Ryszard Rodzinski – A Forgotten Polish Inventor and Pioneer of Combined Spinal-Epidural Anaesthesia (CSE)

• Published in: Journal of anesthesia history 2016-10, Vol.2 (4), p.142-146
• Main Authors: Daszkiewicz, Andrzej R, Copik, Maja M, Misiolek, Hanna D, Reiss, Wojciech Z
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anesthesia; Anesthesia & Perioperative Care; Anesthesia, Epidural - history; Anesthesia, Spinal - history; Anesthetics; Anesthetics, Local; Epidural anesthesia; History of medicine and histology; History, 19th Century; History, 20th Century; Humans; Inventors - history; Male; Poland; Procaine; Surgical Procedures, Operative
• ISSN: 2352-4529; 2352-4537
• DOI: 10.1016/j.janh.2016.09.003

Abstract Dr. Ryszard Rodzinski was a Polish surgeon who, in spite of his short life, had a productive career. His most important discovery was a safer method of performing regional anaesthesia for abdominal surgery. The first description of combined spinal epidural anesthesia is generally attributed to Sorel in 1937. In the early 20th century, Rodzinski invented a novel technique, “combined lumbosacral anaesthesia”, which combined lumbar spinal anaesthesia and sacral epidural anaesthesia. During the 19th Meeting of Polish Surgeons in July 1922 in Warsaw, Rodzinski presented a paper entitled “On Combined Lumbosacral Anaesthesia”, in which he described this technique used in surgical clinic in Lwów since October 1921. Given this presentation, Rodzinski could be considered to have made the first known presentation of the combining spinal and epidural anaesthesia.