Subcutaneously tunneled epidural catheters may be safely left in place for longer periods, with a low risk of infection or other complications. Regardless of the length of use, the effects of a medicine administered epidurally, including numbness if used for analgesia, usually wear off within a few hours of the epidural being stopped, with full recovery of normal function within 24 hours. The use of epidural analgesia during a birth does not have any effect on whether a caesarean section must be performed during future births. Epidural analgesia during childbirth also generally has no negative effects on the long-term health of the mother or child. Use of epidural analgesia versus oral analgesia or no analgesia has no effect on the normal length of hospital stay after childbirth, the only difference being that care must be performed around the epidural insertion site to prevent infection. Following epidural analgesia used for gastrointestinal surgery, the time to recovery of normal gastrointestinal function is not significantly different from recovery time after intravenous analgesia. The use of epidural analgesia during cardiac surgeries may shorten the amount of time a person requires ventilator support following surgery, but it is unknown whether it shortens the overall post-surgery hospital stay overall. History The first record of an epidural injection is from 1885, when American neurologist James Corning of Acorn Hall in Morristown, NJ used the technique to perform a neuraxial blockade. Corning inadvertently injected 111 mg of cocaine into the epidural space of a healthy male volunteer, although at the time he believed he was injecting it into the subarachnoid space. Following this, in 1901 Fernand Cathelin first reported intentionally blocking the lowest sacral and coccygeal nerves through the epidural space by injecting local anesthetic through the sacral hiatus. The loss of resistance technique was first described by Achile Dogliotti in 1933, following which Alberto Gutiérrez described the hanging drop technique. Both techniques are now used to identify when the needle has correctly been placed in the epidural space. In 1921 Fidel Pagés, a military surgeon from Spain, developed the technique of "single-shot" lumbar epidural anesthesia, which was later popularized by Italian surgeon Achille Mario Dogliotti. Later, in 1931 Eugen Aburel described using a continuous epidural catheter for pain relief during childbirth. In 1941, Robert Hingson and Waldo Edwards recorded the use of continuous caudal anesthesia using an indwelling needle, following which they described the use of a