Editing Nitrous oxide (section)

== Discovery and early use ==

The gas was first synthesised in 1772 by English [[Natural philosophy|natural philosopher]] and chemist [[Joseph Priestley]] who called it ''dephlogisticated nitrous air'' (see [[phlogiston theory]])<ref name="Nitrous Oxide pioneers">{{cite journal|last=Keys|first=T.E.|year=1941|title=The Development of Anesthesia|journal=Anesthesiology|volume=2|issue=5|pages=552–574|bibcode=1982AmSci..70..522D|doi=10.1097/00000542-194109000-00008|s2cid=73062366|doi-access=free}}</ref> or ''inflammable nitrous air''.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=McEvoy|first1=J. G.|title=Gases, God and the balance of nature: a commentary on Priestley (1772) 'Observations on different kinds of air'|journal=Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences|date=6 March 2015|volume=373|issue=2039|page=20140229|doi=10.1098/rsta.2014.0229|pmc=4360083|pmid=25750146|bibcode=2015RSPTA.37340229M}}</ref> Priestley published his discovery in the book [[Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air|''Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air (1775)'']], where he described how to produce the preparation of "nitrous air diminished", by heating iron filings dampened with [[nitric acid]].<ref name="Joseph Priestley">{{cite web |year=1776|title=Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air |website=Erowid |url=http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/nitrous/nitrous_journal1.shtml |author=Priestley J}}</ref>

[[File:Laughing_gas_Rumford_Davy.jpg|upright=1.4|thumb|"Living Made Easy": A satirical print from 1830 depicting [[Humphry Davy]] administering a dose of laughing gas to a woman|left]]

The first important use of nitrous oxide was made possible by [[Thomas Beddoes]] and [[James Watt]], who worked together to publish the book ''Considerations on the Medical Use and on the Production of Factitious Airs (1794)''. This book was important for two reasons. First, James Watt had invented a novel machine to produce "[[factitious airs]]" (including nitrous oxide) and a novel "breathing apparatus" to inhale the gas. Second, the book also presented the new medical theories by Thomas Beddoes, that [[tuberculosis]] and other lung diseases could be treated by inhalation of "Factitious Airs".<ref name="Drug discovery" />

[[File:Anaesthesia exhibition, 1946 Wellcome M0009908.jpg|thumb|right|Sir [[Humphry Davy]]'s ''Researches chemical and philosophical: chiefly concerning nitrous oxide'' (1800), pages 556 and 557 (right), outlining potential anaesthetic properties of nitrous oxide in relieving pain during surgery]]

The machine to produce "Factitious Airs" had three parts: a furnace to burn the needed material, a vessel with water where the produced gas passed through in a spiral pipe (for impurities to be "washed off"), and finally the gas cylinder with a gasometer where the gas produced, "air", could be tapped into portable air bags (made of airtight oily silk). The breathing apparatus consisted of one of the portable air bags connected with a tube to a mouthpiece. With this new equipment being engineered and produced by 1794, the way was paved for [[clinical trial]]s,{{Clarify|date=April 2011}} which began in 1798 when Thomas Beddoes established the ''"[[Pneumatic Institution]] for Relieving Diseases by Medical Airs"'' in [[Hotwells]] ([[Bristol]]). In the basement of the building, a large-scale machine was producing the gases under the supervision of a young Humphry Davy, who was encouraged to experiment with new gases for patients to inhale.<ref name="Drug discovery" /> The first important work of Davy was examination of the nitrous oxide, and the publication of his results in the book: ''Researches, Chemical and Philosophical (1800)''. In that publication, Davy notes the analgesic effect of nitrous oxide at page 465 and its potential to be used for surgical operations at page 556.<ref name="Humphry Davy">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jhUAAAAAQAAJ|title=Researches, chemical and philosophical –chiefly concerning nitrous oxide or dephlogisticated nitrous air, and its respiration|publisher=Printed for J. Johnson|year=1800|author=Davy H}}</ref> Davy coined the name "laughing gas" for nitrous oxide.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hardman|first1=Jonathan G.|title=Oxford Textbook of Anaesthesia|date=2017|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=529|isbn=978-0-19-964204-5}}</ref>

Despite Davy's discovery that inhalation of nitrous oxide could relieve a conscious person from pain, another 44 years elapsed before doctors attempted to use it for [[Anesthesia|anaesthesia]]. The use of nitrous oxide as a [[Recreational drug use|recreational drug]] at "laughing gas parties", primarily arranged for the [[Social class in the United Kingdom#Upper class|British upper class]], became an immediate success beginning in 1799. While the effects of the gas generally make the user appear stuporous, dreamy and sedated, some people also "get the giggles" in a state of euphoria, and frequently erupt in laughter.<ref name="Illicit drugs">{{cite web|url=http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/cu/CU43.html|title=Consumers Union Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs, Part VI – Inhalants and Solvents and Glue-Sniffing|year=1972|author=Brecher EM|work=Consumer Reports Magazine|access-date=18 December 2013}}</ref>

