0:02

Happy Saturday. We recently

0:04

talked about Humphrey Davy, including

0:06

his work with nitrous oxide, and we talked

0:09

about how it wasn't until later that people

0:11

really started using nitrous oxide for medical

0:13

purposes rather than for recreation. Prior

0:17

hosts talked about the shift to more

0:19

medical use in their episode called Horace

0:21

Wells and the Gas War, and that originally

0:23

came out April thirtieth, twenty twelve.

0:26

Of course, that means this episode includes

0:28

some references to medical and dental

0:31

experiments and procedures that were being

0:33

done without any kind of anesthesis, So if you're

0:35

squeamish about that, heads up. And there

0:38

are some references to some unethical

0:40

experimentation. Also. The later

0:43

part of Wells's story involves

0:45

drug misuse on his part and

0:47

a violent attack that he made against

0:49

two sex workers while under the

0:52

influence. Welcome

0:56

to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a

0:58

production of iHeartRadio.

1:06

Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm to Blaine and

1:08

Chucker Boarding and I'm faird douty. And

1:10

it always surprised me when

1:12

I was growing up that going to the dentist

1:15

was characterized as such a dreaded event

1:18

until that is I got my first cavity a few

1:20

years ago. I mean, I mean, you remember this,

1:22

like waking up and watching Saturday morning cartoons

1:25

and it seemed like all the little kid characters hated going

1:27

to the dentists. I never got that. But then

1:29

when I got my first cavity, I was like,

1:31

Okay, yeah, this sucks. The drilling,

1:33

the tugging. Even though you can't really feel

1:36

the pain while it's going on, it's still just

1:38

so uncomfortable.

1:39

I actually haven't had a cavity yet,

1:41

so ut I mean, knock on wood here,

1:43

I don't want to tell yeah.

1:44

In the pod you're still yeah, it could happen.

1:46

But yeah, I mean I agree with your old

1:49

perspective. Going to the dentist. Isn't that

1:51

bad.

1:51

Yeah, you get treats, you know, you get

1:53

free toothpaste or whatever. People

1:56

are nice to you. It's fine. So

1:58

many of you, like me have probably experience some

2:00

of those the darker side of dental

2:02

procedures, And I mean I didn't even experience

2:04

the worst of it. I can only imagine what having a

2:07

tooth pulled would be like,

2:09

And in researching today's subject, I not only had

2:11

to imagine what that would be like, I had to

2:13

imagine what it would be like without the glorious

2:16

numbing effects of anesthesia, because

2:18

in the time we're going back to, which is the early

2:20

eighteen hundreds, anesthesia and its

2:22

applications and medical procedures had

2:24

not been discovered yet. Our subject.

2:27

Horse Wells was one of the first to realize

2:29

that certain substances nitrous oxide

2:31

in particular, which were used

2:34

at the time for recreation and entertainment,

2:36

could actually be applied to the medical

2:38

arena, and the first he was

2:40

the first to really try to convince the medical community

2:43

of such.

2:43

But things didn't really quite turn out

2:46

quite as he had hoped, and it

2:48

led to a bitter competition for notoriety

2:51

with his contemporaries that his wife dubbed

2:53

the gas War. So we're going to

2:55

look at the build up too and

2:57

the fallout from this so called gas war,

3:00

as well as Welles's tragic

3:02

later life that some people believe

3:04

made him the inspiration for Robert

3:06

Louis Stevenson's Doctor Juckyll and

3:08

mister Hyde.

3:10

Before we get into Well's story, though, we need to

3:12

point out that while he's often

3:14

credited as the discoverer of anesthesia,

3:16

Inhalaesian anesthesia specifically. There

3:19

were a lot of people who played a

3:21

part in this discovery. English

3:23

chemist and natural philosopher Joseph Priestley,

3:25

for example, first discovered nitrous oxide

3:28

gas in seventeen seventy two. Later

3:30

that century, British scientist Sir Humphrey Davey

3:33

started experimenting with it, and he realized

3:35

that inhaling it made him burst

3:37

out into waves of laughter, hence

3:40

how it got to be known as laughing gas.

