A century of medicine and chemistry : a lecture introductory to the course of lectures to the medical class in Yale college...Sept. 14, 1871.

  • Silliman, Benjamin, 1816-1885.
Date:
1871
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A century of medicine and chemistry : a lecture introductory to the course of lectures to the medical class in Yale college...Sept. 14, 1871. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    gas. His results were published in 1800, in a volume entitled Researches Chemical and Philosophical; chiefly concerning nitrous oxide, or dephlogisticated nitrous air and its respiration. His discovery of the peculiar physiological effects of nitrous oxide when inhaled was verified by trial upon a great number of persons contributing, (beyond any real importance it had) more than all his former researches, to his celebrity, and was the starting point of his great subsequent success. Medically considered, the chief interest of this research is the remarkable fact that neither Davey nor any of his medical associates or their successors discovered the anaesthetic power of nitrous oxide. It was exhibited in probably thousands of cases, and among these beyond all reasonable doubt hundreds of patients, Davy among them, must have been brought to a condition of anaesthesia, and the wonder is that no one of them was the accidental subject of a dis- covery which had yet to wait nearly half a century for a herald. We cannot read the evidence which Davy details of the affects of nitrous oxide gas, not only on himself but upon others, without seeing clearly in the light of our present knowledge that the effects of anaes- thesia from this agent were completely produced. Among those whose experience is given in their own language are many of the most distinguished men of the time: Southey and Coleridge the poets, Dr. Kinglake, Dr. Roget, Dr. Blake, Mr. Lovell, Mr. Edgworth, Mr. Wedgewood, and others equally well known. To quote an example, Dr. Kinglake says, speaking of his own case: The effects produced by a second trial of its powers, were more extensive, and concentrated on the brain. In this instance, nearly six quarts undiluted