Hypodermic syringe
Jeringa hipodérmica
- Date
- 1853 · confidence high
- Place
- Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom; Lyon, France
- Credited to
- Alexander Wood (Edinburgh) and Charles Pravaz (Lyon)
- People
- 👤 Alexander Wood1817–1884👤 Charles Gabriel Pravaz1791–1853
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A glass syringe with a fine hollow needle that allowed drugs to be injected under the skin in measured doses. It opened up the parenteral route for painkillers, vaccines and serums.
Pravaz designed a screw syringe in 1853, and Wood published on the subcutaneous injection of morphine in 1855; Rynd had injected with a hollow needle without a plunger in 1844.
What it led to
- Morphine injection and iatrogenic addiction ('soldier's disease')
- Mass vaccination and immunisation
- Local anaesthesia and antitoxic serums
- The disposable syringe and intravenous drug addiction
Built on
- Pressure varies with altitude; Pascal's principle1648
- Francis Rynd's hollow needle (Dublin, 1844)
- Isolation of morphine (Sertürner, 1804)
- Irrigation syringes
Made possible
- Modern anaesthesia (local, spinal and intravenous)1884–1934
- Local anaesthesia with cocaine (1884)
- Injectable insulin
- Injectable vaccines