The Accidental Addict

Abstract

[...]one of Freud's contemporaries, an ophthalmologist named Karl Koller, did recognize this potential and that autumn announced his findings to an international congress of eye surgeons gathered in Heidelberg, Germany. Because so many surgeons around the world were engaged in the search for an anesthetic agent that was safer and simpler to use than ether, there was great excitement about the ramifications of Koller's discovery.1 In late October of 1884, Halsted, who was practicing in New York City, began his own experiments with this "wonder drug."