Rolland J. Whitacre
Rolland John Whitacre (1909–1956), American anesthesiologist and inventor of the pencil-point spinal needle that reduced post-dural puncture headache.
Robert F. Hustead
Robert Frank Hustead (1928-2008), American anaesthesiologist; refined epidural needle design, helped establish obstetric and ophthalmic anaesthesia subspecialties
Oral B. Crawford
Oral Bascom Crawford Jr (1921–2008), American anesthesiologist. Early advocate of thoracic epidural anesthesia, inventor of the Crawford needle, and prilocaine investigator.
Manuel Martínez Curbelo
Pío Manuel Martínez Curbelo (1906–1962), Cuban anaesthesiologist who pioneered the first lumbar epidural catheter and published continuous epidural anaesthesia (1947–49).
Leonid Rogozov
Leonid Rogozov (1934–2000): Soviet surgeon who performed a self-appendicectomy in Antarctica (1961) when evacuation was impossible—an iconic feat of austere medicine.
Alexander Wood
Alexander Wood (1817–1884), Scottish physician; popularised hypodermic morphine injection for neuralgia and helped establish the Wood syringe.
Francis Rynd
Francis Rynd (1801–1861), Irish surgeon who pioneered subcutaneous morphia injection for neuralgia (1844/1845) and described his cannula device in 1861.
Evan O’Neill Kane
Evan O’Neill Kane (1864–1932), American country surgeon. Railway accident specialist and medical inventor, famed for his 1921 auto-appendicectomy.
Fidel Pagés
Fidel Pagés (1886–1923): Spanish military surgeon who described “anestesia metamérica” (1921), an early, practical lumbar epidural technique.
Frédéric Justin Collet
Frédéric Justin Collet (1870–1964), Lyon physician and ENT professor; described the 1915 skull-base palsy of CN IX–XII later known as Collet–Sicard syndrome
Guenter Sprotte
Günter Sprotte (b. 1945), German anaesthetist who designed the Sprotte atraumatic spinal needle, reducing post–dural puncture headache and improving CSF flow.
William T. Lemmon
William Thomas Lemmon (1896-1974), surgeon who pioneered continuous spinal anaesthesia, and the Lemmon mattress