Year

Milestone

1885

Leonard Corning administers neuraxial local anesthetic

1901

Intraspinal morphine use is first reported

1935

Dr. Grafton Love first proposes continuous catheter access

1940

The first practical application of continuous spinal anesthesia is described by Dr. William Leonard, a Philadelphia surgeon, who administered procaine to approximately 200 patients

1944

Edward Tuohy introduces a catheter into the spinal interspace for the purpose of repeated delivery of the surgical anesthetic procaine

1976

Yaksh and Rudy demonstrate the efficacy of analgesia from intrathecal opioids in animal models

1979

Wang and colleagues report the treatment of cancer pain with morphine

1982

Medtronic Neurological (Minneapolis, Minnesota) reports the first clinical implant of a programmable intrathecal pump