Karl Koller was born on December 3, 1857 in Schüttenhofen, Bohemia (now Susice, Czech Republic). He was the third of five children and only son of Leopold Koller, a Jewish businessman, and Wilhelmina (Rosenblum) Koller. Carl's mother died when he was a child, and the family moved to Vienna, where he received private tutoring and some instruction by Jesuit priests.
After completing his studies at the Akademisches Gymnasium he studied jurisprudence for a year, but in 1876 he turned to the study of medicine at the University of Vienna. As a medical student he was particularly interested in embryology and experimental pathology, and carried out basic research on the origin of the mesodermal layer of the chick embryo, work that gained wide recognition. He decided, however, to go into ophthalmology. His teacher in this field had pointed to the need for a local anesthetic in eye surgery. Ambitious to make an important discovery which would advance his career, Koller tried out the anesthetic properties of a number of substances in experiments on animals, but had no success and gave up the investigation. He received his Doctor of Medicine degree in 1882.
While serving his internship at the Allgemeines Krankenhaus, Koller lived on the same floor with Sigmund Freud, then also an intern. Freud invited Koller to join in an investigation of the general physiological effects of cocaine, in the hope that the alkaloid might prove a possible cure for morphine addiction and an aid in treating psychiatric disorders. The ability of cocaine to numb the skin and mucous membranes had long been known. Experimenting on himself, while Freud was away on holiday, Koller pondered the drug's effect in numbing his tongue, and suddenly perceived the possibility that it might also numb the parts of the eye and thus provide the long-needed local anesthetic. He immediately tested his idea in the laboratory and found that a few drops of a cocaine solution placed in the eye of a guinea pig rendered the area insensitive to pain. After further tests on human beings, he prepared a brief paper describing his findings for the next important scientific meeting, that of the German Ophthalmology Society of Heidelberg. Poverty prevented Koller himself from attending--having become estranged from his family, he was living on his meager pay as an intern--but a friend read the paper for him on September 15, 1884. It created a sensation in both Europe and the United States.
A controversy over priority developed in later years, but Freud's letters written at the time clearly indicate his acceptance of Koller as the true originator of the idea. In spite of his brilliant discovery, Koller was not offered the assistantship at the University of Vienna that he had hoped to gain, partly because of his tempestuous and undiplomatic personality, partly because of the strong anti-Semitism then prevailing in Vienna. A dispute over the treatment of a patient in the hospital clinic, in which a colleague insulted Koller as a Jew, led to a saber duel on January 4, 1885, in which he severely wounded his opponent. Koller was summoned before the police, and although he later received a pardon, he became ill with worry and left Vienna, realizing that promotion was impossible.
He spent two years (1885 - 87) as an assistant in the Utrecht Eye Hospital in Holland, went to London for several months, and in May 1888 sailed for New York. Later that year Koller was appointed to the staff of Mount Sinai Hospital, New York City.
He was not a prolific writer and made no further fundamental contributions, although he did publish articles dealing with tuberculous choroiditis, blepharospasm, and transient blindness resulting from the ingestion of wood alcohol. Koller adapted readily to life in the United States.
On summer holidays he took pleasure in the mountains and clear air of Maine, or fished in mountain streams of the Western states. His wide interests ranged from physics and astronomy to travel and polar exploration, and he particularly enjoyed speculating about the unsolved problems in all areas of human knowledge.
On October 30, 1893, Koller married Laura Blum of New York City; their two children were Hortense and Lewis Richard.
