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The point of N2Os dual use
as anaesthetic and stage show comes when we cross the Atlantic to
America. In the years following Davy’s
book on nitrous oxide, Gardner Quincy Colton was a medical student in New
York. However, he never graduated –
famous as a flamboyant lecturer, Colton found that he made so much money from
nitrous oxide shows that he ditched medicine in favour of travelling and
doing stage shows with the agent.
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At one such event, the
dentist Horace Wells was in the audience.
Colton administered N2O to one of Wells’ acquaintances. The usual reaction of laughter and mayhem
was observed, the audience doubled over as the subject ran giggling around
the crowd. As the effects of the N2O
wore of, the man noticed a bloody gash in his leg. Wells’ realised that while he had been
under the influence of the gas, the man had not felt the injury, and wondered
if the gas could be used as an anaesthetic agent, as Davy had so briefly
conjectured years earlier.
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Wells used himself as a
guinea pig and instructed Colton to remove an erupting wisdom tooth using
nitrous oxide as the anaesthetic. It
was a success.
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Wells went on to try and
demonstrate nitrous oxide in front of medical students but was
unsuccessful. As would be demonstrated
in years to come, N2O was not a strong enough anaesthetic agent to be used
for major surgery without adjunctive therapies. After becoming addicted to chloroform,
another anaesthetic of the age, Wells was admitted to a mental hospital, and
eventually committed suicide.
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Since these events, N2O
was used for over 100 years without any serious side-effects, regarded as
being completely innocuous.
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