For centuries, Peruvian natives have chewed the leaves of the coca plant because of their stimulating and exhilarating effect. In 1855 the German Gaedicke isolated the active alkaloid in coca leaves. Albert Niemann (1880-1921) studied the white powder and named it cocaine in 1859-60, noting also the temporary numbing effect the compound had on his tongue.

During the 1880s in Vienna, Austria, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) studied cocaine as a treatment for morphine addiction. Freud suggested the possible use of cocaine as a local anesthetic to a Viennese colleague, Carl Koller (1857-1944), a young ophthalmologist. Koller experimented on animals and then presented his findings to the Congress of Ophthalmology in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1884, demonstrating the successful use of cocaine as a local anesthetic during eye surgery. Koller's findings were accepted enthusiastically. Koller himself emigrated to the United States in 1888 and established practice in New York City, where he died in...