Davy comes to America: Woodhouse, Barton, and the nitrous oxide crossing (original) (raw)

Abstract

This paper describes how nitrous oxide inhalation survived in America through the work of Woodhouse and Wells. Traveling showmen like Samuel Colt and Gardner Quincy Colton demonstrated the gas' effects at popular lectures. Serious students found nitrous oxide included in chemistry texts and pharmacopoeias of the period. This combination of popular and serious approaches to nitrous oxide use may have made the medical community and the general public more receptive to ether inhalation for surgical anesthesia after Morton's October 1846 demonstration in Boston. Within one year of that demonstration, ether was administered in numerous countries to relieve surgical pain, a use envkioned by Davy for nitrous oxide but one he never attempted. Almost fiue decades passed after Day's original work before his vision of pain relief by gas inhalation crossed the Atlantic and surfaced in the United States.

Figures (1)

Figure 1. Early nitrous oxide research clusters. This figure shows individuals and locations of known nitrous oxide re- search and demonstrations prior to 1810. During the first decade of the nineteenth century, information about nitrous oxide and its effects on hu- mans began to appear in chemistry textbooks. In 1802 an American edition of The Chemical Pocket-Book by James Parkinson appeared, published the previous year

Figure 1. Early nitrous oxide research clusters. This figure shows individuals and locations of known nitrous oxide re- search and demonstrations prior to 1810. During the first decade of the nineteenth century, information about nitrous oxide and its effects on hu- mans began to appear in chemistry textbooks. In 1802 an American edition of The Chemical Pocket-Book by James Parkinson appeared, published the previous year

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