3:42

It also brought on a euphoric state.

3:45

Michael Faraday, Davy's associate, found

3:47

in eighteen fifteen that ether produced

3:50

similar effects.

3:51

So by eighteen hundred or so, Davey

3:53

had realized that nitrous oxide's

3:56

promise as a painkiller was really

3:59

there, and it's medical

4:01

applications where they are too, and he

4:03

included those thoughts in some of his writings.

4:06

But for some reason, the medical community

4:08

didn't really do anything with this information

4:11

at the time, and instead nitrous

4:13

oxide and sometimes ether two became

4:15

a huge hit with the upper class, who would

4:18

throw these laughing gas parties where

4:20

guests would use the gas recreationally

4:23

for those euphoric effects that Dublina

4:25

just mentioned. They would suck the gas

4:27

out of balloons and laughing gus

4:30

also became a form of entertainment

4:32

for the masses too. Traveling shows would

4:34

charge admission and allow volunteers

4:37

to try some of the gas out, and then

4:39

the rest of the audience would just watch this volunteer

4:42

stumble around and act all funny and

4:44

weird.

4:45

It could be that because nitrous oxide

4:47

was associated with this silliness,

4:50

the medical community didn't really take it seriously

4:53

of the sideshow act, right, and that might be one

4:55

explanation for why it wasn't used

4:57

in medical applications at

4:59

this time. Meanwhile, surgeries

5:01

and dental procedures, though like tooth extraction,

5:04

continued to be carried out without any

5:06

anesthesia. Patients would

5:09

sometimes get a swig of alcohol or

5:11

opium or mandrake maybe, but these

5:13

weren't really great solutions because

5:15

they often just made patients even harder

5:17

to handle, and if you gave them too much,

5:20

it could kill them.

5:20

A good example of this from a recent episode

5:23

would be poorled mister Bronte with his

5:25

eye surgery, and how I just imagine

5:27

how horrific something like that would be

5:29

without any kind of sedative.

5:32

Yeah, I also read an account in The

5:35

New Republic of a nineteenth

5:37

century surgery, and it

5:39

mentioned how a patient was having tongue cancer

5:41

removed, and so, you know, he had to

5:43

be held down and restrained because you know

5:46

that you're completely aware of what's going on, and you're

5:48

completely you want to get away, you

5:51

know, the surgeon just had to cut the tongue

5:53

off as quickly as possible, and then the

5:55

guy sort of got away, he got out of his restraints

5:57

and it had to be chased down so

6:00

that they could cauterize the wound, and

6:02

ended up burning his lip in the process. And it was kind

6:05

of a mess. And that's why

6:07

for surgeons speed was really a

6:09

virtue at the time. It was hard to make a

6:12

lot of advancements in surgery, though, because you

6:14

were just trying to get things done as quickly.

6:16

As possible for your patient escapes.

6:18

Right.

6:19

So this was the state of the medical community

6:21

when Horace Wells came onto the scene. He

6:23

was born January twenty first, eighteen

6:25

fifteen, in Hartford, Vermont, into a well

6:28

to do family. He was descended from

6:30

old school New England aristocrats.

6:32

His grandfather had even served in the American

6:34

Revolution, and as wealthy landowner,

6:36

as Well's parents were able to give him pretty

6:38

much everything that he needed while

6:40

growing up. He went to private schools in New Hampshire

6:42

and Massachusetts, and according to an article

6:44

by Peter H. Jacobson and Anesthesia

6:47

Progress, Wells proved to be intelligent

6:49

and inventive at a very early age.

6:52

So in eighteen thirty four, when Wells was about

6:54

nineteen years old, he started training as

6:56

a dentist in Boston by

6:58

a way of what was known then as the preceptor

7:01

system. That basically meant that he learned

7:03

by being an apprentice to another

7:05

dentist. We may have discussed this in the McCullough

7:07

interview a little bit.

7:08

We did.

