The Sad Story Of Dr. Horace Wells, The Man Behind Anesthesia
Lots of us have been under laughing gas while at the dentist. But do you know anything about its history and some of the first people to use it?
One of those people was Dr. Horace Wells, an American dentist who lived in the 1800s. Horace got his dental training in Boston before moving to Hartford, Connecticut, to open his own office in 1836.
He was successful and had a great reputation as a dentist before he witnessed the effects of nitrous oxide in 1844.
Horace and his wife attended a demonstration for the gas at Union Hall, where a shop clerk had his leg struck and cut multiple times while under the influence of nitrous oxide.
The clerk could not feel a thing while his leg was being injured but could still remember it happening, which fascinated those watching the demonstration – including Horace.
After seeing the demonstration, Horace decided to use nitrous oxide in his practice. He first used it on himself while his colleagues extracted one of his teeth.
Once he realized how well it worked, he began using it on his patients, primarily for tooth extractions.
Proud of his success with nitrous oxide, Horace decided to use it in a surgical demonstration for medical students at the Massachusetts General Hospital in 1845.
However, he didn’t administer the nitrous oxide properly, and the patient began crying out in pain.
Wellcome Collection – pictured above is a photograph of a reproduction of a stipple engraving by H. B. Hall depicting Dr. Wells
As it turns out, nitrous oxide doesn’t work as well on people who are obese or drink lots of alcohol, and the demonstration patient was both.
Unfortunately, this discovery was not made until later, and the audience ridiculed Horace for his failed demonstration. Horace gave up his dental practice after this demonstration and continued working with anesthesia.
Horace worked with Dr. William Morton to create ether anesthesia but received hardly any credit for his work. During this time, he wrote to the Academie Royale de Medicine and the Parisian Medical Society in Paris, France, to ask that he receive credit for the discovery of anesthesia.
Becoming increasingly discouraged, Horace began experimenting with chloroform in the late 1840s and eventually became addicted to it.
He left his family and moved to New York City in 1848, where he threw acid on a woman in the streets on his 33rd birthday while under the influence of chloroform. He was arrested, and while being escorted to prison, his high started wearing off, and he realized the harm he had caused.
Horace asked the officers who arrested him if he could go to his house to retrieve his shaving kit before going to prison. He took his own life one night while in his cell and was found the next morning.
His story is tragic, especially because the Parisian Medical Society honored his request and named him the first to perform operations without pain twelve days before his death. Horace never found out. Years after his death, The American Dental Association and the American Medical Association recognized his work and discoveries with anesthesia in 1864 and 1870. Finally, he got the honors he deserved.
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