Amylocaine was the first synthetic local anesthetic. It was synthesized and patented under the name Stovaine by Ernest Fourneau at the Pasteur Institute in 1903.^{[contradictory]} It was used mostly in spinal anesthesia.

Amylocaine can be synthesized beginning with chloroacetone (1). Grignard reaction of chloroacetone with magnesium ethyl bromide gives 1-chloro-2-methyl-butan-2-ol (2). Heating with dimethylamine gives 1-(dimethylamino)-2-methylbutan-2-ol (3). These two steps can also be treated as interchangeable. Esterification with benzoyl chloride completed the synthesis of amylocaine (4).