1 00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:01,960 Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I 2 00:00:02,040 --> 00:00:12,160 Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class, 3 00:00:12,560 --> 00:00:16,200 Speaker 1: a show that breathes in history one day at a time. 4 00:00:17,120 --> 00:00:21,200 Speaker 1: I'm Gabelusier, and in this episode we're talking about the 5 00:00:21,239 --> 00:00:24,720 Speaker 1: first dentist to ever give his patients the giggles and 6 00:00:24,760 --> 00:00:38,000 Speaker 1: why for him it later became no laughing matter. The 7 00:00:38,120 --> 00:00:44,280 Speaker 1: day was December eight. A twenty nine year old dentist 8 00:00:44,479 --> 00:00:48,400 Speaker 1: named Horace Wells pioneered the use of nitrous oxide and 9 00:00:48,520 --> 00:00:53,680 Speaker 1: dental procedures by testing the gas on himself. At the time, 10 00:00:54,040 --> 00:00:58,080 Speaker 1: anesthesia did not yet exist, meaning that every person in 11 00:00:58,160 --> 00:01:02,080 Speaker 1: need of a dental or surgical operation had to decide 12 00:01:02,160 --> 00:01:05,520 Speaker 1: which was worse the pain from the ailment or the 13 00:01:05,600 --> 00:01:10,440 Speaker 1: pain of the treatment. Wells recognized the potential use of 14 00:01:10,560 --> 00:01:14,280 Speaker 1: nitrous oxide for pain relief, and to confirm his theory, 15 00:01:14,600 --> 00:01:18,840 Speaker 1: he decided to try it himself. As for nitrous oxide, 16 00:01:19,319 --> 00:01:23,480 Speaker 1: it was first synthesized in seventeen seventy five by English 17 00:01:23,560 --> 00:01:29,320 Speaker 1: chemist Joseph Priestly, the discoverer of oxygen. However, Priestly was 18 00:01:29,560 --> 00:01:33,280 Speaker 1: just excited to have discovered an interesting new gas. He 19 00:01:33,360 --> 00:01:37,240 Speaker 1: didn't bother experimenting with its inhalation or with trying to 20 00:01:37,240 --> 00:01:41,000 Speaker 1: find a practical use for it. That task was taken 21 00:01:41,080 --> 00:01:44,920 Speaker 1: up about twenty years later by another English chemist named 22 00:01:44,959 --> 00:01:50,200 Speaker 1: Sir Humphrey Davy. He observed both the analgesic and euphoric 23 00:01:50,280 --> 00:01:54,760 Speaker 1: effects of nitrous oxide, and in eighteen hundred he suggested 24 00:01:54,800 --> 00:01:57,880 Speaker 1: the gas could be used in surgical operations as a 25 00:01:57,920 --> 00:02:02,480 Speaker 1: way to deaden pain. You might expect that Davy's solution 26 00:02:02,600 --> 00:02:05,160 Speaker 1: to the problem of pain would have been greeted with 27 00:02:05,240 --> 00:02:09,960 Speaker 1: open arms, but it wasn't. Because pain couldn't be eliminated, 28 00:02:10,360 --> 00:02:14,280 Speaker 1: humans tried to make themselves feel better by ascribing meaning 29 00:02:14,360 --> 00:02:18,400 Speaker 1: to their suffering. Many societies taught that pain was a 30 00:02:18,480 --> 00:02:21,640 Speaker 1: deserved punishment for the sins of man, and that to 31 00:02:21,760 --> 00:02:24,800 Speaker 1: find a way around that was to subvert the will 32 00:02:24,840 --> 00:02:28,320 Speaker 1: of God. As a result, much of the world was 33 00:02:28,400 --> 00:02:32,799 Speaker 1: hesitant to utilize any kind of anesthesia, and Davy's theory 34 00:02:32,880 --> 00:02:37,320 Speaker 1: about nitrous oxide would go untested for another forty years. 