Koller, Carl

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KOLLER, CARL

KOLLER, CARL (1857–1944), ophthalmologist. Koller, who was born in Bohemia, settled in New York in 1888 as a practicing oculist. He was ophthalmic surgeon in Mount Sinai and other New York hospitals. His most significant contribution to medicine was his introduction of cocaine as a local anesthetic in the treatment and surgery of eye afflictions. This method was later applied to various other branches of medicine and surgery. He also invented the system of lighting used in the electric ophthalmoscope. He wrote various treatises on biology and ophthalmology, especially on astigmatism and on the origin of the mesoderma.

bibliography:

S.R. Kagan, Jewish Medicine (1952), 521.

[Suessmann Muntner]