The search for a less toxic and less addictive substitute led to the development of the aminoester local anesthetics stovaine in 1903 and procaine in 1904. Since then, several synthetic local anesthetic drugs have been developed and put into clinical use, notably lidocaine in 1943, bupivacaine in 1957, and prilocaine in 1959. The invention of clinical use of local anaesthesia is credited to the Vienna School which included Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Carl Koller (1857-1944) and Leopold Konigstein (1850-1942). They introduced local anaesthesia, using cocaine, through self-experimation on their oral mucosa before introducing it to animal or human experimentation. The Vienna school first started using cocaine as local anaesthesia in ophthalmology and it was later incorporated into ophthalmologic practice. Dr. Halsted and Dr. Hall, in the United States in 1885 described an intraoral anaesthetic technique of blocking the inferior alveolar nerve and the antero-superior dental nerve using 4% cocaine. {Shortly after the first use of cocaine for topical anesthesia, blocks on peripheral nerves were described. Brachial plexus anesthesia by percutaneous injection through axillary and supraclavicular approaches was developed in the early 20th century. The search for the most effective and least traumatic approach for plexus anesthesia and peripheral nerve blocks continues to this day. In recent decades, continuous regional anesthesia using catheters and automatic pumps has evolved as a method of pain therapy. Intravenous regional anesthesia was first described by August Bier in 1908. This technique is still in use and is remarkably safe when drugs of low systemic toxicity such as prilocaine are used.
Although type B fibers are thicker than type C fibers, they are myelinated, thus are blocked before the unmyelinated, thin C fiber. Techniques
Local anesthetics can block almost every nerve between the peripheral nerve endings and the central nervous system. The most peripheral technique is topical anesthesia to the skin or other body surface. Small and large peripheral nerves can be anesthetized individually (peripheral nerve block) or in anatomic nerve bundles (plexus anesthesia). Spinal anesthesia and epidural anesthesia merge into the central nervous system. Injection of LAs is often painful. A number of methods can be used to decrease this pain, including buffering of the solution with bicarbonate and warming.Clinical techniques include:

Surface anesthesia is the application of an LA spray, solution, or cream to the skin or a mucous membrane; the effect is short lasting and is limited to the area of contact. Infiltration anesthesia is infiltration of LA into the tissue to be anesthetized; surface and infiltration anesthesia are collectively topical anesthesia
Field block is subcutaneous injection of an LA in an area bordering on the field to be anesthetized. Peripheral nerve block is injection of LA in the vicinity of a peripheral nerve to anesthetize that nerves area of innervation. Plexus anesthesia  is injection of LA in the vicinity of a nerve plexus, often inside a tissue compartment that limits the diffusion of the drug away from the intended site of action. The anesthetic effect extends to the innervation areas of several or all nerves stemming from the plexus.