Fidel Pagés and the first description of epidural anaesthesia (1921)

A Spanish military surgeon published in 1921, in a Spanish journal, the first description of human thoracolumbar epidural anaesthesia — anatomy, technique, a case series and complications — and named it anestesia metamérica for the segmental block it produced. He was killed in a road accident two years later at thirty-seven, an Italian surgeon's version of the technique carried the field through the 1930s without crediting him, and the correction came from Argentina.