Spinal anaesthesia and local medication of the cord.

Spinal anesthesia introduced. Corning showed experimentally that cocaine exerts a prolonged anesthetic effect while arresting the circulation in the anesthetized area. He first described injection of cocaine between the spinous processes of the lower dorsal vertebrae in a dog (see his earlier paper in the same journal, 1885, 42, 317-19) and then in a human being.