Manufactured in Paris, France, by the Corbière Laboratories (lower right), “PURE FRENCH NÉOCAÏNE” was a brand of the local anesthetic procaine distributed as crystals inside a glass ampoule (high middle) from New York City by the Anglo-French Drug Company (AFDC). Following World War I, America’s brief unhappiness with using German products (e.g., Novocaine) and the advocacy for Neocaine by French-trained Louis Gaston Labat, M.D. (1876–1934), combined to propel sales of Neocaine with Labat’s name on the box (high left). By 1930 the AFDC was distributing a 22-page publication, The Safety of Spinal Anesthesia: Labat’s Technique with Neocaine, which noted that it was “Written by a Registered Physician and Reviewed by an Authority on Spinal Anesthesia.” In a 1936 advertisement, the AFDC characterized Neocaine in the “field of spinal anesthesia” as “unequaled” and compared the product to British Guiana’s Kaieteur Falls, the world’s broadest single-drop waterfall. During World War II as America joined British and French allies, “Anglo-French” trumpeted that “Neocaine has accompanied our armies to all parts of the world.” (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists, Inc.)
Manufactured in Paris, France, by the Corbière Laboratories (lower right), “PURE FRENCH NÉOCAÏNE” was a brand of the local anesthetic procaine distributed as crystals inside a glass ampoule (high middle) from New York City by the Anglo-French Drug Company (AFDC). Following World War I, America’s brief unhappiness with using German products (e.g., Novocaine) and the advocacy for Neocaine by French-trained Louis Gaston Labat, M.D. (1876–1934), combined to propel sales of Neocaine with Labat’s name on the box (high left). By 1930 the AFDC was distributing a 22-page publication, The Safety of Spinal Anesthesia: Labat’s Technique with Neocaine, which noted that it was “Written by a Registered Physician and Reviewed by an Authority on Spinal Anesthesia.” In a 1936 advertisement, the AFDC characterized Neocaine in the “field of spinal anesthesia” as “unequaled” and compared the product to British Guiana’s Kaieteur Falls, the world’s broadest single-drop waterfall. During World War II as America joined British and French allies, “Anglo-French” trumpeted that “Neocaine has accompanied our armies to all parts of the world.” (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists, Inc.)
George S. Bause, M.D., M.P.H., Honorary Curator, ASA’s Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology, Schaumburg, Illinois, and Clinical Associate Professor, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. UJYC@aol.com.