One of the earliest commercial producers in the U.S. was [[George Poe]], cousin of the poet [[Edgar Allan Poe]], who also was the first to liquefy the gas.<ref name="wp">{{cite news|url=https://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost_historical/access/243050292.html?dids=243050292:243050292&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=FEB+03%2C+1914&author=&pub=The+Washington+Post&desc=GEORGE+POE+IS+DEAD&pqatl=google|title=George Poe is Dead|date=3 February 1914|newspaper=Washington Post|access-date=29 December 2007|archive-date=1 March 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130301050848/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost_historical/access/243050292.html?dids=243050292:243050292&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=FEB+03%2C+1914&author=&pub=The+Washington+Post&desc=GEORGE+POE+IS+DEAD&pqatl=google}}</ref>

The first time nitrous oxide was used as an [[anaesthetic]] drug in the treatment of a patient was when dentist [[Horace Wells]], with assistance by [[Gardner Quincy Colton]] and [[John Mankey Riggs]], demonstrated insensitivity to pain from a [[dental extraction]] on 11 December 1844.<ref name="Discovery of Wells">{{Cite journal|year=1933|title=The Discoverer of Anæsthesia: Dr. Horace Wells of Hartford.|journal=The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine|volume=5|issue=5|pages=421–430|pmc=2606479|pmid=21433572|last1=Erving|first1=H. W.}}</ref> In the following weeks, Wells treated the first 12 to 15 patients with nitrous oxide in [[Hartford, Connecticut]], and, according to his own record, only failed in two cases.<ref name="Horace Wells">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=exNtlBi8T4EC|title=A history of the discovery, of the application of nitrous oxide gas, ether, and other vapours, to surgical operations|publisher=J. Gaylord Wells|year=1847|author=Wells H}}</ref> In spite of these convincing results having been reported by Wells to the medical society in [[Boston]] in December 1844, this new method was not immediately adopted by other dentists. The reason for this was most likely that Wells, in January 1845 at his first public demonstration to the medical faculty in Boston, had been partly unsuccessful, leaving his colleagues doubtful regarding its efficacy and safety.<ref name="Discovery of anaesthesia">{{cite journal|year=2007|title=The discovery of modern anaesthesia-contributions of Davy, Clarke, Long, Wells and Morton|url=http://www.ijaweb.org/text.asp?2007/51/6/472/61183|journal=Indian J Anaesth|volume=51|issue=6|pages=472–8|vauthors=Desai SP, Desai MS, Pandav CS}}</ref> The method did not come into general use until 1863, when Gardner Quincy Colton successfully started to use it in all his "Colton Dental Association" clinics, that he had just established in [[New Haven, Connecticut|New Haven]] and [[New York City]].<ref name="Drug discovery" /> Over the following three years, Colton and his associates successfully administered nitrous oxide to more than 25,000 patients.<ref name="use in dentistry" /> Today, nitrous oxide is used in dentistry as an [[anxiolytic]], as an adjunct to [[Local anesthetic|local anaesthetic]].

Nitrous oxide was not found to be a strong enough anaesthetic for use in major surgery in hospital settings, however. Instead, [[diethyl ether]], being a stronger and more potent anaesthetic, was demonstrated and accepted for use in October 1846, along with [[chloroform]] in 1847.<ref name="Drug discovery" /> When [[Joseph Thomas Clover]] invented the "gas-ether inhaler" in 1876, however, it became a common practice at hospitals to initiate all anaesthetic treatments with a mild flow of nitrous oxide, and then gradually increase the anaesthesia with the stronger ether or chloroform. Clover's gas-ether inhaler was designed to supply the patient with nitrous oxide and ether at the same time, with the exact mixture being controlled by the operator of the device. It remained in use by many hospitals until the 1930s.<ref name="use in dentistry" /> Although hospitals today use a more advanced [[anaesthetic machine]], these machines still use the same principle launched with Clover's gas-ether inhaler, to initiate the anaesthesia with nitrous oxide, before the administration of a more powerful anaesthetic.

Colton's popularisation of nitrous oxide led to its adoption by a number of less than reputable [[Quackery|quacksalvers]], who touted it as a cure for [[tuberculosis|consumption]], [[Mycobacterial cervical lymphadenitis|scrofula]], [[catarrh]] and other diseases of the blood, throat and lungs. Nitrous oxide treatment was administered and licensed as a [[patent medicine]] by the likes of [[C. L. Blood]] and Jerome Harris in Boston and Charles E. Barney of Chicago.<ref name="alleged">{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/3461701/alleged_forgery/|title=Alleged Forgery|date=1877-09-28|page=8|author=<!--Staff writers; no byline.-->|newspaper=[[The Inter Ocean]]|access-date=2015-10-26}}</ref><ref name="man">{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/3461943/dr_blood_and_the_sawtelles/|title=A Man of Ominous Name|date=1890-02-19|author=<!--Staff writers; no byline.-->|newspaper=[[The Inter Ocean]]|access-date=2015-10-26}}</ref>