Dogliotti was a versatile surgeon-scientist whose work spanned anaesthesia, pain therapy, general and cardiac surgery. Trained as a surgeon, he approached anaesthesia and analgesia as integral components of operative care rather than separate disciplines.
Dogliotti made contributions to neuraxial blockade, particularly through his development of segmental epidural (peridural) anaesthesia in the early 1930s. He demonstrated that controlled, regional blockade could be achieved by injecting local anaesthetic into the epidural space at lumbar or thoracic levels, avoiding many of the haemodynamic and meningeal complications of spinal anaesthesia.
His description of the loss-of-resistance technique for identifying the epidural space (“ Dogliotti’s principle ”) transformed epidural anaesthesia into a reproducible and widely adoptable procedure. Dogliotti was a pioneer of pain therapy, employing chemical neurolysis and alcoholisation of posterior nerve roots and cranial ganglia for refractory neuralgia.
From the late 1940s he also emerged as a leader in Italian cardiac surgery, founding a dedicated centre in Turin and, on August 7, 1951, reporting one of the earliest successful human operations using total extracorporeal blood circulation.
LITFL published a clinical update in Critical Care on 26 Jan 2026.
The item focuses on Achille Mario Dogliotti.
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