Abstract
Injections are one of the most basic medical procedures, whether in the form of administering drugs to various parts of the body or as a means of removing fluids from the body. However, the road to today's safe and virtually painless injections has been long and complicated.
As early as ancient scholars noted that insect stings or plant burns could affect the whole organism. However, it was not until the 17th century that the first attempts to introduce fluids into the bloodstream appeared.
A breakthrough came in 1656, in which the English physician and architect Christopher Wren for the first time successfully administered chemicals (opium, an antimony compound, and alcohol) to a living organism, namely dogs. The German physician and chemist Johann Sigismund Elsholtz carried out the first experiments with injection into humans in 1661, and subsequently published the first work on the possibilities of injection, Clysmatica nova, in which he also first realized the possibility of influencing the physiological state of the organism through such administered substances.
However, due to technical problems and, in particular, non-sterile administration numerous accidents at injection administration resulted in a temporary decline in interest in this method. It was only during the 19th century that the problem of sterilization was solved and a satisfactory syringe was developed, with the French surgeon Charles Pravaz and the Scottish physician Alexander Wood making a major contribution.
During the 20th century, other injection devices appeared, allowing also auto-injection by the patient. However, with the development of injection techniques for drug administration, the phenomenon of fear of injection, trypanophobia, also emerged.