In 1900, Oskar Kreis (1872-1958), a gynecologist and obstetrician who recei
ved his training at the Basle University Women's Hospital, pioneered the us
e of spinal anaesthesia in six parturients for labour pain relief. Cocaine
was used as a local anaesthetic, which had previously been shown to be effe
ctive for spinal anaesthesia by August Bier in 1898,This important advance
in anaesthetic care was not widely acknowledged for a long period of time a
nd it has only been during the past few decades that spinal anaesthesia was
rediscovered as an important technique available for obstetric anaesthesia
.