606 HISTORY OF SCIENCE. 



but speculated and conducted experiments on his own account. His 

 apparatus consisted of wine-glasses, tea-cups, tobacco-pipes, and 

 earthenware crucibles. So rapid was his progress in the new pursuit, 

 that before he was twenty years of age he had elaborated certain 

 theories of light and heat. Dr. Beddoes, a physician at Bristol, had 

 shortly before established what he called the "Pneumatic Institution," 

 where the properties of the different gases as regards their curative 

 influences were to be studied and applied. Beddoes proposed that 

 young Davy should undertake the superintendence of this institution, 

 and the proposal was accepted, Davy's researches were speedily 

 crowned with remarkable success. He discovered the peculiar pro- 

 perty of nitrous oxide gas, which causes it to be ranked among the 

 class of substances we now call ancesthetics, of which ether and chloro- 

 form are more recently discovered and well-known examples. In 

 1800 (at. twenty-two) Davy published an account of his discoveries 

 under the title of " Researches, Chemical and Philosophical, chiefly 

 concerning Nitrous Oxide and its Respiration." This publication 

 excited no little sensation among scientific men, and the genius of its 

 author for experimental and philosophical research was fitly recognized 

 by his appointment to the professorship of chemistry at the Royal 

 Institution. In 1803, when he was scarcely twenty-five years of age, 

 Davy was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Three years after- 

 wards he delivered the Bakerian Lecture before the Society, and for 

 several successive years delivered, in fulfilment of the same duty, dis- 

 courses in which several of his most brilliant discoveries were an- 

 nounced. In 1812 Davy was knighted, in 1818 he was made a 

 baronet, in 1820 he was unanimously elected President ot the Royal 

 Society, and held the office until 1827, when the state of his health 

 compelled him to resign it. The following year he composed and 

 published his "Salmonia," a treatise on fly-fishing. He was now 

 seeking for some alleviation of his ailments in continental travel, but 

 he continued almost to the last to occupy his mind with scientific and 

 philosophical subjects. His last work was entitled " Consolations in 

 Travel ; or, The Last Days of a Philosopher." He died at Geneva 

 on the 3oth of May, 1829, at the comparatively early age of fifty- 

 one. 



Davy's researches on nitrous oxide and its physiological effects 

 proved ultimately of great advantage, although not precisely in the 

 way which was hoped for at the time. In Dr. Beddoes' institution it 

 was intended that gases should be employed as curative agents, and 

 on Davy's discovering by trial on himself the extraordinary effects of 

 nitrous oxide, it seemed to some that the elixir of life had been found 

 in the gaseous state. Davy's resolution and courage in first venturing 

 to inspire a gas then reputed to be poisonous show his ardour for re- 

 search ; but though in this case they were justified by the event, some 

 experiments of the like kind with other gases more than once placed 



