Introduction of cocaine as a local anesthetic; this was the first local anesthetic employed (16 September 1884). Freud (No. 1880.1) is accredited by some with this innovation, but in this connection see the letter by Koller in J. Amer. med. Ass., 1941, 117, 1284. English translation by H. Knapp in Arch. Ophthal. (Chicago), December, 1884. 

Knapp translated Koller's paper (No. 5678) into English and with the English translation published a large amount of supplementary material by American surgeons who had recently experimented with cocaine as a local anesthetic. In 1885 Knapp's paper was republished in book form as Cocaine and its use in opthalmic and general surgery...With supplementary contributions by Drs. F. H. Bosworth, R. J. Hall, E. L. Keyes, H. Knapp, and Wm. M. Polk. (New York: G. P. Putman's Sons, 1885). Digital facsimile of the book-form version from the Internet Archive at this link.