7:09

There weren't any dental schools at the time, and

7:11

the first one didn't open until eighteen

7:13

forty in Baltimore, so this was really

7:16

the only way you could learn a profession

7:18

like this.

7:19

In eighteen thirty six, Wells moved to Hartford,

7:22

Connecticut, and he opened a practice there

7:24

which became really successful, really

7:26

quickly. He was considered one of the best

7:28

dentists in town, and his patients

7:30

included people like the governor and his

7:32

family, several other politicians,

7:35

and some elite businessmen as well. He

7:37

married Elizabeth Wales in eighteen thirty

7:40

eight and they had one son in

7:42

eighteen thirty nine. He also had

7:44

students who worked with him pretty early on, even

7:46

though he was a young dentist himself. Two of

7:48

these students were John M. Riggs

7:51

and William T. G. Morton, who become

7:53

major characters later on in this story. Riggs

7:56

ended up practicing in Hartford, right near Wells,

7:59

and Morton moved on to practice in Boston.

8:01

So at twenty three years old, Wells wrote

8:03

a small book called An Essay on

8:06

Teeth that talked about oral

8:08

diseases and how to treat them, as well

8:10

as more general oral hygiene,

8:12

tooth development, preventative care, you

8:14

know, sort of dental basics, and he

8:16

was really passionate about preventative

8:18

dentistry and children's dentistry

8:20

too. I mean, I would imagine if you're seeing all these

8:23

things, you try to think of ways to avoid

8:25

them. But the main thing Wells

8:27

did in his practice was, unfortunately,

8:29

extract teeth, and he was always

8:32

really troubled by the amount of pain his

8:34

patients would have to go through to have

8:36

a tooth pulled, so he was always trying to think

8:38

of ways to help that situation

8:40

make it a little bit better. And as mentioned,

8:43

he had a very inventive mind. He invented

8:45

and made his own instrument, so it's

8:47

not too surprising that this problem

8:50

would eventually set the wheels in

8:52

his head turning.

9:02

According to Jacobson's article, in about

9:04

eighteen forty, Wells told Hartford

9:06

physician Linus P. Brocket that

9:08

he was quote deeply impressed with the

9:11

idea that some discovery would yet be

9:13

made by which dental and other operations

9:15

might be performed without pain. But

9:18

Wells hadn't come up with any sort of solution

9:20

himself yet when on December

9:22

tenth, eighteen forty four, he read

9:25

in the Hertford Current that there would be laughing

9:27

gas exhibition, the kind of the

9:29

kind that we mentioned.

9:30

A little earlier.

9:30

That's fun, right, So it was going

9:32

to be put on that evening in the city by Gardner

9:35

Q. Colton. It was billed

9:37

as quote a grand exhibition of

9:39

the effects produced by inhaling nitrous

9:41

oxide exhilarating or

9:44

laughing gas. And I

9:46

have that Hartford Current article

9:48

here, a little piece from it, and I just wanted to

9:50

kind of read a little description of this event

9:53

and see you can decide if you would have

9:55

been enticed by it to come

9:57

to this. What it says

9:59

after the introduction, where it kind of

10:01

says a grand exhibition of the effects

10:03

produced by inhaling nitrosoxide is forty

10:06

gallons of gas will be prepared and

10:08

administered to all in the audience

10:11

who desire to inhale it. Twelve

10:13

young men have volunteered to inhale

10:15

the gas to commence the entertainment,

10:18

Eight strong men are engaged to occupy

10:21

the front seats to protect those

10:23

under the influence of the gas from injuring

10:25

themselves or others. This

10:28

course is adopted so that no apprehension

10:30

of danger may be entertained. Probably

10:33

no one will attempt to fight. The

10:36

effect of the gas is to make those who

10:38

inhale it either laugh, sing, dance,

10:40

speak, or fight, and

10:43

etc. Etc. According to the leading

10:45

trait of their character. They

10:47

seem to remain conscious enough not to

10:49

say or do that which they would have occasion

10:52

to regret. Oh, I would so be

10:54

there, Oh totally

10:56

so. Colton would travel around to various

10:58

cities putting on these ships. Most sources

11:01

say that he had been a med student one time and

11:03

that's how he got introduced to nitrous oxide

11:05

in the first place.

