Corning's 'ice-water cap' for congestive headaches.

摘要

Many anesthesiologists recognize James Leonard Corning, M.D. (1855-1923, New York neurologist), for having accidentally conducted the first known cocaine spinal anesthetic in 1885 (after inadvertent dural puncture in a dog). Three years later, Corning published the first of eventually three editions of A Treatise on Headache and Neuralgia. According to his text, congestive or hyperemic headache produces "severe tensive pain" and "a sensation of fullness, as though the cranium were too small for its contents." As illustrated in his book (above, courtesy of the Wood Library-Museum), congestive headache can be treated by "a series of india-rubber spirals, which are wound around the head in the form of a cap. By passing a stream of cold water through these spirals it is possible to maintain the water in them at an exceedingly low temperature." Corning observed that such congestive headaches are "especially prone to occur as the consequence of excessive sexualism and the protracted abuse of alcoholic stimulants." (This image appears in the Anesthesiology Reflections online collection available at www.anesthesiology.org.)