Nitrous Oxide Anesthetic 

 (1800)

  Davy's "laughing" proves an effective form of pain relief.

       Humphry Davy's (1778-1829) was a Cornish chemist and inventor, who is most remembered today for isolating a series of substances for the first time:potassium and sodium in 1807 and calcium, strontium, barium, magnesium and boron the following year, as well as discovering the nature element of chlorine and iodine. He also studied the forces involved in these separations, inventing the new field of electrochemistry.  .

 
       He first noted the anesthetic effects of nitrous oxide with the formula(N2O) at room temperature, It is a colorless, almost odorless gas while experimenting at the pneumatic institute in Bristol,England. Davy(best known for inventing the miner's lamp) realized that nitrous oxide both made him want to laugh (coining the term "laughing gas") and relieved his toothache. In 1800 he published a book stating that the gas might "be used with advantage during surgical operations." After Davy's observation, nitrous oxide became popular at laughing parties and fairground shows, but it was not used in surgery for another forty years.


        At one fair in the united states, Horace Wells, a connecticut dentist, observed a man who gashed his leg while under the influence of nitrous oxide. He seemed to be pain-free, and Wells immediately had one of  his own teeth removed while breathing in the gas In January 1845, Wells demonstrated the use of nitrous oxide in a dental extraction at the Harvard Medical school in Massachusetts. Unfortunately, insufficient gas was applied and the patient cried out in pain. The public humailiation resulted in Well's loss of reputation as a dentist and tragically to his suicide three years later . The next year dentist William Morton successfully used the gas while a surgeon removed a tymor from a man's neck and use of nitrous oxide in surgery then quickly caught on in London and paris.
Today, nitrous oxide continues to be used during childbirth and in dentistry to allay anxiety it has survived chloroform, which proved too toxic, and ether, which posed too high a risk as an explosive