11:06

So Wells did decide he had

11:09

the same opinion we did. He decided to go, and

11:11

he took his wife to the event that evening too,

11:13

and they witnessed what was probably

11:16

pretty typical for one of these exhibitions.

11:18

According to an article by Henry Wood

11:20

Irving, probably a talk later

11:22

printed in the Yale Journal of Biology

11:24

and Medicine, Culton started

11:26

off by giving a brief lecture

11:29

about nitrous oxide and its properties,

11:31

you know, a little bit of science talk, and

11:33

then he took the first dose of the gas himself,

11:35

something that he always did, maybe to reassure

11:38

the audience nothing too bad was going to happen.

11:40

The gas he used was contained in a rubber

11:43

bag, and he'd administer it through

11:45

a kind of wooden faucet. Irving

11:47

actually compared it to what might be used

11:49

in country cider barrels. But after

11:52

Coulton had exhibited the effects of

11:54

the gas for everybody to see, he would

11:56

invite up those volunteers onto the stage

11:59

to get their fix. One of the volunteers

12:01

that evening, the evening that

12:03

Wells was there was a young drugstore

12:05

clerk named Sam Cooley, who

12:08

happened to be sitting right near

12:10

Wells.

12:11

What happened to Cooley when he took the gas turned out

12:13

to be particularly interesting. He

12:16

of course, started behaving really erratically,

12:18

and, according to Irving, suddenly zeroed

12:21

in on an audience member and mistook

12:23

him for some imaginary enemy that he

12:25

had made up in his head. He ate strong

12:27

men exactly. Cooley then jumped

12:30

the ropes and started chasing the sky around

12:32

the exhibition hall. At one point

12:34

he even leapt over a settee after

12:36

him, and then finally came to his sensus.

12:38

Eventually, when Cooley sat back

12:40

down, Wells noticed him sort of roll

12:43

up his pant leg and reveal an

12:45

injured and bleeding wound. When

12:47

Wells questioned him about it, Cooley said

12:50

that he hadn't noticed it happened at all. He had

12:52

felt no pain until the nitrous oxide

12:54

wore off, and then he sort of realized like, oh that kind

12:56

of risli, Yeah, what happened,

12:58

and then he rolled up his pant leg and saw it. That's

13:01

when Wells had his light bulb moment, realizing

13:03

what nitrous oxide could mean for the dental

13:06

and medical professions. According to

13:08

Jacobson's article, Wells approached

13:10

Coulton after the show and said, quote,

13:13

why cannot a man have a tooth extracted

13:15

and not feel it under the effects of the gas?

13:18

Colton said he didn't know, to which Wells

13:20

replied, quote, well, I believe

13:22

it can be done. Of course, he

13:24

still had to put that theory to the test.

13:26

But Wells didn't really waste any time in

13:28

doing that. He arranged for Colton to

13:31

meet him the next morning at his office

13:33

with some nitrous oxide, and he also told

13:36

his colleague and former student Rigs,

13:38

who he mentioned earlier, about this idea

13:40

and recruited him to come help

13:42

out with the procedure. Finding a

13:44

test subject wasn't really tough at all,

13:47

because Wells himself had

13:49

a decaying wisdom tooth that was really bothering

13:51

him, and he proposed that

13:53

he would inhale the nitrous oxide and

13:56

then have Rigs pull out the tooth.

13:58

So they all met up at Wells' office

14:00

next morning as planned, the morning of

14:02

December eleventh, eighteen forty four. Wells

14:05

riggs Colton in this bag of gas.

14:07

I mean, it sounds like it's going to be a joke, set up

14:09

or something. Cooley was there too,

14:12

since he was sort of the guy

14:14

who had set this whole thing off, And when

14:16

Wells sat down in the dental chair, he inhaled

14:19

the nitrous oxide from Colton's bag, and

14:21

then, according to Irving's article, it

14:23

was more than anybody had

14:25

inhaled before, but not quite

14:28

enough to make him totally unconscious. He

14:30

wanted to really test this theory out.