35 00:02:38,400 --> 00:02:41,600 Speaker 1: The medical use of nitrous oxide may have been off 36 00:02:41,600 --> 00:02:44,440 Speaker 1: the table, but the world was quick to find another 37 00:02:44,560 --> 00:02:48,600 Speaker 1: use for it as an inhalent for getting high. The 38 00:02:48,680 --> 00:02:52,840 Speaker 1: euphoria that resulted from inhaling nitrous oxide led to a 39 00:02:52,919 --> 00:02:56,800 Speaker 1: new pastime in the early eighteen hundreds. People would host 40 00:02:56,880 --> 00:03:01,480 Speaker 1: parties or attend live demonstrations where volunteers would inhale the 41 00:03:01,520 --> 00:03:06,320 Speaker 1: gas and then stumble around on stage, giggling and acting silly. 42 00:03:06,560 --> 00:03:10,160 Speaker 1: These loopy antics earned it the on the nose nickname 43 00:03:10,320 --> 00:03:15,920 Speaker 1: of laughing gas. On the evening of December tenth, eighty four, 44 00:03:16,360 --> 00:03:20,480 Speaker 1: dentist Horace Wells and his wife Elizabeth attended one such 45 00:03:20,520 --> 00:03:25,160 Speaker 1: demonstration at Union Hall in their hometown of Hartford, Connecticut. 46 00:03:25,520 --> 00:03:28,160 Speaker 1: They had heard about the show through an advertisement in 47 00:03:28,200 --> 00:03:32,919 Speaker 1: the Hartford Times, which described the Laughing Gas entertainment as 48 00:03:32,960 --> 00:03:38,200 Speaker 1: a chance to see participants quote, laugh, sing, dance, speak, 49 00:03:38,560 --> 00:03:42,120 Speaker 1: or fight according to the leading trait of their character. 50 00:03:43,200 --> 00:03:46,800 Speaker 1: During the demonstration, Wells noticed that one of the gas 51 00:03:46,840 --> 00:03:50,480 Speaker 1: stupp participants had injured his leg when he ran into 52 00:03:50,520 --> 00:03:54,000 Speaker 1: a wooden bench, but didn't seem to notice. In fact, 53 00:03:54,200 --> 00:03:57,640 Speaker 1: he literally laughed it off, leading Wells to wonder if 54 00:03:57,720 --> 00:04:00,920 Speaker 1: nitrous oxide could be used to release you've pain during 55 00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:05,480 Speaker 1: dental procedures. After the show, he made arrangements with the 56 00:04:05,520 --> 00:04:09,600 Speaker 1: events organizer, Gardner Colton, to conduct a trial with the 57 00:04:09,640 --> 00:04:14,360 Speaker 1: gas at his office. The very next morning, Wells enlisted 58 00:04:14,360 --> 00:04:18,320 Speaker 1: one of his former students to extract an impacted mohler 59 00:04:18,680 --> 00:04:21,720 Speaker 1: while Wells was under the effects of nitrous ox side. 60 00:04:22,400 --> 00:04:25,760 Speaker 1: Once the gas wore off, Wells claimed he had felt 61 00:04:25,920 --> 00:04:28,920 Speaker 1: no more pain than quote the prick of a pin. 62 00:04:29,920 --> 00:04:33,839 Speaker 1: The first use of medical anesthesia had proven a success, 63 00:04:33,880 --> 00:04:37,160 Speaker 1: and Wells soon began using the gas on his own patients. 64 00:04:37,880 --> 00:04:40,760 Speaker 1: It was the start of what he called a new 65 00:04:40,920 --> 00:04:45,880 Speaker 1: era in tooth pulling. Several weeks later, after a dozen 66 00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:49,560 Speaker 1: or so successful uses of the gas, Wells decided to 67 00:04:49,640 --> 00:04:53,840 Speaker 1: demonstrate its analgesic effects in the major city of Boston. 