Carl Koller (1837-1944) became known in Vienna at the age of 26 when he first appreciated the usefulness of cocaine as a local anesthetic in ophthalmology. He nonetheless decided that his professional opportunities were limited in Vienna, a decision probably influenced by his wounding of a fellow house-officer in a duel occasioned by an anti-Semitic remark. He emigrated and set up a private practice in Manhattan in 1888, bringing with him some old Teutonic mannerisms when dealing with house-staff and patients.

A patient recalled being examined by him when she was a child, around 1910: “If someone came after me with a flame-thrower today, I would be less scared than I was of Doctor Koller, who stuttered, sputtered, lisped and yelled. To add insult to injury, he gave us chocolate at the end of the visit, but it was not milk chocolate but a bitter type. ” A fellow attending ophthalmologist at Mount Sinai Hospital recalled that Koller was “a veritable martinet who probably regarded discipline of the greatest importance.”

Doubtless, Koller’s Central European traditions clashed with the more casual attitudes of Americans. One sympathizes.

Submitted by Ira Eliasoph and Ron Fishman from the Cogan Ophthalmic History Society