14:32

Once he was under the influence, Riggs extracted

14:34

the wisdom tooth, which he later said took

14:36

great force to extract. So it's

14:38

not like he was pulling

14:40

any punches here. It's not like it was a ye had

14:42

to put life procedure right. And

14:45

Wells didn't exhibit any discomfort

14:47

at all throughout the whole thing. He

14:50

stayed pretty much doped up for a little

14:52

while after the procedure, but when he finally

14:54

came to Wells is said to have exclaimed,

14:57

quote, it is the greatest discovery

14:59

ever made. I didn't feel so much

15:01

as the prick of a pin. A new

15:03

era in tooth pulling.

15:05

So after this, Rigs and Wells devoted

15:07

most of their time to testing out nitrous

15:10

oxide on at least twelve to

15:12

fifteen other patients. And according

15:14

to Jacobson's article, Wells

15:16

also administered the gas for two Hertford

15:18

doctors who used it during operation.

15:21

So the use of gas worked

15:23

in all of these trial cases, it seemed

15:25

like it was really going to be a

15:28

great new innovation.

15:30

Wells said later that they experimented with other

15:32

gases too, including ether, but after

15:34

consulting with a local physician, he decided

15:37

to stick with the nitrous oxide because it was considered

15:39

safer. After these additional

15:41

tests, so to speak, Wells decided

15:43

that it was time to share what he'd found with the medical

15:46

community at large. He later wrote,

15:48

quote on making this discovery,

15:50

I was so elated respecting it that

15:52

I expended my money freely and devoted

15:54

my whole time for several weeks in order to

15:56

present it to those who were best qualified to investigate

15:59

and decide upon its merits, not asking

16:02

or expecting anything from my services.

16:04

Well assured that it was a valuable discovery.

16:07

I was desirous that it should be as free

16:09

as the air we breathe. And that's important

16:12

to remember that he said that, because it kind of sets

16:14

him apart from some of the

16:16

other people who claimed the discovery.

16:18

Later attagonists, yes, so

16:20

he looked into making a presentation in

16:22

Boston, which was the important

16:25

hub in the US at the time, the Medical

16:27

Hub Medical Hub exactly. In doing

16:30

so, he reconnected with his old student

16:32

and colleague Morton, who'd been studying

16:34

medicine, who had just begun studying medicine

16:36

at Harvard.

16:37

So Wells told Morton about his discovery,

16:40

and Morton helped put him in contact

16:42

with one of his chemistry professors, a guy

16:44

named Charles Jackson, who wasn't

16:46

really much help because he was so skeptical

16:49

of this whole thing. Then he put him in touch

16:51

with doctor John Collins Warren, who

16:53

was a professor of surgery at Massachusetts

16:56

General Hospital. Warren was pretty

16:58

skeptical too, but he still agreed to let

17:00

Wells demonstrate his method in

17:02

front of a room full of senior medical

17:04

students. Which This demonstration took place

17:06

January twentieth, eighteen forty five,

17:09

and Wells was supposed to administer

17:11

nitrous oxide to a patient who was scheduled

17:13

to have an amputation, but the

17:15

surgery ended up being canceled, so

17:18

Wells instead proposed, well, let's

17:20

do a tooth extraction, and there was a student

17:22

present who stepped up as

17:24

a volunteer. It's kind of hard to imagine now, a medical

17:27

student being like, you can work on me because

17:29

I have this tooth that needs to come out. But that's

17:31

what happened. He had a willing patient there, so.

17:34

Wells had the student inhale the gas, and

17:36

when he thought he was ready, he started to

17:38

extract the tooth. The student seemed

17:40

okay at first, but then he cried

17:42

out at some point during the extraction, and

17:45

the whole thing was considered a failure and called,

17:47

quote a humbug affair. Wells

17:49

was literally booed off stage and

17:52

he went back to Hartford just devastated.