68 00:04:54,560 --> 00:04:58,919 Speaker 1: Once there, he contacted William T. Morton, another of his 69 00:04:59,000 --> 00:05:03,960 Speaker 1: former dental student. Morton introduced Wells to prominent physicians and 70 00:05:04,040 --> 00:05:07,279 Speaker 1: dentists in the area and helped set up a demonstration 71 00:05:07,360 --> 00:05:10,200 Speaker 1: for them, as well as for the faculty and students 72 00:05:10,440 --> 00:05:13,880 Speaker 1: of Harvard's Medical School. On the day of the event, 73 00:05:14,240 --> 00:05:17,880 Speaker 1: a medical student volunteered to have a tooth extracted under 74 00:05:17,960 --> 00:05:21,479 Speaker 1: nitrous sock side, but as Wells did the deed, the 75 00:05:21,560 --> 00:05:24,880 Speaker 1: patient groaned and then cried out as if in pain. 76 00:05:25,920 --> 00:05:29,200 Speaker 1: Hours later, the student explained his reaction as a case 77 00:05:29,240 --> 00:05:32,360 Speaker 1: of nerves, saying that he hadn't felt a thing and 78 00:05:32,480 --> 00:05:37,760 Speaker 1: was actually unaware of when the extraction occurred. Unfortunately, the 79 00:05:37,800 --> 00:05:42,479 Speaker 1: clarification came too late. Wells had been booed by the audience, 80 00:05:42,720 --> 00:05:46,120 Speaker 1: with most of the observers labeling the demonstration of failure 81 00:05:46,480 --> 00:05:50,800 Speaker 1: and Wells of fraud. The most important day of his 82 00:05:50,920 --> 00:05:54,920 Speaker 1: career had turned into a disaster, and a disheartened Wells 83 00:05:55,040 --> 00:05:59,359 Speaker 1: returned to Hartford the very next day. The incident marked 84 00:05:59,400 --> 00:06:03,680 Speaker 1: the beginning of a devastating downward spiral for Wells. In 85 00:06:03,720 --> 00:06:07,280 Speaker 1: the following months, he sank into a deep depression, closed 86 00:06:07,320 --> 00:06:11,560 Speaker 1: his practice, and gave up dentistry. Desperate to clear his 87 00:06:11,680 --> 00:06:15,599 Speaker 1: good name, he started experimenting on himself, not only with 88 00:06:15,720 --> 00:06:20,560 Speaker 1: nitro socks side, but with ether and chloroform as well. Today, 89 00:06:20,880 --> 00:06:24,720 Speaker 1: it's believed that Wells became addicted to these substances as 90 00:06:24,760 --> 00:06:27,520 Speaker 1: a way of coping with his mental and emotional pain. 91 00:06:28,320 --> 00:06:32,200 Speaker 1: That trauma was worsened in October of eighteen forty six 92 00:06:32,520 --> 00:06:35,840 Speaker 1: when William T. Morton, the former student who had helped 93 00:06:35,880 --> 00:06:39,880 Speaker 1: him organize the event in Boston, demonstrated how ether could 94 00:06:39,920 --> 00:06:44,600 Speaker 1: be used as an anesthetic for surgery. That betrayal led 95 00:06:44,640 --> 00:06:48,039 Speaker 1: to a lengthy dispute over who deserved credit for the 96 00:06:48,080 --> 00:06:52,680 Speaker 1: discovery of anesthesia. Wells fought his former students claim in 97 00:06:52,720 --> 00:06:55,599 Speaker 1: the press, but the controversy took a toll on his 98 00:06:55,640 --> 00:07:00,599 Speaker 1: already fragile mental state. By early eighteen forty eight, Horace 99 00:07:00,680 --> 00:07:04,479 Speaker 1: Wells was living alone in New York City, estranged from 100 00:07:04,480 --> 00:07:08,320 Speaker 1: his wife and son, and slipping deeper into opioid addiction. 