed one operation after another on patients who were 

 perfectly conscious and yet who were absolutely insensible to pain 

 below the nipple line. His feats were the talk of the Congress; many 

 of the most famous surgeons of the world were present and saw 

 how comparatively simple it was, after first rendering the point of 

 puncture insensible Avith a little cocaine, to cause the patient to lean 

 forward, as if scorching on a bicycle, thus straining the vertebrse 

 slightly apart, when it was easy to insert the hypodermic needle 

 until the appearance of a few drops of the spinal fluid showed that 

 the cord had been tapped, and then to attach the syringe and inject 

 the cocaine solution. 



The surgeons soon dispersed to their own parts of the planet, 

 glorifying the deeds of Tuffier, almost forgetting Bier, who was Tuffier's 

 authority, and never mentioning Corning, from whom came the 

 original idea. But the question of homage was insignificant in com- 

 parison with the test of the idea, and, within a few months, the 

 members of the Congress had, in their own clinics and practice, co- 

 cainized the spinal cord for laparotomies, amputations and child- 

 bearing, with a varying amount of success. 



But, in spite of the fact that in some operations the patients 

 left the operating table with almost no unpleasant sensations, yet in the 

 majority there was dizziness, nausea and frightful headache, which in 

 some cases lasted as long as eight days, in spite of everything to bring 

 relief. 



