ANCIENT AND MODERN DENTISTRY 507 



tooth pulling!' He said it did not hurt him at all. We were 

 all elevated and conversed about it for an hour later." 



After this Wells extracted several teeth from patients, using 

 the gas as an anaesthetic, with uniform success. He then went 

 to Boston and tried to demonstrate his discovery to the medical 

 profession. After several days he was finally invited by Dr. 

 Warren to give a talk on anaesthesia to a class at the Massachu- 

 setts General Hospital. This he did. After this he was asked 

 to extract a tooth under the gas. 



Wells says the experiment was not a success for the reason 

 that the gas bag was taken from the patient too soon. Pain was 

 felt by the patient, Wells was denounced as a humbug, and hissed 

 from the room. 



He finally wandered to New York, and, after roaming the 

 streets, he was arrested on January 4th, 1848, charged with 

 throwing vitriol. While in jail he opened his radial artery after 

 inhaling ether to make death painless. 



And so Horace Wells, to whom the world owes a profound 

 debt of gratitude, ended his own life at the early age of thirty- 

 two, a broken-hearted and disappointed man. 



Nitrous oxide does not appear to have been introduced to 

 England till somewhere about 1864, and it did not come into 

 general use till many years afterwards. 



A recent application of this gas is to administer it with vary- 

 ing percentages of oxygen in order to produce the condition of 

 "analgesia" without "anaesthesia," that is to say, a freedom from 

 pain when undergoing an operation as distinguished from an 

 actual loss of consciousness. 



In the early days of the administration of nitrous oxide, it 

 was stored ready for immediate use in miniature gasometers ; 

 later, however, the celebrated Dr. Evans of Paris, who will be 

 remembered as the saviour of the Empress Eugenie during the 

 Commune, conceived the plan of storing the compressed gas in 

 metal bottles, and in the Historical Medical Museum already 

 referred to may be seen the two original copper gas bottles 

 which he designed for the purpose. 



The year 1859 marked a further advance in dentistry, for it 

 was then that the use of " vulcanite " was introduced for the 

 making of dental plates, thereby putting artificial teeth within the 

 reach of people of moderate means. 



Soon after its introduction various scares took place on the 