101 00:07:09,240 --> 00:07:12,320 Speaker 1: On his thirty third birthday, likely out of his mind 102 00:07:12,400 --> 00:07:17,280 Speaker 1: on chloroform, Wells through sulfuric acid into the faces of 103 00:07:17,360 --> 00:07:20,280 Speaker 1: two women he had met on the street. He was 104 00:07:20,400 --> 00:07:24,120 Speaker 1: arrested and imprisoned that night, but he managed to smuggle 105 00:07:24,160 --> 00:07:27,880 Speaker 1: a bottle of chloroform and a straight razor into his cell. 106 00:07:28,920 --> 00:07:33,760 Speaker 1: That evening, the wrongly disgraced dentist took his own life. 107 00:07:34,200 --> 00:07:38,120 Speaker 1: Almost twenty years later, the long running debate was finally 108 00:07:38,160 --> 00:07:42,640 Speaker 1: put to rest when the American Dental Association recognized Horace 109 00:07:42,720 --> 00:07:47,680 Speaker 1: Wells as the discoverer of anesthesia. Six years later, the 110 00:07:47,720 --> 00:07:52,680 Speaker 1: American Medical Association followed suit, declaring Wells the father of 111 00:07:52,720 --> 00:07:57,800 Speaker 1: surgical anesthesia. By that time, nitrous oxide was in wide 112 00:07:57,920 --> 00:08:01,840 Speaker 1: use as a general anesthetic that continued until the early 113 00:08:01,920 --> 00:08:05,880 Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds, when it was supplanted by novocaine and eventually 114 00:08:05,880 --> 00:08:10,600 Speaker 1: by light acane. These forms of local anesthesia were much 115 00:08:10,600 --> 00:08:16,040 Speaker 1: easier to use and produced more reliable results than nitrous oxide. Still, 116 00:08:16,360 --> 00:08:19,280 Speaker 1: the gas made a comeback in the nineteen sixties as 117 00:08:19,280 --> 00:08:22,640 Speaker 1: a way to sedate conscious patience and ease their anxiety. 118 00:08:23,360 --> 00:08:26,840 Speaker 1: This use as a sedative rather than an anesthetic, has 119 00:08:26,880 --> 00:08:32,199 Speaker 1: continued ever since. Horace Wells dream of pain free medicine 120 00:08:32,440 --> 00:08:36,520 Speaker 1: became a reality for millions of people worldwide, but for 121 00:08:36,600 --> 00:08:39,520 Speaker 1: him it was the cause of an even deeper pain, 122 00:08:40,080 --> 00:08:44,280 Speaker 1: the kind that no liquid gas or pill can ever 123 00:08:44,400 --> 00:08:50,280 Speaker 1: truly relieve. I'm Gay Blusier and hopefully you now know 124 00:08:50,360 --> 00:08:54,440 Speaker 1: a little more about history today than you did yesterday. 125 00:08:54,640 --> 00:08:57,400 Speaker 1: If you have a second and you're so inclined, consider 126 00:08:57,480 --> 00:09:00,680 Speaker 1: following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. AM at T 127 00:09:00,760 --> 00:09:04,120 Speaker 1: D I h C show. You can also get in 128 00:09:04,160 --> 00:09:07,440 Speaker 1: touch with us directly by writing to this day at 129 00:09:07,480 --> 00:09:11,400 Speaker 1: I heart media dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for 130 00:09:11,480 --> 00:09:14,720 Speaker 1: producing the show, and thank you for listening. I'll see 131 00:09:14,720 --> 00:09:18,640 Speaker 1: you back here again tomorrow for another day in History Class. 132 00:09:25,840 --> 00:09:28,160 Speaker 1: For more podcasts from I Heart radio, visit the iHeart 133 00:09:28,200 --> 00:09:30,679 Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your 134 00:09:30,679 --> 00:09:31,360 Speaker 1: favorite shows.