James Leonard Corning

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James Leonard Corning

James Leonard Corning (* 1855 in Stamford (Connecticut) , † 1923 ) was an American neurologist and performed the first regional anesthesia near the spinal cord .

After the outbreak of the American Civil War (1861), Corning's family moved to Germany, where he studied chemistry at the Polytechnic Institute in Stuttgart , physiology in Heidelberg and pathology in Würzburg . After obtaining his license to practice medicine in 1878, he spent time in Vienna , Paris and London . After returning to the United States , Corning specialized in nervous diseases, on which he published numerous articles and several books.

Corning is mainly known for his attempts at spinal anesthesia , which he carried out in New York in 1885 and which were soon noticed by the professional world. His experiments in which he injected cocaine close to the spinal cord are considered the first publication on the principle of spinal anesthesia. However, whether this actually succeeded is disputed. At least it was the first epidural anesthesia . Following the publication of August Bier , who performed spinal anesthesia in Kiel in 1898, a controversy arose over the first successful anesthetic procedure of this kind, which both Bier and Corning claimed for themselves. Today, Corning is credited with creating the experimental and theoretical prerequisites for spinal anesthesia, and Bier with the successful application and subsequent establishment of the method in the clinic.

Following a trend at the time that saw increased blood flow to the brain as the cause of seizure disorders , Corning also developed several instruments for compression of the carotid artery in the 1880s . These devices included a fork-like compression instrument for acute seizure treatment as well as an adjustable belt-like instrument that was intended to comprehensively serve the neck for permanent compression for prophylactic treatment. Corning believed that this would reduce the duration and frequency of seizures. He later developed this approach in combination with other methods of reducing cerebral blood flow (such as transcutaneous electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve ). Side effects of these treatment methods, which were abandoned at the end of the 19th century, were bradycardia , dizziness and syncope .

bibliography

  • Brain rest. GP Putnam's Sons, New York 1883.
  • Brain Exhaustion, with some preliminary considerations on cerebral dynamics. D. Appleton, New York 1884.
  • Local anesthesia in general medicine and surgery, being the practical application of the author's recent discoveries. D. Appleton, New York 1885.
  • A treatise on headache and neuralgia, including spinal irritation and a disquisition on normal and morbid sleep. EB Treat, New York 1888.
  • A treatise on hysteria and epilepsy, with some concluding observations on epileptic insomnia. GS Davis, Detroit 1888.
  • Pain in its neuro-pathological, diagnostic, medico-legal and neuro-therapeutic relations. JB Lippincott, Philadelphia 1894.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ PB Gorelick, D. Zych: James Leonard Corning and the early history of spinal puncture. In: Neurology. 37 (4), Apr 1987, pp. 672-674. PMID 3550521 ( PDF, 421 KB  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. )@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.neurology.org  
  2. ^ JL Corning: Spinal anesthesia and local medication of the cord. In: New York State Med J. 42, 1885, p. 483.
  3. ^ Biographical sketch of Doktor James Leonhard Corning, of New York City, and his recent remarkable discoveries in local anesthesia. In: Virginia Medical Monthly. Volume 12, 1886, p. 713 ff.
  4. ^ Rudolf Frey , Otto Mayrhofer , with the support of Thomas E. Keys and John S. Lundy: Important data from the history of anesthesia. In: R. Frey, Werner Hügin , O. Mayrhofer (Ed.): Textbook of anesthesiology and resuscitation. Springer, Heidelberg / Basel / Vienna 1955; 2nd, revised and expanded edition. With the collaboration of H. Benzer. Springer-Verlag, Berlin / Heidelberg / New York 1971. ISBN 3-540-05196-1 , pp. 13-16, here: pp. 14 f.
  5. ↑ P. Oehme: Spinal cord anesthesia with cocaine: The priority controversy on lumbar anesthesia. In: Dtsch Arztebl. 95 (41), 1998, pp. A-2556-A-2558.
  6. ↑ Lanska: JL Corning and vagal nerve stimulation for seizures in the 1880s. In: Neurology. 58 (3), 2002, pp. 452-459. PMID 11839848
  7. ↑ Ira M. Rutkow: The History of Surgery in the United States, 1775-1900. Norman Publishing, 1992, ISBN 0-930405-02-1 .
personal data
SURNAME Corning, James Leonard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American neurologist
DATE OF BIRTH 1855
PLACE OF BIRTH Stamford, Connecticut
DATE OF DEATH 1923