17:54

Wells theorized later that he'd taken

17:57

away the gas applied to early and that the student

17:59

hadn't been completely under its influence

18:01

during the procedure, and that's why maybe he

18:03

felt something, though not as much as he would

18:05

have felt if he hadn't had anything.

18:09

Interestingly, though, according to an article

18:11

by Stuart Finder in Anesthesia Progress,

18:13

the student later admitted that he didn't

18:16

feel the tooth being pulled.

18:18

So he just cried out, maybe because something

18:21

else, I don't know. Regardless,

18:23

though Wells took the whole thing really

18:25

pretty hard, and he gave up his dental practice

18:27

for a while, and by spring of eighteen

18:29

forty five he was referring all of his

18:32

patients to Riggs. He said his experience

18:34

in Boston brought on quote an

18:36

illness from which I did not recover for many

18:39

months. He finally started

18:41

practicing dentistry again sporadically

18:44

later in the year. He continued to

18:46

use nitrous oxides successfully during

18:48

procedures. I mean interesting that he's

18:50

still so sure that it works, but he

18:52

takes it so hard this fiasco

18:55

in Boston. He did other stuff too,

18:57

though, and according to Jacobson's article,

18:59

he arranged a natural history exhibition

19:02

in Hartford called Panorama of

19:04

Nature, and he also patented

19:06

a new kind of shower bath.

19:17

In the meantime, though, others had begun

19:19

to share Well's interest in Inhalaitian

19:21

anesthesia, namely his old

19:23

buddy Morton. In eighteen forty

19:26

six, Morton announced his discovery

19:28

of ether as an anesthetic, saying

19:30

that he'd tested it successfully on many

19:32

patients, and according to an article

19:34

by UCLA professor fa Caranza

19:37

on the discovery of anesthesia, it

19:39

was Morton's old mentor, Jackson, who'd

19:41

actually suggested that Morton use ether in

19:44

place of nitrous oxide in his experiments.

19:47

On October tenth of that year, Morton demonstrated

19:49

his technique at Massachusetts General Hospital

19:52

during an operation in which doctor

19:54

Warren removed a tumor from a patient's

19:56

neck. It was a scenario that was very

19:58

similar, of course, to the Wells had faced

20:00

before, but it was considered a success,

20:03

and the entire medical community was

20:05

paying attention to what Morton was doing.

20:07

Still though, it almost immediately kicked

20:09

off a controversy about who deserved

20:12

credit for the discovery of anesthesia,

20:14

and Wells wrote a calm collected

20:17

letter to the Hartford Current in

20:19

December of eighteen forty six, basically outlying

20:21

his previous experiments with nitrous

20:24

oxide, the events surrounding his visit

20:26

to Boston, and he also pointed out

20:28

some of the things we've already discussed, you know, why

20:30

his demonstration didn't work, and also

20:32

the fact that he'd used ether in the past

20:35

but really preferred to work with nitrous

20:37

oxide. You know, he hadn't been completely clueless

20:40

about ether.

20:40

Yeah, because that was one of the points that was

20:43

probably being great at the time, is that, oh,

20:46

it was ether that works and not nitrous oxide,

20:48

and you were working with the wrong thing. When he's like, well,

20:50

actually, yeah, I have worked with these other things

20:52

too, but I just decided this was the better

20:54

way to go. But Wells and Morton

20:57

weren't the only ones competing for credit here.

20:59

Jackson all so stepped up to the challenge

21:01

since he had suggested ether to Morton,

21:04

he said, the whole thing was really his idea. Even

21:06

though if you'll remember when Wells wanted to

21:08

do this demonstration, it's we're skeptical,

21:10

very skeptical of the whole thing. Another

21:13

doctor, one that we know the name

21:15

of well being living in Georgia,

21:17

doctor Crawford Long of Georgia, also

21:20

came forward around this time, and he claimed

21:22

that he'd used ether during surgeries for anesthetic

21:24

purposes as far back as eighteen forty two, so

21:27

a few years before, a couple

21:29

of years before Wells had started

21:31

experimenting with it.

