468 | ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1944 
inhaled nitrous oxide and observed a period of great exhilaration 
with an increase in pulse rate. In a letter to one of his friends he 
wrote: “I danced around my laboratory ikea madman.” But further 
than this Davy observed that continued inhalation of the gas would 
produce insensibility to pain. In fact, Davy anesthetized certain of 
his friends to unconsciousness with nitrous oxide. On Jtuly 3, 1798, 
Mr. Wedgewood called on Davy and he used nitrous oxide on him. 
He recorded in great detail his experiences, which read, in most re- 
spects, like a patient’s account of losing consciousness under nitrous 
oxide. Davy suggested the use of nitrous oxide in medicine, but 
nothing was done about it. 
The scene shifted to America. In Hartford, Conn., on December 
10, 1844, G. Q. Colton was delivering a lecture on popular science. 
Among the experiments performed by Colton was the apparent hyp- 
notism of certain members of the audience, presumably by means of 
his gesticulations. Meanwhile one of Colton’s associates engulfed the 
individual in nitrous oxide. This made effective the hypnotic art of 
Colton. That same afternoon, a dentist whose name was Horace Wells 
was in the audience. He saw one of the people swoon, fall and hit his 
leg violently against a chair, without apparent sensation of pain. 
Through his scintillating intellect flashed the era of painless dentistry. 
The next day Wells persuaded one of his dental colleagues, Dr. Riggs, 
to extract one of his teeth, while under the influence of “laughing 
gas.” Wells did not whimper. The first step in man’s redemption 
from pain had been taken. Wells did not succeed in establishing 
the widespread use of his new anesthetic agent. In Boston, where he 
endeavored to employ it, the gas bag failed most inopportunely, and 
Wells was hissed out of the room as a mountebank and charlatan. 
When death came prematurely to Wells, he did not realize what a 
tremendous and far-reaching influence his observations would have 
upon the comfort and even the destiny of the race. 
This present decade, therefore, marks 100 years of use of nitrous 
oxide as a general anesthetic. During this period its popularity has 
waxed and waned, and during the last two decades the gas has defi- 
nitely established itself for the smooth induction of ether-oxygen 
anesthesia. 
Nitrous oxide is a colorless, odorless gas which is alleged to possess 
a sweet taste. The gas supports combustion only after the disinte- 
gration of the molecule into oxygen and nitrogen. Seeds cannot ger- 
minate or plants grow in an atmosphere of nitrous oxide. Nitrous 
oxide is very soluble in water, from two to three volumes of nitrous 
oxide dissolve in one volume of water. It is, however, like other gen- 
eral anesthetics, more soluble in oil than it is in water. Blood will 
dissolve a large volume of the gas. The gas does not combine with the 
hemoglobin. Owing to its greater solubility in oil than in water, 
