Hypodermic syringe
HC.I.4.1
Syringe, Hypodermic.
Used by Alexander Wood, Edinburgh c.1853, for the first subcutaneous injection of morphia in Britain.
Alexander Wood devised the first syringe for the injection of a "local" anaesthetic in 1853. He used an opium preparation -the antecedent to modern morphine. He was under the impression that this should be injected into the local site of the pain where it acted directly. Modifications of the original syringe of Wood are demonstrated.
The same technique was used for the first time by a Dr Barker in America in 1856. He had obtained the syringe while on a visit to Edinburgh. In the same year it was used in Germany on a patient who had already been treated by Wood in Edinburgh.
A further development fortuitously occurred in 1885. Dr Corning accidentally introduced the needle into the subarachnoid space and injected cocaine. This led to a formally planned lumbar puncture by Quincke in 1891. He described lumbar puncture with all its implications of pain relief.
Nineteenth century, mid