21:33

It's Crawford Long's name that I've always

21:35

heard connected to this whole subject, So there

21:37

you go.

21:38

But Long, for whatever reason, never

21:40

demonstrated this to the public or communicated

21:43

it to the medical community until

21:45

after Morton's success became public.

21:48

So all of this back

21:50

and forth. All of this battling kicked off

21:53

what Wells's wife later called

21:55

the Gas War according to Jacobson's

21:57

article, and Wells really made it his

21:59

mission and after that to prove his claim

22:02

to the discovery, he traveled to Europe in

22:04

late eighteen forty six, which, as we've

22:07

discussed in the past, was kind of the center of

22:09

medical innovation at the time. He gave

22:11

some demonstrations at medical institutions

22:14

in Paris and petitioned the Academy

22:16

of Medicine and the French Academy of Sciences

22:19

and the Parisian Medical Society

22:21

with his claim by February eighteen

22:23

forty seven, you know, really trying to get his name

22:25

out there. After that little European

22:28

tour, he came back to the United States

22:30

and published a pamphlet called History

22:32

of the Discovery of the Application of

22:34

Nitrous oxide, gas, ether and

22:37

other vapors to Surgical operations,

22:39

which also asserted that he deserved

22:42

the credit for the discovery of anesthesia.

22:45

In the meantime, Wells also started experimenting

22:47

more with ether and chloroforms forms

22:49

of fantasthesia. He moved to New York City

22:52

actually in January eighteen forty eight, where he

22:54

continued sporadically practicing dentistry

22:57

and administering anesthesia and

22:59

experimenting on the side. Along

23:01

the way, though, he became addicted to the

23:03

chloroform that he was experimenting with,

23:05

and on the evening of January twenty first,

23:08

eighteen forty eight, which was his thirty third

23:10

birthday, while under the influence

23:12

of chloroform, Wells took some sulphuric

23:14

acid from his office and threw it on

23:17

to prostitutes, burning one

23:19

of their necks. After this, he

23:21

was jailed in Tombs prison. He

23:24

was allowed to get a few things from home though before

23:26

getting locked up, and two of the things he brought

23:28

with him were some chloroform and

23:31

a razor.

23:32

On January twenty fourth, eighteen forty eight,

23:34

he inhaled some chloroform while

23:36

in his cell and then committed suicide

23:38

by slashing his left femoral artery.

23:41

Twelve days or so before he died, the

23:44

Parisian Medical Society voted

23:46

that he was quote do all the honors

23:48

of having first discovered and successfully

23:50

applied the use of vapors

23:52

or gases, whereby surgical operations

23:55

could be performed without pain. So

23:57

he got that recognition that

23:59

he was trying to get. It also gave him an

24:01

honorary MD and made him an

24:03

honorary member of the society. But

24:06

of course Wells didn't learn about any of

24:08

this before his death.

24:10

So it was a sad end for a guy who

24:12

was really passionate about his career and about reducing

24:15

patient's pain. Ultimately that's what he wanted.

24:17

But it was that decline towards

24:19

the end that some say influenced

24:22

the Doctor Jekyl and mister Hyde's story.

24:24

So I don't know if there are some literary

24:26

buffs out there who can make the connections

24:29

and want to. I've read the book, but I

24:31

read it a long time ago, so here.

24:32

But I mean, I can see the connection between

24:35

self experimenting, which I know is a common

24:37

thing in the medical world at this time,

24:39

but sure making yourself into

24:41

from somebody who's respectable and innovative

24:44

into somebody who is burning

24:47

prostitutes with selfioric as.

24:49

A little bit of a monster. He continued

24:51

to receive honors even after his death,

24:53

though in eighteen sixty four and eighteen seventy

24:56

respectively, the American Dental Association

24:58

in the American medical asociation both recognize

25:01

Wells as the discoverer of anesthesia.

