1791-1853

French physician who invented the modern hypodermic needle and the modern galvanocautery. In 1853 Pravaz published a description of the first hypodermic syringe, with its hollow metal needle. Alexander Wood (1725-1884) independently invented a similar device during the same year. With the hypodermic syringe, physicians had a new means of administering drugs, especially the highly purified drugs that had become available through the work of nineteenth-century chemists. Injections of morphine were subsequently used to provide local anesthesia.