25:03

Of course, as we mentioned earlier in this podcast,

25:06

this is still sort of a debated point,

25:08

since others such as Long, may

25:11

have used inhalation agents

25:13

earlier than Wells did. And as

25:15

you mentioned, I mean, that's who you think

25:17

of when you think of the discovery of anesthesia.

25:19

For other people, it might be

25:21

Morton. So there are a lot of people

25:24

that could lay claim to this,

25:26

but it's Wells who really recognize the true potential

25:28

of what he'd found and sought to get

25:30

the word out about it with apparently no

25:33

desire for profit. And it's that point

25:36

again that we come back to because Morton

25:38

handled it differently he did.

25:39

I mean, Morton, on the other hand, did appear

25:41

to have personal gain in mind when

25:44

it came to anesthesia, and at first

25:46

he tried to keep the type of gas he

25:48

was using secret. He called it letheon

25:51

and tried to disguise it scent. He

25:53

wanted to try to make it a patented

25:56

gas because of course everybody was interested

25:59

in using it at this point, But it eventually

26:01

came out that it was just ether. You know, it's something

26:03

that anybody could get a hold of and hospitals

26:06

and other institutions were

26:08

allowed to use it as they wished. It

26:10

wasn't under any one individual's control.

26:13

And after that, Morton still tried to

26:15

get a patent. He tried to pat and he's like, Okay,

26:17

if I can't patent the gas itself,

26:20

maybe I can patent its method of use.

26:22

He seemed determined to try to make money off

26:24

of this discovery, and even after Well's

26:27

death, Morton and Jackson continued their

26:29

little gas war. They continued to compete to be

26:31

recognized as the true discoverer of anesthesia,

26:34

and they both pursued a one hundred thousand

26:36

dollars award for the honor from US

26:38

Congress. Morton even tried to

26:40

bribe people like Rigs and even

26:42

Well's widow to lobby

26:45

for him in this respect, but ultimately

26:47

neither I've ever got the cash.

26:49

Sounds like it got pretty pretty dirty

26:51

at the end there, so Wells the supporters

26:54

continued to defend him. And if

26:56

there was truly a winner in the gas

26:58

war, I mean, it sounds like just a lot of tragedy

27:01

came out of it. If there was a

27:03

winner, it was probably just society at

27:05

large. You know that you wouldn't have to get

27:07

your eye surgery like mister Bronte,

27:10

or get your wisdom tooth yanked out without

27:13

something delling the pain.

27:15

Yeah, going to the dentist could be a pleasure

27:17

for people everywhere rather than just

27:19

something that you dread. And

27:21

the use of anesthesia was of course adopted

27:24

all over the world, although there was some

27:26

resistance to this along the way. Today

27:28

we know that there are many different types of anesthesia

27:32

that have allowed for all sorts of medical

27:34

innovations. And so

27:36

you know, no matter who we can

27:38

give total credit to for

27:41

discovering anesthesia, probably

27:44

all of these people. There's

27:47

no doubt that it did good.

27:48

And I feel like there's one more person we have

27:50

to mention outside of this gas Wars

27:52

fiasco. But Queen Victoria

27:55

helped really popularize the

27:57

use of anesthesia because she used

27:59

it, I think and maybe her last

28:02

or maybe even her last two pregnancies

28:04

or her childbirth, and it helped

28:07

send the message that this was something okay,

28:09

it was safe. If the Queen was using it, you're

28:11

good to go to.

28:12

Yeah.

28:13

Also, from a moral standpoint, I think one

28:15

of the reasons

28:17

people were opposed to using it

28:19

is because a lot of religious institutions,

28:21

for example, thought that you were supposed

28:24

to, especially during childbirth, you're supposed

28:26

to feel that pain. And

28:28

her using it in childbirth for

28:30

one of her children, I think just sort of made

28:33

it, like you said, it made it a little better,

28:35

made it okay for more people. And

28:37

of course we couldn't get out without

28:40

making a Queen Victoria reference,

28:43

the Queen of podcast cameos, I know,

28:46

name dropping.

28:52

Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday.

28:55

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